Work, Certs & Stock

[Macallik86]

Today was an unintentionally important day.

I mentioned it before, but by making it to June, I was able to cop my bonus. Seeing the email with a dollar amount was


The more I can redirect to my trading account, the better. Of course, they don't just give you the bonus and keep it pushing. It is centered around reviewing the last six months and setting goals for the next six months. Since I don't know where imma be in a year's time, I half-assed it and rehashed the stuff I am teaching myself for my next gig.

Ironically, it just so happens that the skillset I'm working on personally line up perfectly with a position that the CEO had recently asked my boss about creating and filling. I don't want to get my boss' hopes up but I did acknowledge that the things I'm teaching myself would be a good fit. I'm not where I want to be execution-wise, but by the end of the summer, if my skills are looking right, I will be looking to pad my salary or test the job market waters if the water looks warm.

My boss is interested in the idea of some new interesting analyses my way, and one of my senior coworkers had a family emergency and has been MIA, so I will be using some of my new skills to backfill his workload to a degree. I don't want to end up doing work above my pay-grade like before, so I may need to set some ground rules up front.

I'm still committed to being there through August. The idea of going to a new office environment or job interviews during Covid isn't too appealing tbh but if they money's right, we'll see...

I think I can negotiate +3 days a week WFH indefinitely. That allows me to trade uninterrupted, which is the only path on my radar to financial freedom outside of doing the corporate hustle for +30 years.

Trading
I looked at some charts yesterday and placed some trades this morning. I'm not exactly rolling in the dough, but some good exp. points. I'm not trying to become a millionaire overnight, just putting in my dues to get better and stacking my chips:

Trades entered

• GERN
  • Entry Price - $1.83
    • Sold 1/3 of my position at $1.97
  • Target Price - $2.31
• CYDY
  • Entry Price - $3.29
  • Target Price - $3.45
• PASO
  • Entry Price - $.0949
  • Target Price - $0.1378

Trades exited

• OPK
  • Entry Price - $2.63
    
  • Exit Price - $2.56
    • Exited prematurely to avoid taking a larger loss. If the price looks good tomorrow, I might re-enter

6/19 Watchlist

• ABML
• BYZN
• SRNE
• OPK

 

[Macallik86]

I'm infatuated with the markets again to the point that I actually banned myself from looking at the stock charts on Saturday. In terms of my job, there are some pretty big deliverables that I'm going to be working on with my boss. Monday isn't here yet and I'm already a little anxious. However, this kinda pressure will give me a chance to push myself, stay busy and earn my keep. I will need to make sure to carve out some time to exercise/decompress so that I don't stress though. This week is going to be a doozy.

I will throw up my more in-depth weekly update tomorrow. Here are the stock that I have my eye on. I might not get involved in any of them depending on how the markets play out and/or how much free time I have:

6/22 Watchlist

• ZNGA
• TRIB
• AGRX

 

[Macallik86]

It's been a busy day, so I haven't gotten a chance to review last week unfortunately. Speaking of not having enough time, I want to go more in-depth with my trading in the journal but my schedule is packed during/after work. I did manage to review the markets after work again today & my watchlist is hella stacked right now:

6/23 Watchlist

• MYT
• COCP
• ALRN
• KOPN
• DRRX
• WTRH
• FORW
• VUZI
• CIDM

6/22 Existing Positions

• SRNE
• TRIB
• GERN
• ZNGA July $8 Calls
• SPY Diagonal $295/285 Bear Put Spread
  • Basically, it's a play where I'm betting the stock market will stay above $295 through Friday and drop below $285 by mid-July. I forgot to report on this position but I opened it late last week. It is at breakeven right now. I'm thinking about closing it out and/or rolling all the legs forward because the markets appear to be pushing higher again

 

[Macallik86]

Weekly Review

Spoiler: Stats

Spoiler: Detailed Breakdown

Last Week's Goals

• Complete Section 14 of Modern JavaScript Course
• Finish watching Linear Regression playlist from YouTube
• Read Chapter 5 of Data Science Book
• Review the stock market for at least 3 separate days this week
• Average 7 hours of sleep for the week

Looking at the stats, last week I spent almost half of my study time on the stock market. It is hella addictive but I might want to lower that number down to maybe 30-40%. Outside of that, although I didn't hit my target, I did improved on my sleep compared to last week. I will try again this week but it is going to be a struggle if people keep letting off these damn fireworks late at night. Let me jump into what I did last week:

Analytics
I read another chapter in the Data Science for Business book. The theme was models that overfit that data... aka models that work well for data when the answer is known (aka test data or historical data) but, when you throw some random data into the model in real-time, it shyts the bed. Conceptually, this chapter was easy to understand and I created a bunch of flashcards off of it. With that said, I'm going to pause reading the book for now and hop back into it when my schedule allows it.

I also watched close to two hours of videos on Regression to build on my (lacking) statistical analytics skills. It helped, but I think I am too used to learning this kind of thing by reading. While struggling through one of the videos, I had an aha moment. I don't have an air conditioner and the heat has been killing me so I plugged a fan into the next room. It was kinda low so I propped it up with some old hardcover books I had lying around...

...Turns out, one of the book propping up the fan was a used college stats textbook I bought off Amazon in 2013. I never got around to reading it, and it is in terrible shape with a lot of water damage, dirt and dust. I took a break from the Regression videos and read a few pages and it was pretty easy to follow. I decided to cop a used-but-likely-in-better-condition version of the textbook off eBay for $6. I will assign myself some chapters from the book sometime next month.

Programming
I completed Section 14 of the Javascript course which was more DOM manipulation. The exercise at the end of the section was dope. I was a little anxious at first, but it was a quick, (very) lightly formatted version of the NBA results you'd see on a Wikipedia page. Here's a screenshot of the results:

I know it looks weak lol.

The task wasn't about formatting, it's more about formatting web-pages as a page is loaded. The elements are all created in JavaScript, and the font-weight/row color are all edited dynamically, based on the data, by looping through JavaScript objects. In other words, I didn't just highlight a number and make it bold or highlight a row and made it red/green. For each row, the code I wrote is determining which number is higher and whether that is seen as a win or a loss by the fans viewing the page.

The course will eventually ramps things up with more and more projects, but I have to admit that I've gotten complacent around passively learning. There is a pet project I've had on the backburner for months due to sheer scope. I told myself I'll start it once I finish the JavaScript course, but aint no time like the present to get started. I will try to put a dent int the project little by little, starting this week.

Trading
I got my mindset right last week and then, decided to enter some trades. I had my first profitable trades of 2020 lol. It feel good but I was trigger happy and bailed to early on a lot of my positions. My risk management is there but I need to work on letting my winners run, as well as avoiding overtrading.

Currently I'm profitable but I do need to implement more structure into my approach so that I don't burn myself out. I haven't found time to review my trades which is a necessity... I can't learn from my mistakes if I'm not documenting what my mistakes are. It is a tough practice though. It's easy look at stock charts & chase money, but it's hard AF to look at charts and examine your L's. One tool that helped me back in the day is the Trade Journaling website TraderVue. I think I might start that again.

One last thing. Over the years, I have used Google Docs a lot for trading note-taking. My notes are spread across a bunch of files and folders though so I need to reorganize that. Additionally, there is a Google spreadsheet I created that I use daily to estimate risk & determine trades to take. It could use some restructuring so I want to make time for that too.

Work
Part of the reason I'm taking a breather from the Data Science book is to work on my fundamentals. Another reason is that I’ll be tackling analytics heavily at work and need to reallocate some of my resources to fully understand WTF I'm doing. It will be along the same line as what I've been studying, but industry specific and around an existing analysis that we create for clients annually.

There is a new book that I will be tackling when it comes to analytics for my job. Earlier, I mentioned that I had a stats book lying around that will be helpful for my fundamental learning. Turns out, for my job's request, I happen to have a separate book lying around that will be useful. Technically, it's my boss' boss' book that I borrowed and forgot to give it back, but I've had the book for maybe +2 years. I only thumbed through a few pages back then since it was (and still is) very industry-specific and specialized. However, I do think some of the modeling ideas could help me grasp data science even better, so why not.

The report I'm creating is client-facing, and the data is the data, but if my results suck or has glaring errors, my company will lose some big clients. It's unspoken, but there is a lot of pressure around the reports. At the end of the day, I'm playing with the house's money (and data) since I technically was supposed to quit months ago, so I am not sweating the reports as much as I might have last year, but I might as well commit myself to actually trying instead of phoning it in.

General
I spent an hour and 20 minutes making flashcards this week. Sounds like a lot of time, but it wasn't nearly as much as previous. The new process I'm using to create flashcards is working great and has cut down the time it takes and I am learning more efficiently.

Speaking of learning efficiently, you may have previously seen me sharing deals in the Udemy Courses thread or the Software Career thread. I am a fan of a quality education for the low. I don't rock with pirated materials, but there is a lot of quality content to be found. I came across a book called UltraLearning a while ago and, after reading some reviews, placed a digital hold on it through my library. Fast forward to this weekend, I was notified that it's finally my turn to borrow the book. Since I'll only have it for a short period of time, it is going to be something I work on throughout the week. In the long run, it can help me become better at teaching myself how to program, analyze data, trade or whatever else I teach myself down the road. I will write a review on what I learned eventually if it's worthwhile.



There are so many things to work on now. I officially have a backlog. Here is what I decided to work on this week:

6/22 Weekly Goals
Trading

• Upload my trades to the trade journaling website TraderVue
  • If there's time, analyze them. If not, do it next week
• Clean up the documents related to trading on my Google Drive
• Clean up the spreadsheet I use to review stock/calculate risk

General

• Average 6 hours 45 minutes of sleep
• Listen to the first three hours of the Ultralearning book

Programming

• Spend at least 3 hours working on my personal Web Development project

Analytics

• Read the first three chapters of the industry-specific analytics textbook for work
• Finish Sections 5 & 6 of the Data Visualization Course

 

[Macallik86]

Weekly Review

Spoiler: Stats

Spoiler: Detailed Breakdown

Last Week's Goals

• Upload my trades to the trade journaling website TraderVue
  • If there's time, analyze them. If not, do it next week
• Clean up the documents related to trading on my Google Drive
• Clean up the spreadsheet I use to review stock/calculate risk
• Spend at least 3 hours working on my personal Web Development project
• Read the first three chapters of the industry-specific analytics textbook for work
• Finish Sections 5 & 6 of the Data Visualization Course
• Listen to the first three hours of the Ultralearning book
• Average 6 hours 45 minutes of sleep
• Read Chapter 5 of Data Science Book
• Review the stock market for at least 3 separate days this week

Looking at last week's stats, it was an overall productive week. I spent less time watching the markets which is a step in the right direction, but still the majority of my time was spent on trading-related goals.

Unfortunately I didn't hit my sleep target this week and actually performed worse than last week. The amount of sleep I'm getting is starting to mirror my pre-Covid clubbing/drinking days, so I need to rein that in. This week is going to be tough with fireworks probably at an all-time high due to July 4th. We gon see

Analytics
I knocked out more of the Data Visualization course and created some flash cards around it. I'm actually looking forward to creating graphs and charts. Previously I avoided that part of my job.

Work
I started reading the work-related text book to assist with the client-facing report, but with the tight deadline the client-facing report moved at a pace much faster than reading could help out with. Tackling the book didn't make a lot of sense after my first day working on the report, so I read about a chapter and never opened it again.

With regards to the report, it is almost finished. The report uses a combination of SQL, Excel and R. Right now, I'm stuck dealing with some R package-related issues thanks to a deprecated package. My skills in R are limited so it was good to get some more practice with it. It is at the back of my backlog of new software to learn though.

But yeah, generally the report went well. My boss was there to walk me through most of the steps, but it was still stressful with account managers asking for updates and a lot riding on a timely delivery of (hopefully) positive data. I'm like 85% through the report and need to cross the finish line before the holiday weekend so I'm not quite out of the woods yet and then... I have to do it all over again for another client ASAP.

Programming
For my personal project, I technically only completed about 2 hours of my 3 hour goal, but progress is progress. Building a website requires so many decisions. I spent most of my time reviewing the competition and weighing design choices to copy/avoid, but I did write a little code as well which felt productive.

I think I may need to save the formatting for last and focus on the main guts of the website for now. Formatting can be tricky and constantly revised while the actual code is a lot more static. Saw a video that Bootstrap 5 had its alpha release. I might try to implement some of that where possible if it is in beta a few months down the road.

Trading
I played around with a few trading journal options before pulling the trigger on TraderVue over the weekend. They are tried and true and I do get a discount because of an old forum I used to be a part of. I didn't get around to actually analyzing my trades though, so that is on my agenda for this week.

One of my other trading goals was to switch up the spreadsheet I use to analyze trades. I looked at a few online templates and googled some free user-created layouts for inspiration/stealing.

My updated spreadsheet includes usage of the GoogleFinance( ) formulae to automatically pull price and a sparkline chart when a symbol is provided. I also relied on light JavaScript to automatically sort/remove data since I wasn't sure of the formula equivalent. Although there's room for improvement, I paid more attention to formatting with the revised copy and it shows.

Spoiler: Before

Spoiler: After

In terms of actual trading, I had a good week. I gave a chunk back today but that's how the game goes. Overall, I just feel more in tune with the markets if that makes sense. I'm less worried about my bottom line and more worried about trading well.

General
Last week I listened to over 3 hours of the Ultralearning book. Audiobooks are easier to digest but harder to take actual notes compared to a book. I try to pause the app to write important things in a Google Doc but I'm not sure how much I will be able to retain compared to reading the book. It has been interesting so far. I might splurge and buy the eBook eventually.

I also knocked out some more flash cards and created some affirmations to tackle some areas I've struggled in recently.


My Business Stats book came in today so I want to figure out what I'm doing there. A part of me wants to read a chapter a week but that is not an efficient usage of my time. I'll figure something out. In general, the holiday weekend, that should give me more time to tackle more tasks but I might cake it 1-2 days. Here are the areas I plan on tackling:

6/29 Weekly Goals

• Average 6 hours 30 minutes of sleep
• Review the trades I have completed so far in 2020
• Listen to Ultralearning book for one hour
• Finish Section 7 of the Data Visualization Course
• Spend at least 2 hour working on my Web Development project
• Research and select appropriate chapters from the Business Stats college textbook that will strengthen my understanding of key data science concepts.

 

[Macallik86]

Weekly Review

Spoiler: Stats

Spoiler: Detailed Breakdown

Spoiler: Stats (Prior Week)

Last Week's Goals

• Average 6 hours 30 minutes of sleep
• Review the trades I have completed so far in 2020 (Partially)
• Listen to Ultralearning book for one hour
• Finish Section 7 of the Data Visualization Course
• Spend at least 2 hour working on my Web Development project
• Research and select appropriate chapters from the Business Stats college textbook that will strengthen my understanding of key data science concepts.

For the July 4th week, I took a break from intense studying and went to my first social event in months. I drank too much and binged Sopranos for most of the weekend so it was a chill week. I bounced back nicely last week and that is what most of this update will cover.

I've made improvements sleep-wise. Although I did slide back a little last week, I am trending in the right direction.

Analytics
I took a look through the Stats book and highlighted chapters that I want to read. However, after finishing the Ultralearning audiobook (see the 'General' section below) I decided that I will tackle the subject matter as needed instead of proactively teaching myself a bunch of stuff I am liable to forget. My goal is to get a job in the field, not to win Jeopardy.

One thing that I can check off my list is the Data Viz course. I finished the course last week. I learned a lot of formatting tips/rules that I never thought about. For example, through programming courses, I learned about using coolors.co for creating a website's color scheme, but I never thought about using it to make a cohesive color scheme in for a PowerPoint presentation. I have always struggled with my data presentation skills and this course has made me more confident for sure. I do need to find time to put my newfound skills into current presentations though. But yeah, I'll do a mini write-up of the course at some point.

Next up is the Data Science topic. I put the Data Science book on the back burner to tackle an important analytics-related work deliverable. That has been sent to the client but I don't feel motivated to get back into the Data Science book. It is denser/more advanced than I expected. More importantly, I don't think that I am going to learn the desired skillsets by passively reading the book. I might revisit it at a later time, but for now I have been researching online courses and I'm currently leaning strongly towards Pluralsight.

I need to reaffirm what I want to learn though. Data Science has been interesting so far, but I don't have any immediate need for the skillset.

Alternatively, Power BI has immediate need in my company. There is one dude on the team that does our Power BI tasks and he is clearly overwhelmed right now. Couple that with the fact that my current SQL/Excel skills ties in nicely with Power BI and it seems like a no brainer. I don't want to be a Jack of All Trades (read: master of none), so I need to slow down and dedicate some time towards a decision, and then sticking with it.

Work
Today, my boss let the team know that the guy who joined my team a few months ago is having his hours drastically reduced. He was spending about 50% of his workload on tickets and that is dropping to 10%. It wasn't mentioned but I anyone reading between the lines can see the rationale... When they thought I was leaving, they needed to train a replacement ASAP but now that I have rescinded my notice, the department just doesn't have a budget for both of us. It makes sense but I feel for him having the rug yanked from underneath




Fwiw, he isn't getting laid off, he is just going back to his old department which has a much lower ceiling/salary potential. He is smart AF and underpaid relative to his potential. To be honest, it reminds me of how I was jerked around in my first few years at the company. I told him that when I have downtime @ work, I will be starting some online courses and we can tackle them together if he wants. That way, he can still leverage some new skills to demand a better salary or a new gig altogether.

Programming
I've been putting in work on my personal website project. There is nothing like applying knowledge to retain it/truly learn it. Styling/designing the website is going to require the most decisions, so for now, I will focus on the back-end stuff. Working on this task, I've found that it takes longer to get a good work flow going instead of smaller time blocks. I will try to structure my time accordingly moving forward.

Trading
Today was one of those sucky days that felt terrible but were lowkey good because it was a humbling reminder. I was up on a bunch of stock positions and gave most/all of the profits back when the markets reversed. I'm glad I avoided checking my P&L all day so that I will never know how much $$$ I left on the table.

Overall though, I am confident in the markets in a way that I haven't felt before. It could very well be due to the market environment, but it doesn't feel like that. Only time will tell. The biggest difference between how I used to trade and how I currently trade is risk management. Scared money doesn't make money but neither does reckless money. I reduced the size of my trades and the amount of $$$ at risk and I am less emotionally-invested (pun-intended) in my losses. At the same time though, imo, I have gotten better at cutting my losses when a stock doesn't perform like I think it should. I will have a more in-depth post on risk management one of these days.

Speaking of going more in-depth, last week I realized that I had been dragging my feet on reviewing my old trades because of how much time it would take. I decided to break it up into more manageable chunks, and I instantly knocked a couple reviews out and picked up on some bad habits I can improve upon. To keep the progress going, I plan on reviewing trades for a total of three hours this week, with a max of one hour at a time.

Lastly, I started the process of moving my Roth IRA from eTrade to TD Ameritrade. I have regular accounts with both brokers and find myself using TD Ameritrade's desktop app (ThinkOrSwim) more and more ThinkOrSwim is more complex but are best in class when it comes to a lot of things, such as contingency orders. For example, when the markets open at 9:30, there is a lot of chaos with most stock. A stock may gap higher, shoot lower and then bounce back higher in the first five minutes. ThinkOrSwim lets me set a time when an order goes live. eTrade doesn't allow this. The one downside of ThinkOrSwim is they charge for extremely cheap penny stock but I will probably steer clear of that in my IRA anyways.

General
I finished the UltraLearning book. Highly highly recommend it. The concepts that affected me the most (and how I will approach things in this journal) are:

1. For a project, 10% of your time should be based on research/understanding the task - For example, if I'm taking an online course that will take 60 hours, I should spend 6 hours researching which courses/teachers/study material is the best. Sounds like a shytload of time initially, but the alternative is getting 10 hours into a course and realizing that the content isn't what you expected or the author doesn't explain things well. I feel like this kinda/sorta happened with the Data Science book but c'est la vie.
2. Nobody gets good at anything by reading alone - Understanding is in the reading, true learning is in the doing.
3. The hardest parts are the parts that need the most attention - The squeakiest wheel should get the oil, but typically the parts that we hate about a subject are often the areas we unconsciously overlook/ignore. The greats get better by focusing on the areas that need practice, not the areas they are already good at.

The author (Scott H. Young) He has an online course available but he is doing himself a disservice with the set-up of it. It reads like a scam. He doesn't tell you the price anywhere on the website and you have to join his mailing list to be notified when you can sign up. Also, I read he is charging a grip for it. Perhaps he feels that he is eliminating people that are likely to drop out, but speaking from personal experience, he would get a lot more $$$ if he lowered the price and got more overall people to join. For now, I will look to his podcast for advice/tips. He has over 100 episodes so that is enough content to last me into 2021 I'd imagine.

I started a new audiobook 'Winner Take All by Anand Giridharadas'. I suppose it is indirectly related to my career to avoid poorly tuning my moral compass when I eventually start making beaucoup bucks. I'll carve some time out during the week to listen to that more.

7/13 Weekly Goals

• Average 6 hours 45 minutes of sleep
• Review trades for 3 hours
• Review June trading notes (late AF, I know)
• Review June work notes (late AF, I know)
  
• Listen to 'Winner Take All' book for 3 hours
• Put in four hours on my Web Development project
• Weigh the pros and cons of diving deeper into Power BI vs Data Science

 

[Macallik86]

Weekly Review

Spoiler: Stats

Spoiler: Detailed Breakdown

Last Week's Goals

• Average 6 hours 45 minutes of sleep
• Review trades for 3 hours
• Review June trading notes (late AF, I know)
• Review June work notes (late AF, I know)
• Listen to 'Winner Take All' book for 3 hours (Technically, I listened for 2 hours, but I listen @ 2x speed)
• Put in four hours on my Web Development project
• Weigh the pros and cons of diving deeper into Power BI vs Data Science

Still behind on my sleep... I'm going to tackle my daily stock market review a little earlier in the day to avoid staying up later. For what it's worth, I have stopped beating myself up internally when I don't get enough sleep. Sometimes it's due to going to bed late, but lately, I've had a few days where I wake up @ 5am for no reason. It happened before Covid, but that was usually my body telling me I partied too hard and was low on fluids.

Analytics
I didn't do much in terms of analytics this week, but the work I did was important. Below is my thought process on Data Science vs Power BI as my next step:

It is clear that Power BI is the way forward for me at the moment. I'm happy to finally put the internal debate to rest and refocus. I won't completely drop Data Science, but it will be taking a back seat. If there are some SQL-heavy Data Science career paths down the road, I might reevaluate my decision.

Work
Last week was a good work week. It was mostly spent dealing with some aggregated data that wasn't processed successfully.

I took PTO this entire week and so imma be cold chilling.

Programming
I've been putting in work on the personal website project. Granted, I haven't done much programming but I get the feeling that this is what building things often feels like. My JavaScript has taken a back seat temporarily as I focus on integrated Google Forms into the website. From there, I will use the Google Sheets API to either store the results in a database I can query via node.js or, use Google sheets as a poor man's database and just keep all the data there.

On a related note, a few months ago, I purchased a JavaScript-related Udemy course. It is about leveraging the back-end of Google's productivity apps (Docs, Sheets, Gmail, etc) via JavaScript. To my Excel brehs, it's basically giving macro-esque functionality across Google's apps, except it uses JavaScript instead of VBA. I have been taking course lessons here and there with understanding that it will make my web page cleaner and could save money potentially.

I'm still in the very early stages but I am contemplating whether I need to learn Firebase to 'easily' turn the website into a PWA (Progressive Web App) that I can throw in app stores. I'll have to do some research. I know that if I go that route, it is better to have it in my mind early, but it a bit overwhelming having so many new things to learn. For now, I will just focus on building the website.

Trading
I did the math and close to 75% of my productivity last week was trading-related. As I said before, trading is addictive AF, but more importantly, the time feels like it's actually paying off. It's still waaaaay too early to make it a career, but my mind is drifting there more often. For the first time in my life, it doesn't seem like a pipe dream as much as an goal that is attainable with some planning and sacrifices. They say something like 95% of traders fail and I know that the odds are stacked against me, so I'm saying none of this lightly.

It isn't even that I made a million bucks or anything. It is more about the consistency. I have to add the disclaimer that the markets are pretty bullish right now. Typically, irrationality occurs right before a reversal in the stock markets and the markets feel pretty irrational as they continue higher in spite of Coronavirus and state lockdowns. I have improved when it comes to trading breakouts, but trading in a bear market is something I am not very experienced in, so imo that will like the final boss in terms of making trading a career. Until then, I am constantly looking for ways to refine my current trading strategy to be more efficient.

General
I'm about 75% through 'Winner Take All'. It's a very good book. The main message is that society has gotten used to praising/becoming dependent on rich benefactors contributing to charity. The current narrative around wealth is that it is in bad taste for society to be critical of rich people after they donate to noble causes. However Anand (the author) rightly says that giving a couple million to charity doesn't absolve the ways money was made or the social good that was stolen from the general public via tax avoidance schemes. Good book and I recommend it to everyone.

Switching gears. Me having this week off almost feels almost like a test run for if I quit my job and traded for a living. Today was the first day and so far, it's been great. Since I've been WFH since March, it wasn't a drastic change but I don't feel as guilty watching the markets between 9am and 5pm, and I have more freedom and less stress throughout my day.

I'm not saying I'm in a rush to quit my job and trade for a living, but my trading consistency will impact how I negotiate with the company in the future. If my trading in the Fall is still consistent and they start mandating coming into the office 5 days a week, then I can see myself taking a hard-line stance of at least 3 days per week WFH or staggered hours that allow me to trade in the morning.

7/20 Weekly Goals

• Review Web Development Bootcamp notes & make flash cards
  • In the spring I wrapped up a +40 hour course and haven't revisited my notes since lol. I want to lock in that knowledge, so I'm going to take the steps to do so
• Fix my ThinkOrSwim chart layout
  • ThinkOrSwim is my favorite brokerage by far but I haven't used their charting platform in years since web-based TradingView came along. I do occasionally interact with their charts though, and it is obvious that I haven't used the chart in years. I want to update the software so that it feels more personal/modern
• Import personal trading data into Power BI and build a personal dashboard
  • A little side project that kills three birds with one stone:
    • Motivates me to play around with Power BI prior to taking a deeper dive into the software
    • I like the trading journal software website but they are withholding some features for a higher paying tier that I think I can replicate personally via Power BI
    • The dashboard could make me more efficient as a trader
  • This feels like a big task though and so I will break things down into smaller pieces. My main goal this week is to standardize my data across my two brokers but also flag when a trade is from my regular account or my retirement account
• Put at least 2.5 hours into reading/practicing price action trading in Laurentiu Damir's book
  • Price action trading is thought to be one of the hardest ways to trade the markets but provides for endless opportunity whether the markets are going higher or lower. I think that I can recession-proof my trading by leveraging Price Action trading so I am getting my toes a little wet with the book. I want to dedicate some time applying the ideas onto charts as well.
• Spend at least four hours testing Google Form and understanding/implementing the Google Sheets API. If there's time left over, tackle the Google Apps Script Course.
  • One takeaway I had last week is that I need concrete goals around the website or my productivity will drop. This my defined objective for the website
• fukking relax a little
  • I didn't take the week off with the expectation that I will be spending every waking hour being productive. I will carve some time for some Netflix binging and general fukkery. Gonna try and get an ex to slide to the crib and (temporarily) restore the feeling.

 

[Rawtid]

This is so dope and inspiring! I need to be more purposeful with my days. I always say I’m going to start something and I end up veering off.

 

[ecnirp1]

Five star thread... Love your mindset bro

 

[Macallik86]

Thanks yall for dropping a line! It's definitely motivating seeing that other people are following along as I try to figure this shyt out.




My to do list was a bit overwhelming this week. I'm not burnt out or anything, but I was starting to become inefficient, tackling tasks prematurely that aren't really moving the needle. I sat down today and structured things a little better. Below are my notes but I am thinking about using a project management website as well to avoid this happening in the future. I'm going to do some research on the apps that are compatible with Toggl.com (how I track my time) so that I can kill two birds with one stone.

Analytics
Power BI

• The trading project is bigger than I thought but has a lot of overlap in terms of trading as well as skills for my job.

1. I made a lot of edits to my trade tracking spreadsheet. I need to make sure all the formula are still working
   
   
2. I need to update prior tabs in the spreadsheet to make historical data compatible with the formatting changes
   
   
3. Load the latest data into Power BI
   1. Make sure to update tab names.
      
      
   2. I created a primary key so I need to make sure that all future data is loaded into the same dataset instead of a separate table
4. Start working on Pluralsight's Power BI course during work hours when I have free time.

SQL

• I am above average at querying (although there's definitely room for improvement) but I have some huge knowledge gaps in terms of automating processes and more advanced SQL functionality. Working on the Power BI/Trading project has made me more aware of this. To assist, I've watched some lessons from a Udemy course I bought a while ago, but I also want to revisit a SQL book I copped I first got promoted years ago. Either will do the trick of shoring up some fundamentals

1. Skim Book & website and handpick areas that are directly applicable to my Power BI/Trading project. I'm not writing a thesis paper so I don't need to understand every nook and cranny for now.
   
   
2. Tackle the most relevant information first and then, when you have time, revisit the less important stuff.

Data Visualization

• I think there is still greater potential for me to execute the knowledge from the Data Viz course. I might throw something together just to share in this thread to get the practice. Since completing the course, I've pulled some ad hoc reports for work but they were all more about the #s than the presentation. If I don't practice what I've learned, the new skills will weaken.

1. Reread my notes on the Data Viz course as well as some of the formatting choices from user-submitted assignments
   
   
2. Use some of the advice for the data viz course to restructure my trading spreadsheet so that it is more visually friendly
   
   
3. I impulse purchased a book on Data Viz from a blog I occasionally read. Since I'm currently not even executing data from the Data Viz course I just finished, I am in no rush to start the book. They had a used copy for $10 after shipping though so I pulled the trigger with the quickness.

Trading
Current Trading

• This weekend I need to do my DD for the week and scan the markets for opportunities. The markets look unsure right now so I want to trade smaller positions so that I have less risk on the table. Also, I have been drifting towards Forex, Futures, pure price action trading or other people’s strategies when that is all a few months away. This week, my main focus will be my current strategy and how I can improve it.

1. Update my charts on my brokerage.
   
   
2. Knock out 1-2 hours review
   1. Review my notes/thoughts made for the last week of trading
      
      
   2. Review prior trades to look for good/bad practices that I can improve on or eradicate
      
      
   3. Make notes on the different setup types that I am trading (this is so that I can tag trades in Power BI)

Price Action Trading

• This is important but might be getting too much attention currently. When I do have time for this, here is what I want to do:

1. Finish the Price Action trading book and test drive the method in a paper-trading account
   
   
2. Review the journals of popular online traders that have a similar strategy

Forex

• Once I have wrapped my head around price action trading then I can learn more about Forex. There is no need to dive head first into forex until then.

1. Read Forex explainer book
   
   
2. Complete research on Forex brokerage options in the US and fund an account.

Programming
Website Project

• This is a project with a large scope so I think I need to break things down into smaller, more manageable pieces. Once that happens, it won’t feel as cumbersome or like I am going sideways and I can start to check more things off of my list.

1. Test drive Google Forms
   
   
2. Connect API to the specific Google Sheet
   
   
3. Rereview my notes on building websites from the Web Development Bootcamp course on Udemy. Specifically, dig deeper into the following areas:
   1. Routes
      
      
   2. Nodes
      
      
   3. Best practices on CRUD
      
      
   4. CSS formatting ideas
4. Create bare website pages to have a navigational structure in place.
   
   
5. Bring in the seed data that I have created
   
   
6. Format the Google Form so that it is more appealing

About to go kick it with the homie and two chicks so I might not be productive for the rest of the day but I'll try and knock some stuff out tomorrow worst case scenario.

 

[Macallik86]

Weekly Review

Spoiler: Stats

Spoiler: Detailed Breakdown

Last Week's Goals

• Review Web Development Bootcamp notes & make flash cards
  • Didn't even attempt this one. It's a big task but I'll roll part of it forward to this week
• Fix my ThinkOrSwim chart layout
• Import personal trading data into Power BI and build a personal dashboard There's work to be done but lots of progress
• Put at least 2.5 hours into reading/practicing price action trading in Laurentiu Damir's book
  • Didn't tackle this either. When the markets felt bearish on Thursday/Friday I kinda checked out.
• Spend at least four hours testing Google Form and understanding/implementing the Google Sheets API. If there's time left over, tackle the Google Apps Script Course.
  • I put in an hour of YouTube videos/tutorials on the Google Sheets API. Still more to go.
• Relax a little
  • Caked it Saturday night. Had a pregnancy scare with someone else earlier in the week. WATTBA.

Sleep was trash last week. I keep waking up for no reason around 5am. It may be because of too much sodium and not enough liquids perhaps? I don't know how to stop from waking up early, but I can work around it by going to sleep earlier...

It was a semi-productive week. I didn't spend all day watching TV, I just didn't accomplish a lot of the things I set out to do initially.

Analytics
The Power BI project around trading took up a lot of my spare time last week. I was heavy into creating macros to automate processes. I wanted to import Google Sheets data into Power BI and I knew I could either use a macro or try the import tool in Power BI. I have this habit where I sometimes take autonomy over efficiency. It has happened at my job and it reared its head here as well...

I decided to use the macro without even researching the import tool. I got what I needed to get done using VBA and lots of googling, but I wasted like 3-4 hours and then ended up going the Google Sheets route when I realized how easy it was. I got some more experience coding in VBA which is good but I don't want to continually end up on side missions that marginally help me achieve my main goal.

Work
The week off felt good. The paycheck for one week of work and one week of PTO is going to feel good too.

Programming
No major progress on this avenue but I know what I have to do at least. I will get back in the nitty gritty of JavaScript more this week. Being that Google Sheets uses JavaScript on the backend, I have been getting more practice there, but mostly just very simple functions to update cells automatically.

Trading
Last week started off heavily focused on trading and then tapered off as the week went along. It is primarily by realizing on Wednesday that I don't need 8 hours of watching the markets to make/lose money. The markets can be addictive in unhealthy ways, and so I am glad that I started refocusing my attention during the day to more productive ways to spend my time.

The stock market week started off bullish and then turned a bit bearish by Thursday/Friday. It actually shook up my confidence a little which has been sky high. I think I'm too emotionally invested on keeping the marginal gains I have, but scared money don't make no money. I feel a little uncertain about the markets right now so I lowered the size of new positions by a third. Once I start making $$$ again, I'll raise it back up.

General
I finished Winner Take All. Great book & highly recommended. Breh has a reveal in the final chapter where he admits he was a part of the problem and the reason why he knows all the people he references in the book is because he worked in that world. Not 100% surprising given all the in-depth interviews he got, but adds an additional layer to the book.

This is the first non-technical book I've completed in a long time. I want to carve more time out for content that may not be directly tied into my career or making more money. I think that since it was an audiobook, it was easier to multitask and listen while grocery shopping or going for a run so I may need to take that into account.

Speaking of audiobooks, I listened to the podcast of the dude who wrote the last audiobook I listened to. I've only listened to like 2 episodes so far because they hit so hard that I gotta let em sink in. The last episode I listened to discussed people who are overly motivated to learn. It sounds great at first but the author mentions that after the strong initial interest dies down, they usually get bored and jump to a new topic without fully learning the last topic. I have seen flashes of that in my study habits and will keep an eye on it. I don't want to add any new tasks to the agenda until I knock out a lot of the existing stuff.

I also started using a Project Management website. The (free) website is called Toggl Plan. It is owned by the same people that own the timer app that I use (screenshots at top of post). I think they bought out a company and stuck their name on the PM app though because the integration between the two software seems like a bit of an after thought. It does the job for now.

I've been using it less than 24 hours but it has potential. I can be more structured around large tasks like the Power BI and Website Projects. I am going to need to sit down and flesh out the specifics. Some follow ups for me are I need to make sure I know how to use Kanban boards. To all the Android nerds out there, you can trigger dark mode on the website by hitting the 'D' button on your keyboard.

Here is what one of my boards looks like right now:

Spoiler

7/27 Weekly Goals

• Aim for 6 hours 45 minutes of sleep. Also, be in bed by 10:30pm
• Figure out how to use Kanban Boards properly/effectively
• Once I understand how to leverage Kanban, create project timelines for Power BI/Website.
  
• Reread your Web Development Bootcamp notes.
  • The main focus will be on creating Routes, CRUD, getting node.js up and running and installing all of the right dependencies.
  • If there's still time, I'll create flashcards but it's a lower priority for now given how labor intensive that is.
• Review prior stock trades for two hours.
• Watch/read three hours of content around price action trading.

 

[Macallik86]

Weekly Review

Spoiler: Two Weeks Ago

Spoiler: Last Week

Spoiler: Detailed Breakdown

Last Week's Goals

• Aim for 6 hours 45 minutes of sleep. Also, be in bed by 10:30pm Complete fail
• Figure out how to use Kanban Boards properly/effectively Completed
• Once I understand how to leverage Kanban, create project timelines for Power BI/Website. Completed
  
• Reread your Web Development Bootcamp notes.
  • The main focus will be on creating Routes, CRUD, getting node.js up and running and installing all of the right dependencies. It took two weeks of procrastinating but I created the routes.
• Review prior stock trades for two hours. Only did 25 minutes. Need to review more this week
• Watch/read three hours of content around price action trading I found my groove. I'm far from perfect but watching price action is paying off already.

I haven't been doing as well as I could with the sleep. (Last week & the week b4). Was out drinking with the fellas or out on a date the last two weekends.

Work
I have been taking some online Power BI tutorials from my job's SharePoint. Not a lot but just dipping my toes in the water some more when I want to switch up what I'm working on. My department is struggling when it comes to hitting delivery dates around Power BI so I volunteered to help out when I get some time. Currently the guys running Power BI are great with data connections, creating dashboards etc, but aren't familiar with the data enough to cross-reference new reports with the source tables or quickly spin up reports.

My thought was that I should learn the back-end stuff and then focus on the front end aspects, but after talking it over with my boss, she just wants me to do the front end stuff. I would use Power BI to recreate queries that I would manually run/refresh as needed. I need to understand DAX and M a lot better but it isn't quite as technical as I expected it to be which isn't a bad thing. I do think I should learn the data warehousing pieces to be safe but it is a much lower priority now.

Programming
For the website project, I delved into some backend Javascript. It had been a while, so I rewatched some videos from the Web Development Bootcamp course I completed a while back. I dragged my feet on the backend section, but when I finally started, it was hella easy. I convinced myself that it would be a headache but so far, creating routes, using Express, setting up package.json, etc has all been pretty straightforward. It helps that I did it before and know the reasoning behind it.

I plan on implementing Bootstrap 5 into my project. Since Bootstrap 5 is still in Alpha (aka it technically isn't publicly available) I know that it will likely break my website multiple times, but the new features will make my website look modern AF and it will future-proof the website as well. Previously I have only used Bootstrap via a CDN but I want to switch things up and use node.js this time around. I am still wrapping my head around that implementation & I looked @ 1-2 YouTube tutorials. Both instructors used Gulp so I may need to dig into that some more.

Trading
It's still early but I am getting more confident as a trader. It's the good kind of confidence too. I am not raking in $1,000 a day but I am working on my consistency. I'm not a huge baseball fan but the analogy I would use is that I am not trying to go yard for every at bat... In fact, I am just trying to get onto 2nd base and from there, I let the probabilities do their magic.

I have been reading more of the book on Price Action and it has been helpful. It has allowed me to manage my positions better and with more confidence. It is still early but I feel like I'm turning another corner. Of course, plenty of people gain some confidence and then proceed to blow up their trading account, so I have to keep an eye out for ways that I can fukk myself over and remain vigilant all the time. That is the price of freedom to paraphrase the saying.

General
I have not been doing my flashcards for like 2 weeks straight. I know they are piling up and will be a bytch to restart smh.

Prior to this month, I think I undervalued time spent on Trading-related activities. That time has paid off handsomely so far and so I do want to nurture that area a bit more. It was already taking up a good 55% of my week but I guess I won't feel as guilty anymore. I will still tackle Programming & Analytics but they will get less dedicated time per week.

8/10 Weekly Goals

• Aim for 6 hours 30 minutes of sleep. Also, be in bed by 10:30pm
• Research NPM & Bootstrap
  • Figure out how to use Gulp if it is essential
  • Use Bootstrap to create a hamburger menu across the website
• Reread your Web Development Bootcamp notes.Review prior stock trades for two hours.
• Watch/read three hours of content around price action trading.
• Spend 1.5 hours reviewing prior trades

 

[Macallik86]

Weekly Review

Spoiler: Last Week

Spoiler: Detailed Breakdown

Last Week's Goals

• Aim for 6 hours 30 minutes of sleep. Also, be in bed by 10:30pm - Off by 15 minutes. I think I can get it this week though
• Research NPM & Bootstrap - Completed
  • Figure out how to use Gulp if it is essential
  • Use Bootstrap to create a hamburger menu across the website
• Reread your Web Development Bootcamp notes - Didn't do this but I didn't mean to include it as a task tbh. It was a copy/paste gone wrong
• Watch/read three hours of content around price action trading. Watched quite a lot of content on YouTube. There is so much free stuff that it can be overwhelming figuring out what to tackle first. I have a YouTube playlist specifically for educational trading material
• Spend 1.5 hours reviewing prior trades I didn't do 1.5 hours technically but I reviewed all the trades I had logged and had to upload new trades

Improved my sleep last week compared to the week before last but not quite where I want it to be. Had a midweek Tinder hookup which threw off my sleep schedule. I don't usually eat off of Tinder so I was surprised but not complaining lol.

Programming
Even after a few hours, I couldn't get my Node JS installation of Bootstrap 5 to work. It is possibly some conflict with my Chromebook developer environment? Eventually, I had to cave and use the CDN instead. I did some research on Gulp as well but most of my time was troubleshooting why Bootstrap wasn't working.

Trading
After giving myself permission to put more time into trading, I went ham-burger last week. Mostly all of my studying was around trading... I knocked out a book I grabbed from the library and I also found time to read a trading book that I purchased over 7 years ago. There is a lot of trading stuff in my personal backlog but I am making progress and prioritizing accordingly.

I uploaded my trading stats to the trading journal website TraderVue and I'll share the stats after I try some formatting using the online course I completed a few months ago. The results were promising even with the spacious room for improvement.

Work
HR sent out the email confirming that the office is shut down until 2021. Kind of expected but it is a relieft to actually hear it confirmed. It gives me more time to practice my trading and continue WFH. I got that steady income coming in thanks to my gig and lots of time to work on trading. I don't think I could've created a better opportunity to learn how to trade if I dreamt it.

General
Random post about utilizing the library yall.

Not sure how many of yall are taking advantage of it, but I just realized that I wasn't using its full potential. I always look at the library to see if I can grab a book for free. I noticed that my library usually has the mainstream stuff but not the really good stuff that costs an arm and a leg on Amazon. I noticed this for trading particularly but it happens in general too. I figured that the trading books being sold by investors are usually off limits from publishers and so that is why I couldn't find it at my local branch.

This week though, I did some light digging and found out that these books are usually available in the uppity libraries that are off limits to the public like private colleges. Turns out, there is a website that all libraries across the world use to list their catalogs. If you can't find a book locally, you can just submit a request to get a book from one of the private libraries and the library will reach out and get it for you. It's called an InterLibrary Loan. My new method is to look on Amazon for good books, then check my local library, then check WorldCat. Either way, I'm getting it for the free. Check it out if you are doing some reading.

8/17 Weekly Goals

• Aim for 6 hours 30 minutes of sleep. Also, be in bed by 10:30pm
• Finish Reading 'How To Buy' by Justin Mamis
• Read a chapter in 'Options As A Strategic Investment' that relates to my strategy
• Spend 1.5 hours reviewing prior trades
• Work on Website Project for one hour.

 

[Sonny Bonds]

Keep going breh. I'm going to make a spreadsheet for myself tomorrow on my learning goals. This thread is an inspiration.

 

[Macallik86]

Over the last few months, I have been focused solely on trading. I convinced myself that I didn't need to track my time since I wasn't splitting my time across a lot of projects. I now see that without my time tracking framework, I lost structure in general. I stopped reviewing what I learning for the week, where I could improve, where most of my time was spent, etc.

Trading is still my top priority but I need to restructure my days/goals if I want to track and measure my efforts. I created a daily schedule on Google Calendar and tomorrow will be my first day attempting to adhere to it. Luckily I have next week off, so it is kind of a dry run, but there are plenty of non-work related things I can work on throughout the day.