Today marked the day that I was preparing for, for the past two months. For those new to this site, this past November I was contacted by Expert Trader Jason Stapleton and asked to run a Live Ratio based trading room for his company.  I accepted this offer and the plan was to start off the year with a bang so we decided to offer the public a free two week trial in the room. Originally, we meant to close the room after the first 200 people signed up. Unfortunately (or fortunately I should say) we forgot to put that cap on the room and ended up with over 2,000 people signed up.  Therefore Jason decided to turn this into a bigger event then what is was originally suppose to be. Instead of just offering two free weeks, we added a "Trading As Your Business" presentation by Jason himself, along with a special guest speaker that will becoming in this and next Friday to talk about trading psychology.  Needless to say I was pretty excited.  When I entered the room today it was the biggest audience that I have ever spoken to. I usually don't get nervous about much, but I felt that way this morning. I think it may have been more of a combination of lack of sleep and too much coffee but that all ended within the first five minutes of speaking. We had a great group in the room and every one of them asked intelligent question which was great since I was expecting there to be at least one "smart guy." You know, that guy that attends something just to haggle the presenter.  Anyway, the opportunity was great and I received many positive comments during and after the presentation. I look forward to working with those other traders tomorrow and for the rest of the week and 

Hey guys welcome to my first trading rewind of the new year, I've been trading since Monday, but today was the first day that I actually received some valid signals. Actually, I lied, I did have two valid signals yesterday but I hesitated and missed out on about 70pips between the two. No biggie, I look at that as my adjustment period and as a message that I need to get refocused and pick up on where I left off last year,  unfortunately today didn't start off good. I put up my charts at about 7:55 and saw a triple top forming on USDCHF. I quickly looked left for some structure and entered the trade.  This trade ended up being a bad one. Not for the fact that it lost but for the fact that I didn't follow through with all of my rules. One of the things I need when looking at the market is ratio confluence and this trade had none. I was a little upset at myself but didn't want it to ruin my day so I took a line from the TV series which I've been watching on Netflix lost (yes I know I'm like 5yrs late) counted to five and forgot about it. 

Around this time last year my new years trading resolutions were a lot different then they are now. Last year I was in a bad place mentally and at the point where I really had to re-construct myself in order to get focused and keep with this career. My goals were a lot more specific and dealt with following my trading plan, and handling my money management better. Honestly it's a big relief that I didn't have to go through that same life or death (figuratively speaking of course) scenario and could make a goal of something that I actually wanted to do instead of something I had to go.  As you know I'm a firm believer in "Kaizen" philosophy of continuous improvement so this year I wanted to improve my knowledge of the fundamental side of trading.  Don't get me wrong, I will still trade using strictly technical analysis, but I would like to know more about economics and how everything works so I can have a greater respect for the market I guess, but also involve myself in some deeper conversations with my peers.  When I tell people that I'm a trader in the financial markets (and I proudly say that instead of backing away from that title like last year) the first thing they usually ask is a fundamental type of question like "so what do you think about the European Union?" And I usually answer "well I know it's bad". lol Seriously though, I usually explain to them that I strictly follow the charts and could care less about the news that comes out. Needless to say getting into a conversation on technical analysis with people that know are unfamiliar usually ends pretty quick. So I would like to have something better to talk about.  Mainly I would just like to know because I feel like I should be knowledgeable in the field that i do my work in whether it's specific to my techniques or not, but I would be lying if I told you the social involvement factor, especially with my peers in the field wasn't a factor. 

 I would love for anybody else to share there New Years Trading resolutions as well. Maybe you can spark an idea for a fellow trader.

P.S. Starting next Monday I will be working with Triple Threat Trading & T2 University running a live trading room. There will be a free 2 week trial so please check it out. https://t2trading.tv/ratio