Wrapping up 2021 to a bit of pain, misery filled with what can only be described as an orgasmic returns with some tasteful BDSM- Closed the year @ 219% on TOS

Thanks to the support of our @🤴United Traders👸 and @🦸‍♀️Executives🦸‍♂️ @-Baron I was finally able to take some long needed break. I had poured all my time and energy into UT and the markets for far too long without a healthy break. Turns out that working 18 hours a day does take a toll on you. LOL Now I get to deal with the repercussions. Lucky for me, the most damage those long hours for 3 years straight had only impacted my sleep and I was recently diagnosed with Insomnia. One of the first questions I ask any senior management, previous clients, anyone that is successful was "Is it worth it?"

The answer is FUCK YEAH. Every second of blood, sweat and tears were worth it. All the trials and tribulations and insomnia was worth it. The end justified the means.

There were some rocky roads, The largest drawdown (now my second largest) I have ever experienced back in March. ~150MM. Our experiences shape who we are as traders, constantly testing our boundaries and evolving with the market. If it wasn't for the loss in Feb 2018. I am 100% sure that I would not have been able to handle this matter in the manner that I did.

We aren't fortune tellers, We don't have any clue what happens once we get into the trade. And the easy answer for all my drawdowns would be "Oh you should have used a stoploss"

Well, try managing a shit ton of money and over 100 tickers and being able to consistently manage all your stopouts and re-entries perfectly. Easier said than done. Now as a trader and for anyone with less than 30 stocks in a diversified portfolio, I strongly using stop losses.

I buy stocks based on fundamental value... not today's value or tomorrows but years down the line. So when the market makes short term moves against my position I hold strong. Because the underlying reason for which I bought the stock is still valid.

Overall at least 95% of my positions were able to turn a profit on a portfolio basis (but yuh haters only wanna talk about my BMBL, RAAS, QS & WISH trades lol) Day trading wasn't quite a large portion of my PNL this year.

Largest single win on a ticker was GME. My First OVER 9000% Return And then of course TSLA. But TSLA also had a larger percentage of allocations. This year I also had for the first time in my career been able to take 3 months off. I know I can take more time off but I made a commitment to our team and I always always taught "You can either have results or excuses, you can't have both"

Minus the crazy roller coaster ride in 2021. I am so fucking proud of the biggest detrimental mistake I used to always make. I remember back in 2017-2018 I could be proud of my "alerts" because the alert did well. But let's be honest, you think I held enough size to capitalize on those alerts? 2020 and 2021 I FUCKING DID IT. I can now be proud of the plays I took and not only called out but now I had size on them and got to hold them. Like many I can brag about "called a bottom" on a ton of tickers. But now I got a PnL that matches my absolutely jaw-dropping sexy alerts.

For those that read this far, I got some tips for you.

1. Focus on scaleable strategies. Doing anything else is a waste of time and energy, because we have an influx of traders now. (being a trader now is cool thing to do. Like how drug deals selling dime bags call themselves "entrepreneurs") and while you may focus on strategies that get you fast money, there are still a good amount of people that are perfecting their craft and trading scaleable strategies, and once you feel you have the account size to trade scale able strategies.. your skillset will still need more time to develop and by then everyone else will be far better making it harder to stay competitive.
2. Do the fucking work. Get shit done, stop wasting time on Netflix or friends. they won't be the one that putting food on your table in the future.
3. Diversify away, keeps your 9-5 away Play it safe and diversify, trust me it does wonders on your health and relationships and keeps.
4. "If you want more freedom, be more disciplined" The worst trait in a trader I find is to rationalize a bad trade. "Oh, its fine, I made money on a different stock so I can afford to take this gamble" I'm guilty of this too, but I also make a ton on monday daily, do you see me "gambling" a portion of it on a daily basis on YOLO plays?
5. Together. Everyone. Achieves. More. Notice how the guys that participate in the group are the ones that make consistent gains? Well there is a reason for that, we lean on our team when we need support, but do you think I could lean on someone and ask for help if I haven't provided some support to them? So bring some value and support one another. You have a collective group of dedicated traders. Get together and plan your plays and attack the market.
6. Great Things, Take Time No matter how hard you push, somethings just take time. Personally my biggest mistakes are due to me trying to rush it, as traders we need to be able to identify when we got a good hand and when we don't.
    

   Wow this was kinda therapeutic. Stay motivated, stay disciplined, stay patient and always stay positive. Thanks for reading my grammatically incorrect post. TJ, Signing off.

I started live trading in 2019. Each year I have discovered a major aspect of trading that I previously did not know even existed. In 2019, I discovered the importance of TA. In 2020, I discovered the importance of FA. And in 2021, I discovered the importance of portfolio management. Here is my performance for the year.

1. In the short term, the market is a voting machine, in the long term it is a weighing machine.
2. There is no edge in TA alone…an edge is only found when position sizing is skillfully determined and combined with TA skill.
3. FA is important, but to avoid the opportunity cost of bagholds, major drawdowns, and not moving stocks TA is even more important.
4. Don’t take trades with more than the minimal size possible if it is not in your playbook.
5. Risk management is as important as any trade idea…proper leverage, position sizing, and hedging might be some of the biggest differentiation for a portfolio manager.
6. Write your investment thesis down. Make sure that you trade/portfolio aligns with that thesis.
7. That said, day to day moves may have nothing to do with your TA/FA/macro thesis so keep an open mind and manage risk accordingly.
8. Having strategies/thesis on paper will make your process more systematic and make you less susceptible to psychological pitfalls.
9. Discuss the various scenarios and respective reactions in your trading plan, so you aren’t prepared when something doesn’t go your way.
10. To be a successful trader you have to be disciplined at all times, even if your life is in the shitter and you feel horrible emotionally…the market does not care it will take your money.
11. Just keep showing up regardless of your results. You may feel defeated and discouraged, but you can’t improve if you don’t show up. Even if I have $1 in my account I will still be here, learning.

2020 was one of the worst years for me and a lot of people I know. Covid struck and made everyone miserable. The leftover from that bled into 2021. I dealt with some personal health issues through the entire summer while also trying to play catch up and get myself back on track.

I lost my first dog to start off January 2021. Had him 10 years. Nothing can prepare you for that. I was not doing well and completely lost until I found a new pup late spring his name is Maximus Decimus Bash. Spent all of 2021 training him. He ate through my door and took up my floors. He ate the inside of my car up and even ate through a Kong ultra strong crate. He can open fences and even unlock and open windows. It's been a very long year.

Did not really have enough funds set aside to trade so I did a lot of paper trading and studying through 2021. Before Covid I had started to develop a really powerful strategy using market internals. It started with NYSE $Tick after noticing how much it correlated with TVIX. I spent 12 months with only NYSE $Tick and TVIX on my screen. It felt like I found cheat codes to the market. Then TVIX delisted. I didn't know where I was going with this but eventually I found index futures.

1. Study Options
2. Options Time and sales
3. Learn more about the greeks
4. Study sector rotation
5. Chart more FANG stocks since they hold so much weight with the indexes
6. Finally stop being cheap and pay for full book with my broker
7. Study fed policy and how it effects the market
8. Goal to reach 1700-1800 in blitz or rapid chess
9. sharpening eye for levels on NQ and YM

2021 was truly a year of lessons - many of which were brutal. Sometimes you've got to learn the hard way – but it is also essential that you take those lessons if you want to stay in the markets - otherwise what was the point of all that pain? You HAVE to learn and evolve, or you’ll lose more and more, until you lose it all. I'll be working on that this year.

Because lists are fun (thanks for ruining internet news, $BFZD - short it every time if it pops), a very Weary 2021 trading timeline (which breaks all rules of a reasonable list, because this is who I am):

To recap my first year of trading (in the present tense), in January of 2020, I hear about r/WSB and Robinhood in January (like millions of other newly minted retail traders, all headed for debt or glory), and tell myself I’m going to “invest” and “buy some dips if this COVID thing crashes markets or whatever.” That it does - at which point I also unfortunately discover put options. (Thanks Reddit - here lies $SPY 4/17 220p, expired worthless after JPOW went to $WMT for printer ink and declared open season bears.) This sets me on a very misguided, bearish path for the rest of the year, coming at trading with a penchant for gaming loot boxes, a BA in Creative Writing, and not a single shred of knowledge in regard to finance or markets. It does not go well for me after that first lucky, lucrative set of brief bearish wins leading into the most bullish market in history. By the end of the year, I’m down about ~$25k from my "investments” (ie. paychecks deposited directly into ill-fated Robinhood options), ending up with about ~$6k in December, which is pretty much all-in AMC in stock and leaps (my own GalaxyBrainTM recovery trade well before Atlas and r/WSB got on it in January).

2021 and my second year of trading begins. Like Jon Snow, I still know nothing, despite spending nearly every hour of the prior year glued to voice chat in my original degen server (still love and miss those e-frenz – hi guys!), browsing a Twitter feed list of market news that I put together, and desperately pinging between paid furus as I try to stop the waterfall of losses I'd incurred, only to pay to incur more. I make a set of New Years' trading resolutions:

1. No bearish trades.
2. No heavy bearish trades.
3. No heavy short-dated bearish option trades.

In mid-January, I sell most of my AMC under $3 because (by all measures of logic and sense) the chart looks like it's ready for a pullback. The next trading day it starts to do The Thing. You know the one. Missing this squeeze (after bag-holding the position and buying dipping dips for over a month) stings - a lot. Still, it's a decent profit for me, and I scale out of my remaining leaps gradually, eventually ending up back over $10k.

I slug my way through the first quarter, edging closer back to $20k. In the fall of 2020, I'd started hearing about UT, at which point I’d joined the server, listening in now and then to the open voice chat, but that was about it (at that point there were several Discord servers I'd hop between, gauging general sentiment on various stocks as well as the market at large, as my own sort of ground-floor retail DD). As my original server starts getting quieter in the new year, and I find myself struggling to find some sort of anchoring direction, I start lurking more in UT, occasionally posting (rather remedial) charts of swings that look good to me, some of which are crypto. From the start, Gotti is supportive and welcoming (love you homie!) and I’m like, “Gee, everyone is so positive and supportive here.” Up until that point, most of my trading chatter has been spent making self-deprecating jokes about what a bad trader I am – form follows thought, as they say…

One of my friends (who knows nothing about markets) reminds me that the $COIN IPO is coming up, and tells me that her brother who is in Bay Area finance is going to put like 25% of his net worth into it when it opens, and it’s going to be her first investment – this is a popular sentiment among the mainstream markets (legendary call on that price target, Cramer – poor dude), including Ms. Woods. I’m like “HRMMM” I should trade this. Looking for guiding sentiment (and finding no one talking on the day-of in my original server), I listen in to UT’s stream when it opens and realize, “Whoah… these folks really know what they’re talking about, don’t they.” I get the fill where it opens (wayyy too high, obvi), then ride it up with TJ and Co.’s callouts, selling at $420.69 for memes as they let us know they’re getting out of their longs and reversing that trade. I can’t short (because I’m still on Robinhood), but that long scalp alone is the best trade I’ve had in months, and it finally pushes me over $20k for the first time since I’ve started. And then it tanks – and tanks – and tanks – and I’m out near the top in solid profit. This is where it really clicks for me that I should probably start spending more time in UT. I buy my friend dinner with a small portion of that profit, in thanks for putting my eyes on the IPO (and by extension UT), and as condolences for her first investment in the markets in $COIN around $400.

If 2020 sucked, 2021 extra-sucks. My parents encounter some major non-COVID-related health issues, and after getting an early vaccination, I’m able to visit them for the first time in over a year to help out around home for a brief period. (Cancer can eat a whole pickled bag of, uh, eggplants.) While visiting, I am finally just within reach of my $25k goal so I can begin to day trade without restriction for the first time at last (being at the mercy of PDT to the whims of overnight markets on swings is rough at times). Emotions are high while I’m visiting, however (and you know what they say about emotions and trading), so what do I do as a major FOMC approaches? I decide I’m just going to take a quick heavy scalp to finally push over $25k – I’m gonna get rich right then and there and make my parents proud. So I break all three of my 2021 trading resolutions at once and put 50% of my account into $QQQ monthly puts on a sharp fake out FOMC whipsaw candle, convinced that the market is going to melt in fear of rate hikes. It doesn’t. In fact, it just goes straight up for the next three months. Each day after I open the position, I’m down by $1k more, as I let the position bleed, literally dreaming of COVID-style crashes to recap my losses. When all is said and done, and I close out, that moment of FOMO emotion has resulted in 1/3 of my account being crushed in just a week.

I am devastated and demoralized and I know something needs to change: I have to get serious about learning the markets, or I need to pull out my money and stop – because I’m just gambling, and each time I make a major move in some moment of emotional madness, I lose. I give myself a week to consider my options, then decide to take the learning route – and the path to that, I realize, is by getting active in UT.

Let’s speed up this novel a bit. As I put more of my time into UT, things generally just get better – I’m enjoying trading again. After sleeping through market opens for most of the past year, I start to wake up for the bell (6:30am my time), because I’m looking forward to listening to voice chat, and chatting with the new friends I’m making. Eventually I apply for a team, and officially come on board, then start talking in voice. Some months later, I get the coveted dash before my name. To quote a movie I used to rewatch with friends in college (yet have forgotten the name of): “And what a day that was!”

I begin learning Dre’s proprietary scalping method, and it excites the hell out of me. I’m still not very good at it, but it feels like I’ve found the keys to the trading universe. Around the same time, I’ve neared that major elusive milestone: $25k. My best trading week of all-time follows shortly after, and I swing myself over to roughly $28k with three green days in a row. Over PDT, it is truly freeing to be able to stop out when have a poor entry, without the fear of being locked into a bad trade which will bleed me dry by morning. Perhaps too freeing – I get bold and start making some large, dangerous trades, and I’m not used to being able to stop out – I keep freezing and holding, which brings me back down to that $25k danger level. A few days later, try to short $TSLA heavily at the exact moment it decides to make that squeeze into $900 – and then it just keeps going. I panic, hold, and suddenly I’m back to ~$22.5k.

I decide that this as good a time as any to step back, take a breath, assess my mistakes, and finally get off the embarrassing platform of Robinhood and onto TOS: if I’m going to take this seriously, I need to be on a platform traders take seriously. This takes a couple weeks, and I pull out what I need to put myself back above the $25k in the transfer. TOS is a major learning curve, but it’s an exciting one at the same time.

I make a new rule: no swings until I have enough padding to keep myself above PDT. I also make a new goal: $30k, at which point I’ll take out $1k each time I go over to put on the various mountains of debt I’ve accrued over time, beat that debt down, and then grow my account from there. I never make it to $30k, but I do wobble decently in the $25-30k range, and I can feel my scalps improving – “Just little bites,” is what I tell myself.

The Great PainPal Massacre of 2021: most of you know this one all too well, I’m sure – and let me emphasize that my losses are no one’s fault but my own. By this point, I’ve decided to start putting some swings back on, because it feels like I’m working hard to stop out early and miss out on some lucrative moves (ye olde grass is greener FOMO). Unfortunately, this is also around the time the market is viciously internally correcting as the markets are just floating up on a steady diet of TSLA rails and AAPL juice. I look at all the long-term indicators on the PooPal charts (willfully ignoring the monthly RSI and Bollinger Bands), glue myself to company news, and convince myself: “Down like 33%? It’s overdone – a dip into ER is a good thing. This will rocket, and I’ll be up like $5k in a day.” I go heavy on options and swings into the ER print – quite simply, I FOMO – and the initial move after ER is released is good – it spikes to $240 – and then it falls. And falls. And breaks through my lowest downside targets like nothing was there. The next morning I’m $5k under PDT at open (down ~$7k in total), and I can’t cover that to get back over with what’s in my bank account. So I panic-hold and cross my fingers. “I’ve got leaps and shares – it’ll bounce hard and be fine.” So I hold. And hold. When $200 breaks, I cut my shares and use the liquidity to average down on my leaps. And it just bleeds for another month. And another.

Capitulation on my position comes at last right before the Christmas holiday. At this point I’m down about $10k from my transfer to TOS since the PainPal mistake. I start spreading the remaining amount across some long-term picks in stock, and move a chunk out to diversify across some crypto endeavors. This about brings us up to date with 2022.

I made some major mistakes last year, but you know what? I’m not particularly upset about it, and I’m not panicking. Should I be? Perhaps. If anything – and this may be folly – I’m more optimistic than ever. Here’s the thing I’ve decided:

I love trading – but I also know that I’m not very good at it yet, and that I am still learning and making (occasionally disastrous) mistakes. I am fascinated by the markets, and there are major gaps in my knowledge, with endless amounts yet to learn. If I am bullish on anything, I am bullish on UT – that is my primary long-term investment right now, and that is where I will be continuing to allocate the majority of my free time.

I want 2022 to be a year of learning. I want to start digging into market fundamentals, and I want to understand with more clarity the emerging space of the metaverse through cryptocurrency and NFTs (because I truly believe that there is innovation and value to be found amongst the scams and noise, it just needs to be identified through research). In the meantime, I’ve just got to keep my head above the water in the meantime, as I juggle all the countless plates I’ve picked up and tossed into the air – and that’s exactly what I intend to do.

I joined UT in early Feb after making out like a bandit on an AMC trade. I was working from home, bumming around the various WSB discord channels, but they were toxic and I realized a few things:

1. I made a nice amount of money in a short period of time. I’d like to do this more often.
2. I have NO idea what I’m doing. I need to learn more.

In 2021 I learned the important lesson that I’m really not that great at scalping. Feels like I’m paying Halo with a bunch of 12 year olds who are eating my lunch. Had some initial success, but realize it was mostly gambling. Reading VPA and the visual guide to candlestick charting does not make one a good scalper.

After losing 2% of my account attempting to scalp AI (No stop like a schmuck, turned into a “lets see what happens tomorrow” trade), I’ve come to the realization that I’m better suited for swing trades on longer timeframes.

I don’t contribute much because I still feel like a freshman who has walked into a 400 level class and I’m not gonna be that dude chiming in with ridiculousness. I learn best via reading, UT YouTube, and Dre, Tape, Kit, and TJ lessons/discussions. I recall more when reading, but video really helps to see ideas in action.

Realized gains for the year are only 3%, but my account value is up 120% as I’ve still got a TON of unrealized gains from energy sector trades that are still playing out.

Biggest realized win: AMC: Bought at $5.00, Sold at $16.44.

Biggest realized loss: AI: Bought at $89.55, sold at $80.19

In 2022 I’m focusing on the following:


1. Fundamental analysis. I’m lacking here. Need to step it up.
2. Covered calls. I’ve been scared about getting my equities taken away and hit with cap gains. Know I’m leaving cash on the table.
3. Stop being a sissy. AI loss had me shook. I know what I did wrong, and I’ve internalized those lessons. Still missed some good plays because I can’t let go of it.

Blessed to be a small part of this amazing community. Excited to see what 2022 brings!

I started trading in May 2021, after seeing a video on YouTube about a guy losing money, yeah he was losing money and I thought “Interesting, I want to learn how to MAKE money instead”.

My end of year P/L was -12% on a small account, with most of the year paper trading.

I started from scratch following videos on YouTube, from just ONE guy, and this was my biggest mistake. After months of trying to find a strategy that could fit my personality, following this guy’s strategy I was able to understand that I didn’t like that kind of trading, it just didn’t make sense to me. I decided to be more active on UT, to follow more traders on YouTube, keep reading books and most importantly I started following the #new_traders_program ! I started to be more active on UT in November and I have learned so much since then!

My goals for 2022:

1. Learn how to better recognize patterns.
2. Learn more patterns.
3. Keep studying to finish the year breakeven (with fees).
4. Learn how to journal properly.
5. Rebuild my trade plan, based on what I’ll learn.

I hope you all can achieve your goals for the year! Thanks UT for all the help and knowledge!

I started of 2021 with the aim to start having a long term portfolio. i was only day trading at constantly booking profits and holding my losers far too long. After joining UT i realised the real money is made via swing trades and holding on to ur positions for long. So i started two accounts one in IB and one in TOS with less than 10K each. I followed TJ’s principal of buying 1 share of quality stocks and see how it grows in the period of 3 months. How he taught barron to build his portfolio. I employed the same strategy. Learning about TA , volume profile and futures was my biggest take away for 2021.

My prominent winning trades for 2021 are AMD calls(300%) , AFRM shares (100%) and 150 points on a swing trade on MES. GSKY shares(300%) GPRO shares (50%)

My losing trades for 2021 are BABA shares (-40%) 50 points on MES

i have learnt about selling calls which was new to me and employed it a few times. I am still learning about building a portfolio for the greater good. My account has grown 100% last year

My objectives for 2022:


1. Learn more about covered calls
2. Improve in TA
3. Understand market internals and macros better
4. Grow my account by 100%
5. Better journaling

I have learnt massively after joining UT and i sincerely thank everyone who shared their knowledge in making me a better trader. I am very thankful to UT and grateful to be part of it. Onwards and Upwards.

Hello, My growth this year for 2021 was great since i started trading futures market this year my friend anonymus got me into trading all though me being me i jumped right into it with out knowing a single thing and that was my down fall lost 3.4k so far, and slowly increasing my account now because i learned a lot from UT personally as well and xash himself taught me a lot and from that point on i was going up. from my lowest low i came out of the this year with being only 2.4k down and am very happy about that because now i know what i need to work on and that its just not a get rich quick.

Over this year i quit and came back to trading once and now i think i am ready to stay and keep pushing though it all, as a 19 year old going though college i want to be able to walk away from college debt free and i know that sounds like a harsh goal to set for myself but I know its something i can do, I just need to take my time and slowly keep pushing myself to the next level everyday. as well from this point on i am working on one / two contract and shooting for 40 ticks / 10 points plays each day On the (MES), from scalping to holding, that's my end goal i am shooting for, for the next new months once i can do that i am going to size up and start adding more contracts to slowly increase my account and move up to the (ES) and in due time join the big bois in (NQ). another goal is to perfect my strategy or make a new one because we all know sometimes scrapping it and moving on from something and trying new things might work out more then sticking with the old. But we will see where the new year takes me.

Right now i am going to focus on

1. Not over trading
2. Taking quality Setups with entry and exit plan being meant
3. Starting slow again and not full sending my account
4. LEARN a lot more, every day you can learn something about trading and i think my goal is to keep up learning and pushing myself.

I think this community has been a great influence on me and making me a better trader every time i look into the chats i see a new ideal and grow more upon it myself, I am a learker so many of you guys may not even know i am in this server or who the fuck i am but i have learned a lot from a lot of you guys and i am happy to be a part of a supportive community 😀 And i want to say Thanks to everyone who has helped me and to who ever wants to help me in to future because i know all are busy bees at some points in time

I started trading this year. Starting off with speculative buy-and-hold, I would end up getting about $500 off of it. Past that, I kept doing buy-and-hold strategy, but ended up amassing losses further and further through the year. I initially started with a small amount of my money until my greed started ticking in, and I started making oversized, speculative trades. Then I found options and I sort of just deteriorated from there. I was down about 2000 when I found UT. It was then that I started to work on a day trading strategy that would do well for a little bit.. until one day where I made a trade on NVDA that was rooted somewhere off in fantasy land, and I ended up having to suffer a $4000 loss on one trade, now total loss of about $7000. Afterwards, I still had not seemed to learn my lesson, and made one last bad trade that landed me another $500 in the hole. I'm taking this $7500 loss and assuming it as my "tuition" for learning how to trade.

The sole thing I need to work on the most, is learning how to take a loss early and not letting it spiral out of control.

My 2021 was definitely a learning year. I found UT in December of 2020 on the recommendation of a friend. Much of the year I spent reading, watching furu videos and, mostly, blindly trading what happened to be talked about most at that time. I learned that I'm not half bad at TA, making a trading plan, and having an exit strategy.

I learned that I'm pretty horrible at sticking to that trading plan and strategy. I had way, way too many big losers that I had planned to get out of at a certain level but just kept adjusting the stop because I 'felt' it would recover. WISH, CLOV, DIDI are all poster children for this.

On the other hand I did learn a lot from these mistakes and have been pretty good at sticking to my trading plan for the last several months.

I learned about covered calls from @-TapeReader (Shot Caller) (thanks man!). That has been invaluable. I learned about 0DTE SPX trading from @Rahul (also thanks).

My biggest winner last year was SNDL. Biggest loser WISH. Total return for 2021 - 33.9%.

My plan for this year is to refine my 0DTE trading plan or abandon it if it doesn't work out, better diversify my portfolio, read voraciously, learn how to hedge and stick to my trading plan.

I joined UT around January 2021. For a bit of context, I was a rising junior at high school at the time, and I was on summer break. I started out as everyone, learning patterns, candlesticks, "magical" indicators. Then I started paper trading with trading-view, traded nearly all February with the most basic knowledge. In hindsight, waste of time, if I skipped that and learnt more, it would have been better. Since I´m from Argentina, I had some trouble funding my account so by late may I had my real time account ready to go. By then, I started the school year and had little time to trade. School was via zoom until June and I managed to trade and make some decent profit for my account size, and luckily I took it off the account before it was too late and the beginners luck was over. I almost blew my Tradeovate account, messed up a bit with options and then walked away since school went back to normal, and so did my schedule, which meant no time to trade. In the meantime, I learnt about trading futures, order-flow mainly. Now I´m back on summer break, rising senior, 17 yo, and trying to make the most of it by trading, bringing my account back and ,now that I´ve decided that I want to follow a career in the finance field, researching fundamentals. Hopefully, by the time I attend college, I can fund it through all of this.

2021 Was my first full year as a trader. I found my UT family in late summer of 2020 after searching for some place to learn about trading. I had always wanted to learn more about it but never did anything with it. I can thank @Swatlegend after our talks in another discord for leading me here. With out him, I would not be here. With that said, 2020 headed into my first full year was a whirlwind. I was so excited to get to learn something new and the thought of making some great money along the way was intoxicating. Usher in GSKY... Late in 2020 I took a position ( A verrrrry large position for my account size.) When the market waffled and I didn't see it make the gains my noob butt thought it would at the time i panicked... I sold almost everything in my port at the time including that big GSKY position and then instantly knew I had screwed up. The problem is this set me up for 2021... What I should have done is when the new year hit, further educate myself and reflect on why I made mistakes in 2020. What I did was I re-bought my GSKY position for a long... and yet again I went to the moon allocation size. I spent almost 80% of my capital on that one stock... and it was a long position that was gonna take half the year or more to be realized. That was my opening mistake. Sprinkle in a lot of no research on my part grabs along the way and you have a really dismal first half of the year. I was discouraged, I was not having fun because all I could do was sit and wait. With no way to really afford at the time to keep dumping tons of money into my trade account I had stalemated. I was not educated enough nor disciplined enough to realize I was in a great spot with that position (all be in incredibly far to allocated.) Then late spring came... and life started to come to GSKY... it was sowing little signs of maybe over the summer really jumping and that was gonna be my IT moment. I was finally going to make a ton of money on my not so patient waiting... Or so I thought.

What happen next shattered the rest of my 2021 as far as trading goes. One morning I was reviewing my account and I had decided I wanted to sell a few shares of GSKY to give myself a little capital to work with on some things that at the time were hot button topics... I believe it was PLTR at the time (yeah I know sheesh...) What did I do you might ask? O, Well instead of selling just a couple shares, I closed my entire position... 225 shares (for me that's a ton) and made pennies on what I could have made a ton on (for me.) I could have made 7-8 dollars a share and I made a buck. I was sick... I cussed, and I almost threw my phone across the room I was so angry and upset with myself. How in the hell could I have made such a dumb mistake I yelled to myself... From there, even with most of my capital back in my account I was mentally broken. Every stock I took a look at or bought just either went nowhere or I bought in not at the true bottom and I got left out in the cold. Annnnd then I bought T.. ALOT of T right before the news for the dividend reduction came out... I was hung and to proud to just cut it. Then, it just slowly bled down... down... down.. surely it has to come back to my 28.50 entry... surely it isn't going to like 26-27 bucks... and sure as hell it did and I was bag holding again. After the GSKY incident this finished the job like Scorpion in Mortal Kombat.

The rest of the fall I left UT. (I didn't actually leave leave I just stopped signing in and coming around. I was embarrassed, upset, and it was all my fault. No one else was to blame but me. I made the bad trades, I made the dumb no double check myself moves. Instead of pulling one of my mentors here aside, I tucked it in and walked away. Then I had a financial issue pop up near the end of the year and instead of dealing with it in another manner I rage pulled all my trading funds out down to 4 bucks. It wasn't very long after that that I knew this was about the worst thing I could have done. I spent a year and a half accumulating that capital, well used or not. I knew after I had spent it on taking care of a few things that it was about the dumbest thing I had done last year. When I tell you I felt so embarrassed with myself I'm not kidding. It's really hard to type this out and admit that I did that. Now, I have come to terms with it and I am in an incredibly stronger mental place than I was even just a month and a half ago.

I refunded my account with a very very small amount of money.. and I am gonna do it the right way. Sure, I will make losing trades still this year.. However, I am learning to have a plan in place. The why I am taking a trade, the thought out stop loss placement when I open, the goals and levels I'm looking to achieve to get out or take profit… and that ever so hard leave a little piece for a runner when its appropriate to do so. I am dedicated to education this year. I am a new me in terms of not only trading but my mental mind set and approach to life. I have begun implementing making myself lists of the things I need to accomplish in each day/week/month. This has helped with my ADHD tendencies ( I am not diagnosed but I'm not dumb either I know I have it.) Just theses small things have made tremendous impacts on me already. I have returned to my UT family and was welcomed back in with open arms. I felt like I had let you all down and no one pointed a finger at me or gave me to much grief. They welcomed me back in and have helped me so much in the last few weeks that I am now more confident than ever before. I have so very much left to learn. I am such a fledgling in terms of knowledge and knowhow in this space, but I am a sponge and I want to soak up the free.. the FREE knowledge that is in these walls... I am so thankful that I have a place that is teaching me to not only be more self-responsible but teaching me how I can make generational wealth that will benefit my family for the remainder of my days and theirs. You will find no other group like this in the world. Of that, I am most confident. Jesus Dragonz.. all that to tell the group that you actually made it out of 2021 with a positive P/L? lol Yeah, I did end the year with an +80 dollars to my name... but it didn't feel like a win at all. This year, there is a new fire in me. One that is burning really bright and ready to never go out like it did at the end of the year in 2021. If you are reading this, just know that we all make mistakes, we all have bad days/weeks/months and that's ok. Its what you do with it that is the measure of your character. Don't allow yourself to get to far down or for that matter to high either. Life will find a way to put you back in balance.. trust me.

So, what do I want to do with 2022?

1. Take better care of myself physically.
2. Have a plan for every trade.
3. Know my limits and not exceed them. If I need a mental break, I should take it and be palm tree ( DONT TRADE) for the day/week etc.
4. Allocation... learn it.. use it.. stick to it..
5. Learn options and start trading them.
6. Journal more and keep good notes of patterns I see, levels, things that worked and didn't work. 6. Soak up as much education as I can.
7. Help anyone I can take their first steps in trading and teach them something I learned that may help them.
    

   I know this isn't a thank TJ thread, but I sincerely have to thank this man for what he has helped to create here. He has amassed the smartest and most well rounded group of people I have ever met. I am humbled and blessed to be here. (edited)
    
   My biggest regret is not reaching out for help when I knew I needed it. I wont make that mistake in 2022!

As a new trader looking back at the 2021 year I see mostly mistakes. I've spent a decent amount of my time adopting a macroeconomic outlook that has many years to play out, and this made me tunnel-visioned and unable to see what was happening right in front of me. It seems that most new retail traders over the past 2 years have fallen into two camps: the camp that sees the coming technological revolution in crypto, EVs, green energy, and a list of "hypergrowth" stocks, and has wanted to get in on the action, creating perhaps one of the biggest bubbles of all time in certain areas, and a second group, the doomers, who see a potential collapse of the financial system and completely missed the ride up in most of the retail stocks. I fell into the second group, and put a large portion of my portfolio into options on gold and silver mining stocks believing the August peak was just a short pullback. In the end, both groups got slaughtered if they didn't have good trading and risk management plans, and I was one who got wrecked. This was despite learning a fair amount about risk management and trying to follow a swing trading strategy. But I ignored it for a lot of my portfolio and payed the price.

This was my first ever year in the market. I started investing in April with no plans to actively trade. Shows what I knew. I started learning to trade in early June after I did something I never thought I'd do: gambled on a stock and took a big loss. It was a blessing in disguise, as that forced me to start learning how to read charts, and since then, it's been one lesson after another.

I learned a few things about myself as a trader very quickly. First, I'm more jittery staying in a trade than looking for an entry. That's when I knew that I'd need to become a scalper, at least initially. It was a risky decision, but it gave me less anxiety. Second, I was a terrible loser; taking a loss, even on one share of a low-float, was enough to ruin my day. This fear of loss created my first huge hurdle: inability to pull the trigger and enter a trade when my setups were there because "the trade will turn against me the second I enter."

These issues, among others, were due to my own relationship with and attitude towards money. Throughout my whole life, I was overprotective of what I'd earned, so putting money on the line and taking losses ate into this overprotective nature. This was a psychological struggle that I knew I'd have to combat before I could become a profitable trader; despite finding a strategy that worked (as evidenced through daily back testing) and never sizing up on my trades, when real money was on the line, that fear took over.

By early August, I'd given back much of my initial gains. To protect what gains I had left, I decided to stop trading and just read charts so I could confidently predict their next moves before returning. I was still buying stocks for investments, but my next trading move wouldn't come until early September. It would be the worst trade I'd make all year and the only time I'd given into greed: FBRX.

I heard about FBRX via UT. I saw the options premiums, and I couldn't resist. I sold two puts at the lowest strike available at the time while the stock was trading at double that price. Little did I know the biotech company would rug-pull and the stock would tank almost 90%. I was forced to buy back my puts and eat a $1300 loss.

Ironically, that was the loss that eased my frustration over losing. I returned to active trading with a newer level of confidence, now no longer upset by taking small losses. By late-November, I'd actually made back all of that loss and even turned green for a while. This despite having no single trade that made me triple-digits (the closest I'd gotten, and the best trade I'd pulled off during this time, was a scalp in the market's 2nd minute, when I caught a pop on NVDA and made $95).

Then, just as I thought the tide had finally turned, early December saw another mistake. This time, it was an oversight error: I'd sized up to back test in OnDemand, but forgot to size back down before I took a trade on MSFT. As a result, I stopped out on 3 options contracts instead of one and lost $200. I thought it was no big deal at the time, but the loss must've subconsciously affected my psychology, because since that day, I've only had three green days (with a few off-days in between).

As we enter the new year, what I'm realising now is that I'm not getting the best entries for scalps, and that, while old problems have gotten better, the hesitation and timing issues that plagued me when I first started trading have not gone away. I actually ended the year -$450 after grinding back to break-even. It's been two steps forward and one step back, and I'm currently in the latter part of this first year's journey.

My goals for this year are simple: continue learning to better accept losses without thinking about them or having them affect me in future decisions, get better entries, and keep reading charts in ways to build more confidence. I'm still going to primarily focus on scalping; there might be ventures into other forms of trading, but my psychology needs to evolve first before I can handle those. To get there, I'm going to keep doing what I've been doing: reviewing nightly, journaling everything, and asking UT for critiques and reviews. Looking forward to a better second year.

My growth as a trader in 2021 was astronomical. 2 years ago I joined UT to learn about the market, but then seeing how chat was I decided it was too hard and I could do it myself. In all honesty, I first treated this like a "get rich scheme". Classic. Joining back at the end of December 2020, that all changed. Throughout this year I learned to build my own strategy, to work through the changing conditions within each day. I developed a strategy that fits my personality, and in doing so I removed the psychological barriers. This year has been fantastic. Emotions no longer play a part in my trades, and I feel this has been the biggest improvement.

I do not have records of this year, due to not keeping a journal, but overall I took my starting amount of about $200 and turned it into just over $20,000. Starting this year, I decided to step back and be more cautious again and am beginning with only 2500 in my account to work my way up again.

This year has taught me a lot about who I was as a trader. At the beginning of the year I was buying and selling, hoping the trade would go my way. I was gambling. I had zero idea of how the futures market worked, and I was going off of a Youtube trader to help. I quickly realized his strategy did not fit who I was, especially with lower amounts of capital. Towards the end of March to mid April, I decided that I needed to step away. I wanted to go paper trade, but I didn't. In hindsight, I probably should've but it wasn't until May/June came around that I had an idea of what I needed to do. I spent the time between months just watching videos and studying different techniques. This time was very useful to me. I also took to UT and went through our countless libraries of information. My biggest obstacle was just developing a good strategy. Even to this day, I am working on it constantly each week. After realizing that I was just gambling at the beginning of it all, the realisation of what I got myself into slapped me in the face. This was the turning point for me, when I came back from my break with newfound knowledge and ability. I discussed TA with people in chat for /NQ and used what others said to attribute to my own analysis. One of the best things for me was seeing other people trade the futures market. Now, I don't believe my TA is anywhere close to amazing, but I do feel as if I have worked on it enough to fit my strategy and fit my way of trading to help me remain profitable.

My most profitable trade I remember was about Mid July. I shorted when /NQ hit 15000 and rode it down about 200 points. I know that doesn't seem like a lot, but to me that was amazing. I made just about 4k off of it. To me that was a lot. Up until this point, I was trading a mix of /NQ and /MNQ. This was also around when I started messing around with doing the inverse of my trades on the micros to hedge a position on the minis. My biggest loser was pretty recent. In October I decided to yolo and up my size. In doing so, my emotions finally came back into my trading. Up until now, upon returning to trading, my psychology and emotions were in check and not in my trades. I sized up to only 5 contracts, which is $100 per point. I closed that trade when I was down 30 points, hoping price would go back up. It eventually did, but once I was down about 2k my emotions were telling me I had to get out. I knew from my analysis that price would most likely go up here, but once I was down 3k I got out. Right after I closed, price shot right back up out of the demand zone and instantly pushed about 30 points above my entry. From there, I knew I could NOT do that again without proper experience. I did size up again after words this past month, but I made sure to hedge. It worked out for small scalps, but I decided it just wasnt right.

Things I want to improve for 2022

1. Journaling
2. Take better setups
3. Aim for a higher weekly profit target
4. Improve my TA
5. Learn to hedge properly

1. More stop losses
2. Patience on entering a trade, there is no rush, and I tend to forget that.
3. Not to over size on trades, take more time when scaling in, as oppose to adding on the same week.
4. Get more confident on my ticker choices.
5. It's ok to lose on trades as long as you win most of your trades.
6. Basically my goals are to just bring forth better entry and exit strategies, that will enhance my trades.
7. Also bring forth some exit strategies for saving trades that are not going well
8. MORE HEDGING strategies