What's up everyone? All right? So I'm just getting back from lunch I Had an awesome morning of trading. It's time to record episode 4 of a Small Account Challenge. Now this episode is gonna be pretty helpful for you guys because what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna break down the tools and the software that I'm gonna be using for the small town challenge. What I'm gonna use for charting What I'm gonna use for trading What I'm gonna use for finding stocks to trade and what I've also done for you guys is I put together a video on how to set up your first trading stage.

You guys might think oh, training station, it's got complicated I'm gonna have to have five six monitors that's not the case. Set up a basic trading station video for you guys and what I want you to do. Let's check out the link in the description. check that link out.

Jump over to our website and you'll be able to download not only the video and how to set up a basic trading station because you don't need all of that. You're also gonna be able to download all of the layouts that I use for the software that I'm about to walk you guys through. and what we're also gonna do today, which would be kind of fun is we're gonna put some stuff for sale on Craigslist because when I was first getting started trading, I needed to raise that startup capital and so one of the ways that I raised it was literally by scouring my barn for things that I didn't need that I could sell on Craigslist to generate a little bit of startup capital. That's the plan for today.

Let's jump into it. Alright, so what I want to do is and I'm gonna unplug all this stuff I'm gonna turn this stuff off cuz this is not required for day trading so it's certainly not required for trading with a small account. So this laptop it's got to go that monitored over there don't need it. the one on the bottom already unplugged it.

So we're gonna simplify things a little bit. and now what I'm going to do is I'm going to actually break out the basis of my traveling trading station which consists of these two USB monitors. See how skinny these things are? These things are tiny so I could pop two of these right in my spread in my backpack and I travel with me. They travel with me wherever I go.

it's my portable cash machine. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna pop these on and I'm gonna break this down the details of this kind of layout in the trading station video so you guys can click the link below to see that. So I'm gonna use this clip right here and this clip is gonna attach to one side of the monitor just like this. Okay, so now I've got the clip attached like that and now I'm going to attach this to the side of my laptop and now just Like that.

I have a laptop that has what appears to be an extra wing. a third display. That's what that looks like right there. So now we've got this extra piece right here and it's all attached in one.

Sometimes people think this is like a laptop that comes with three monitors, but that's not the case then. So then I'll plug the get this one on. so again, same kind of thing. We've got this: these two clips right here.

Don't don't don't don't hold the monitor by those clips that doesn't look right. All right. I can work with this I can work with this I've been in worse places. All right.

let's try to push through. I'm gonna let's see if this can still run. You know what guys? I Think this monitor is broken. We're gonna keep moving forward here now.

I'm over here. All right. So we've got the basic trading station here. We've got monitor one, well monitor one, the main one here, and then monitor two.

So let's get into the software that I'm gonna run now. I'm gonna start with the trading software. so I'm going to open up two platforms I'm gonna open up T V-- Ameritrade and I'm going to open up Sterling. Now, the interesting thing with the T V-- Ameritrade is that I actually think it's a really solid platform.

but T DT and forces P DT The PDT rule pattern day trader rule. So I'm not actually gonna use it for trading, but I will use it for it's free charting because the charts are awesome and with a small account free charts. Hey, that saves me some money. So pop-up TD Ameritrade and use it for the free chart.

and I'm going to open up Sterling, which is the platform that you use for the trading. Now the interesting thing here was Sterling and let me login to both of these real quick. Alright, so now I've got both the layouts up on my screen. So back to the screen.

We've got Sterling on the left and we've got TD Ameritrade on the right Now The reason I'm going to use Sterling is because this is broker agnostic. In other words, you can use Sterling Trader platform with dozens of different brokers, Which means you can shop around to the broker that's best suited for you right now. and that's why I use this platform. Now this is actually the Warrior Sim.

It's a simulator that is on the Sterling platforms. I Have a license agreement with Sterling so I can use this for any of my students for simulated trading. So like a PD n I can pull this stock up. This is a stock that we were trading today, so let's just say I want to go short a thousand shares I can just hit the short button and now just like that I'm short a thousand shares.

Alright, so I'll kind of walk you through this platform in one second and then let me just show you TD Ameritrade So on the right side my screen I've got TD Ameritrade now I Use this for trading today. But what I'm gonna use it for during the small account challenge is charting. So I'm gonna click this C and then I can actually hide the active trader just like that. and now I can set up my charts right here again.

The advantage of using TD Ameritrade for charting is that they've got fantastic charts and you get real-time data free once you set up an account. even if you only set it up with like twenty bucks. Now it's possible in the future they'll change that, but that's the case right now. So you know, free charts? That's a big win.

Alright, so I've got a PD n here up. This is the five-minute chart right down below. so on TD Ameritrade I'm not gonna use the active trader I'm gonna use the charts right here. so I've got chart 1 and chart 2 right there.

So I'm just gonna pull this down. Now the nice thing with TD Ameritrade because you got free charts. You can use this platform as much as you want if you want to take a couple traits in it. You can take a couple trades, but you're restricted by the PDT rule.

So if I was doing a PDT trading challenge, I would use TD Ameritrade I would just only be able to trade a few times a week most likely. So I'm gonna put em. Let's see up on the top here. I'm gonna set this up with yup.

1-minute chart today is great so I can zoom in on whatever time of day I'm really focused on and then down below. I've got the five-minute chart now I Probably also set up a daily chart on this so I could just kind of have the context of what's going on on a daily timeframe. Maybe put that here over on the side from a moving average perspective. I Go super simple I Just do the 200 moving average on the daily chart.

That's the only one that I think really matters I Use the exponential moving average intraday charts. V whap is the most important thing. the volume weighted average price. The nine moving average in the twenty are great on the five-minute time frame, but they're not absolutely mandatory in my opinion.

Keep it simple. that's what it's all about. So right here: I've got my layout for TD Ameritrade and what I've done for you guys is: I've given you a link where you can go download my layout now. I'm just gonna set up super basic charts like nothing fancy but you guys will be able to download it and check it out now.

back here on the left hand side: I've got a PD n so I'm short at 1302 right now, so you know we look at this chart here. kind of shorting a stock right above the view app. It's kind of a risky spot to be short, but in any case, the nice thing about this platform is that I can trade really really quickly on it. Oops, let me cancel that.

Alright, so there we go. So there I'm zoomed in and I'll go back here. So let's look at Sterling. So here and what I've done is I've set up hotkeys and so what that means is that with the press of a button, I can be executing orders.

All right? So I'm gonna go right here and press shift 1. So shift 1 just bought a thousand shares. it covered my short position. I'll press shift 1 a second time and just like that now I've bought a thousand shares at 1330.

I'll press it a third time here and now I've bought another some shares at probably 1320. my average is 1326. Now if I want to sell this, I can of course just type right in here. you know a thousand shares, press the sell button and like that they're sold or I can press control.

Z So let me go into settings and then gonna go down to hotkeys. So right here is where I've got all my hotkeys set up and this is what you guys are gonna be. a little download. You can download this layout so you can start actually using the same tool that I'm gonna use for trading them a small account.

So here we have shift 1. This is my hotkey to buy a thousand shares 5 cents above the current. Ask here I have shift 2 which will be to buy 2,000 shares. and here I'll have shift 3 to buy 3000 shares.

Now at the beginning of the challenge, I'll probably actually bring these down to like 700 shares, 1200 shares, and 1800 shares or something like that cuz I I just won't be able to afford to buy 2 or 3 thousand shares of pretty much anything that I'm gonna be looking at, but that's okay I can't rape a smaller-sized Now my orders to sell Control Z Right here. this sells my full position. Quantity is the full open position so it sells the whole position at the bid price - 5 cents. Which means if I need to get out I can get out quickly.

so let's go through that again. Shift 1 buys a thousand shares. Alright, so I've got a thousand shares there 1390 or 1339. So I'm gonna go and press Control Z to sell it.

Shift 1 to buy. Okay, so I'm in at 1301 now if I press shift - what happens I'm gonna buy 2,000 shares if I press shift 3 I'm gonna buy 3,000 So now I've got 6,000 shares if I Press Control X I'll sell half of my open position and now I've got 3,000 shares and still holding control X again sells another half of the open position control X again sells another half of the open position and just like that, I can trade the stock that quickly. Now obviously this is not the way you would want to be trading a stock with real money because I'm just losing money. But the fact that I can trade this quickly.

this is what I need for the small account challenge because when I see an opportunity I want to jump on it I can't trade that quickly with TD Ameritrade I've tried and I can't quite to it Now say I want to go short I can press alt one alt one I'm short so see like that I'm shorting a hundred shares. so let's go into view. We'll go to settings and we'll go to Hotkeys and we'll change all one to a thousand shares. all one a thousand shares five cents below the bit.

Okay, that's fine. it seems to be working 2000 shares 5 cents below the bid 3,000 shares 5 cents below the bit. Now what? I also have Z X and see when I press the alt button. those are going to get me out of the trade.

Alright, so if I press right now can alt X just like that all X sells 500 covers 500 all X another 250 all Z I'm out of the position. so let's do that again. Alt 1 short a thousand now I can press I got two options now I could press alt Z and right now go back to flat or I could go alt 1 and then I could press shift 1 now I don't like doing that because if I go all one and I go short three thousand shares and then I press shift 1 4 times. All of a sudden I flipped directions and I don't want that to happen with real money because that could cause me.

That's some unnecessary losses. and as you can see, the losses are stacking up on this stock and that's because the spread is so big. The fact is, money can be made or lost in the market very quickly. I can make money if I'm really focused on great quality entries with minimal risk and great profit targets and this is a stock today with real money and over here that I made well.

these are my trades over five thousand dollars on I really crushed it on this stock. This is definitely the type of stock I would have been focusing on during a small account challenge. a PDM So I have my hotkeys set up for going long for going short for quickly getting in for quickly getting out. That's exactly what I need with the Sterling platform and I can use this with dozens of brokers.

So I'll use it with my small account broker that I'm using for this challenge. And then when I go and I do a TD Ameritrade challenge or I do a different challenge I can always use TD Ameritrade you know for that I'm just a course restricted by the PDT rule. Alright, so now let's talk about the Craigslist put a little hold on the trading plan forums and all the trading tools. Now when I was getting started, one of the things that I ended up having to do was start selling some of my things on Craigslist in order to set up my trading account because I had blown up my trading account so I had to put more money back in get myself back up into a condition where I could keep trading.

and so I went through my barn at the time and I started looking for things as I could sell and so I decided to do the same thing for this small count challenge. So I went through my garage and I was kind of going through things and I was asking myself, you know what do I? what do I need here and look, what can I just get rid of And so you know my old fish tank. well I don't have fish living in the fish tank right now so that's one of those things that I can pop on Craigslist I can make a listing for it I could probably sell it for 25 bucks. Maybe 50 bucks.

Probably 25 bucks. And then I've got my skis all right now. You guys know I had a pretty traumatic ski injury where I lost consciousness and was trying to be the cool guy as the old guy going in the ski park. and anyways I I fell off the jump on my head, directly on my head, lost consciousness, regained consciousness on the side of the ski slope like kind of hitting myself.

who's hitting me and it's my own hand so it's never a good sign you know Ski Patrol came and they put me in the the toboggan. they brought me down I had to go get MRIs and stuff like that and took me a while when I regain consciousness I didn't know who I was I didn't know who I was I didn't know where I was I didn't know I didn't know anything I didn't know where I lived I was a blank slate. It was like starting over. It's pretty beautiful, but in any case, since then, I haven't really been inclined to do a lot skiing so the skis pop those up on Craigslist and then you know it comes to those kind of big items like my Mercedes Now this is the keychain right here from the Mercedes that I sold in order to put money back into my trading account.

Now I've got it on the keyring for my new Mercedes right now, but it would kind of be full circle if I sell my Mercedes but thinking about it a lot and we do it and I sell they were saving. it's brought me a lot of joy. I've had a lot of fun with this car, but it's time to put it on the Block Let it go. So I'm gonna make a listing for the Mercedes get that sold I'll probably make I don't know.

maybe like 200 bucks? Yeah, maybe 300. Well I don't know I don't really know what the market looks like for these kind of Mercedes right now, but I think probably between two hundred. three hundred dollars. Maybe yeah, maybe two hundred bucks.

So let's say two hundred bucks there. So now I've got 25 from the fishtank. I've got I would say at least a hundred bucks from the skis. Those are nice skis I've got 200 bucks.

they're from my my Mercedes Now let's jump over and focus on TD Ameritrade for one second and I'm gonna kind of walk you guys through a couple things. So on TD Ameritrade If I'm gonna use it for active trading I'm gonna press this 80 active trader button 80 is active trader and I'm gonna take away. Let's say that top chart right there. So what I can do on this is I can point and click.

So what I'm gonna do is I'm actually gonna switch to on demand like that because I don't want to trade real money I don't want to have I don't want to practice with real money and lose it. So I'm gonna go now on demand and just like that I'm trading in think or Swims simulator so none of these trades are gonna be real money. they don't contribute to my daily. PNL So if I want to buy this stock, could I press shift 1 Well, I actually can.

So what I've done is I've gone up here to the hotkeys go to hotkey settings hotkey and I'm gonna go to shift 1 right here and I have it set as buy at market buy it market and what that means is it's gonna send in order to buy based on whatever I've typed into this window right here. So in this case, I've typed in a thousand shares so it's gonna execute my order for a thousand shares. The only problem is it's a little clumsier because you've got to make sure you type in the order that you want to be trading with before you actually press shipped one. Now when I want to sell, can I press Ctrl-z Yes, sort of.

But the way it's set up right now is if I go to set up I go to application settings and I press Ctrl-z What it's actually gonna do is it's gonna sell. Let's see right here, it's gonna sell that market again. It's just gonna sell what I've got typed in here so it doesn't allow me to sell a percentage of my position which is gonna be a little bit of an issue. It's gonna slow me down.

So what I probably will end up doing more of is actually clicking. So I'll click buy market I'll click sell market I mean I could take I can press the button but since I have to take the time to type in my order already I'm gonna be right here in this spot so that's probably what I'll do on the T V-- Ameritrade side when I'm using it for trading. Now for the small account challenge: I'm getting ready to start I'm not gonna be using it for trading I'm only using it for charting. sort of have to worry about that.

However, there's no reason that you can't practice trading in it a little bit on the side, because when you start to generate enough profits, ultimately, you may want to switch to a broker like TD Ameritrade that has free Commission's You know, once you're above the PDT level, the $25,000 level, and then it's time to take this upstairs and let's start going through my closet. One of the things that I kind of have discovered is that you can buy a lot of cool old t-shirts like this one here on Etsy.com vintage I've got a lot of vintage clothes pop those on Etsy I don't need to go to Craigslist for that. those ones they're gonna go on Etsy And so what I got to do is I got to pick up each piece of clothing and I've got asked me does it bring me joy? so immediately anything that's red I can get rid of I don't need any red clothing in my life right now so red is gone and you know then I kind of meander over to my wife's section of the closet I asked myself are her shoes bringing me joy I don't feel like they are got a list of on Craigslist maybe put them on Etsy but I don't know if they're vintage? maybe put them on eBay I don't know but I got to get rid of them because I gotta raise that money for my starting capital for the new account. So shoes they've got to go and then of course standing by my feet I look at my dog June and I asked myself that same question girl, you don't bring me joy anymore so I have no choice but to you.

Alright so now we've talked about Sterling and we've talked about charts. So we've talked about what I'm gonna use for executing the trades, the Sterling platform what I'm gonna use for executing or for doing my charting Now how am I gonna find stocks to trade? It's a great question. I'm glad you asked what I'm actually gonna do is I'm gonna do something a little differently on this and I'm gonna see I'm gonna move this over here just like that and I'm gonna move this over here just like that Okay, because I don't really need those right now and I'm gonna drag this down here and this is what I'm gonna use for Idea Generation. So you can see right here in the chat room.

The scanners are built in so you'll see all the stocks coming up that you need to see right in the chat room. and I'll see people typing. you know, hey guys, what's moving right now and I'll get someone that'll give me an answer. how does a Pdn look all right and someone will type what's moving, what's been hot, etc.

So that's what I'm gonna use for Idea Generation. Not only will I get the scanners right to the top, I'll get people chatting and commenting you know, what's moving, what's looking good, and so on so forth. Now in the morning when we've got peak attendance, there'll be a lot more people typing. There's a lot more activity later in the day.

Like right now. a lot of people end up taking their profit and hitting a road. The whole goal with trading is to be able to do more things that you love. So you trade for one, maybe two hours a day, and then you get out of here, right? So in the morning we might have four or five thousand members that are all logging to the chat room, but here in the afternoon, well, there's only about 400 that are still hanging out in this chat room looking for opportunities.

So I think I'm getting myself into pretty good shape raising a lot of money here for the first account and reality is I only need 500 bucks so I guess June has a little bit more time she can spend in the house. and I suppose a few of those other things that can keep around for a little while longer until I absolutely need the money for another challenge. And that's kind of a nice thing being able to start with a small account. That's one of the things that I mentioned in a couple of my other videos.

You don't want to start with a twenty-five thousand dollar trading account because the risk of making a mistake and it being potentially catastrophic I mean when we were looking at stock, let's jump jump back over to the stocks here. APTN I I'm down eight that seven thousand eight hundred dollars in the in the simulator trading this. So clearly this stock was very volatile today. and you know if I had been doing that with real money with a twenty-five thousand dollar account, my account could be down 30% Now if we jump over here to my TD account, this is an account that's up right now.

just about six thousand dollars on the day and I'll show you guys my let's see let me just show you I've got twenty eight thousand dollars in this account. Twenty Eight Thousand bucks. So that means this account today is up like you know, more than twenty percent. Like twenty five percent in one day.

So when you have a big account, you don't really want to be using it until you are so confident that you can make twenty thirty percent in one day. A beginner trader with a big account. Beginner trader with a, you know, big block American Muscle car. You can get into some trouble really quickly.

You don't want that to happen. So start small Trade smart, make mistakes. Let it humble you. Let it remind you that.

Okay, I need to take this a little more seriously. and then the next time you set up a five hundred dollar account, you take it a little more seriously. Grow that account, prove that you aren't worth investing twenty five thousand dollars into, and that money isn't better suited just sitting in mutual funds or something like that. Look at this thing.

this is back up to fifteen dollars. Wow Well, I'm glad I didn't hold that short position I wish I'd held a long position. So anyways, I'll flip gears on it, jump in long so that's what you call. FOMA that's the fear of missing out when you pile into something squeezing up.

And let's see what happens with this. This might be one of those trades that rips up to 16 or might be one of those trays that drops right back down to 14. And just like that, with a $25,000 count, you could be gone, done, out of the market. You don't want to empower any trade to ruin your career.

Potentially, it's just not worth it. The reality is a trade like this. 1644 on the ask? Well, you know that could end up being a pretty nice win, but if it had gone the other direction, could I have afforded the loss? So many traders they think about the win. No one complains.

We have a big win even if you're being totally risky, even if you're gambling. Even if you're not following any of the rules of the market, people complain when they have the losses, so can you handle the risk associated with the trade? Starting with small size, it helps set a foundation for risk management because you simply cannot afford to make big mistakes. So today we've broken down some of the tools and if you want my layout for Sterling or you want my layout for TD Ameritrade click the link below in description. You'll be able to download that you want to watch the video of me setting up a basic trading station and not shattering my monitor.

Well, you should check that out below that's also in the link in the description and I Hope you guys have learned a little something about side hustles making money. Whether it's on Craigslist Yeah, eBay it's hun Etsy You know I've sold things on Craigslist I sold things on eBay to raise money when I was first getting started I had a lot of things lying around the house that I didn't need and the ability to live life on my own terms was more important than keeping that object you know in my possession. and so I let things go I sold things I didn't need I set up my trading account and I haven't looked back now. Maybe you do a side hustle of working on working uber or do a little work on hire writers or up work or something like that.

There's lots of things that you guys can do today that just weren't available when I was going arted So and just like that, look now I'm back down to Red on the trade so you know that's the market. If you don't take the profit when you have it, you can give it back. So hope you've enjoyed this video! Episode 4 and if you have any questions, please leave them below in the comments: I Respond to every comment posted on my channel. Alright, stay tuned for episode 5.

Coming next week. You want to learn more about trading. Check out some of the links in my description and if you have questions, ask them in the comments. I Personally respond to every question posted on my channel And don't forget to subscribe.