Tools Of The Trade - Trading Environment

January 26th, 2018 | 5 minute read (Repost from We The Market)

I was completely lost when I started trading. I had no idea where to start other than YouTube and the Internet to start figuring out the pieces of the puzzle to build my trading environment. Below is my setup.

Desk

Stand up desk picked up off of craigslist.org. I stand most of the day.

Desktop Computer

I built my computer to outperform Alien computers. I am not going to list the specs of the build. Just know it kicks ASS. I don’t want my tech slowing my stock buy executions.

Internet

Here, I have no choice. I live in a remote area and the only thing available is microwave antenna. Speeds are about 20/7 Mbps. My back up is Verizon hot spot on my phone. I am considering buying the Verizon Jetpack.

Broker

Interactive Brokers . They are great. (Update 09/01/2019, I have been very pleased with their low commission structure.). I learned from the DVD courses at Investors Underground that Centerpoint Securities have a large selection of shorts available for trading. I may have to give them a try sometime.

Depending on the type of trader you are you need to evaluate each broker closely for cost per trade. If you are a swing trader placing a couple of trades per month then the standard vanilla brokers out there with $5.00+ per trade would probably work for you. A Day Trader on the other hand is scaling in and out of trades. Interactive Brokers charges $1.3 to $2.00 per trade depending on how you trade. Sometimes you get rebates for adding liquidity to the market.

Trading Platform

DAS Trader Pro. Update -   MultiCharts.net is my preferred trading platform. With MultiCharts.net you can program your own indicators and much more. I don’t need graphs with every kind of study/indicator known to mankind. I have very few indicators on my charts. Keep it clean and simple. Also, you need a platform that allows for hotkeys for order entries. The platform has several Top List for active stocks available. For some people, they may forgo scanners for the DAS Trader Pro Top List.

Scanner

Many trading platforms have some kind of scanners to scan for active trading stocks.  Trade-Ideas is a scanner that is on steroids. Endless ways to scan for stocks. When you purchase the Premium package, you then get a one on one session to configure your scans with one of their employees. Fun to play around with different ideas you might have. They also have back testing to test your scan ideas. This blurb does not do justice to describing Trade-Ideas capabilities. I recommend you checking them out!

Chat Rooms

Update - I plan on starting one for Pro Elite Traders before the end of 2019. At this stage of the game I have been in several chat rooms. The chat rooms I used to be in were Investors Underground, Bear Bull Traders, Trade-Ideas (Free). They are all different in their styles. If you are on a budget you can try Trade-Ideas Chat Room.

Scanners help you find stocks but so do people in chat rooms. Most likely the people in the chat room have some scanning software themselves and they will give you a shout out on an active stock. You can also reach out to them if you have a question.

Your environment will morph over time while you are gaining experience. This blog post may help you get started.

Take profits and let the rest ride until you get stopped out!