Tools of the Trade | Podcast Episode #115

0:00
Hey everybody, this is Ryan Mallory with Swing Trading the Stock Market, and we’re gonna do an email tonight. If you remember the last episode, I talked about the part-time trader, and I’m gonna pick that up on my next episode. This time around, I want to do an email and this email is gonna be centered around tools of the trade.

0:15
What kind of tools do I use? What charting platform do I use? How do I get my information, and so forth. So we’re gonna go through all of that and hopefully. Some of this might be helpful for you, especially if you’re just starting out on trading, to be able to get some good stuff, some tools in your arsenal that you can use.

0:31
Speaking of tools, I’m gonna promote this sucker right out of the gate. I started a podcast membership. It doesn’t have any effect on my existing episodes or the episodes that I’m gonna do in the future. The format’s gonna stay the same. I’m just giving you something a little bit above and beyond what I’m already giving you in the podcast, and that is an ability to take advantage of the.

0:49
Research that I do each and every week for the stock market. I’m a full-time trader, so as a result of being a full-time trader, I’m doing a lot of research on my own, hours and hours a day. So I wanted to do is to make that available to you without actually having to break the bank from a financial standpoint.

1:05
So there’s a number of different options that ranges from like $5 up to $20. It’s through Patreon. So if you go to swingtradingthestockmarket.com, again that’s swingtradingthestockmarket.com. It’ll direct you to the Patreon. Site and on there you can choose what you want.

1:20
There’s everything from just, you know, regular market updates to getting FAA updates that includes Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google, and I’m also throwing in Microsoft and Tesla. I’ll update those every week for you, provide you with the charts, and there’s also my own personal watch lists, the charts that I’m finding most intriguing each and every day.

1:40
It’s all there for you to be able to take advantage of. So go ahead and check that out, swingtradingthestockmarket.com. OK, with that said, New whiskey tonight here. You know, I’m getting kind of old here. Uh, I just turned 40 this year, I guess, not necessarily too old, but it’s, I’m feeling older.

1:57
I usually wear glasses when I work during the day. I never have to like take them off or anything. I’m nearsighted, not too bad, but I never have to take them off if I want to read something right in front of me, but now I’m having to take them off because everything looks blurry to me. So I guess that’s just something as you get older.

2:17
You start to notice those things, but yeah, I have to push the glasses up a little bit to be able to read the label on this.

2:39
It’s Black Eagle bourbon whiskey, aged 3 years. Holy cow, I can’t even read the writing on this thing. I’m gonna have to get the flashlight off on my iPhone just to be able to read what I’m, what I’m talking about here. So again, Black Eagle bourbon, aged 3 years, old style individual. barreled bourbon whiskey distilled from only the finest quality ingredients for a genuine full bourbon character.

2:54
It’s only 80 proof, so that’s 40% alcohol. I said it before, I always like it when it’s around like 48 to 50%. I like the strong stuff. They say this is original, so I don’t know what black eagle unoriginal is all about, but nonetheless, I’m gonna give it a shot here. And I’m just drinking it neat.

3:14
I’m not doing any ice. I would have done it with ice, but I didn’t fill up the ice trays. So as a result, I’m gonna have to step it up here and be a man, drink it neat. I can’t be a wuss about it and, and not drink it. So, gonna do that. It’s probably gonna taste a little bit stronger, but if it’s 80 proof, I don’t think it’s gonna be too strong.

3:30
All right, here’s the Black, Black Eagle bourbon whiskey. Yeah, let’s give it the sucker a whirl. Not sure there’s a ton of flavor in that. I mean, it’s not bad, but not a ton of it. It’s a little harsher than I thought it was gonna be. Didn’t see that coming, but uh.

3:48
Relax a little bit on the flavor side. I don’t know what it is, that flavor that I’m tasting in there, I don’t know, there’s a whole bunch of stuff going on there. I’m gonna read this label again just to figure out there’s some clues as to what I was tasting there. Good, I’m not like some kind of professional, I’ve never even gone to a bourbon tasting before. Just giving you My own experience is telling you what I’m drinking.

4:04
I like to do it because when I’m doing the podcast, it just relaxes me a little bit. So it’s that finish that I’m just not sure what I’m tasting there. I’m gonna Google it. I’m gonna figure out what that chunk was. I’m gonna read somebody else’s review to see if it sheds light on what I’m, I’m tasting. I guess this is like one of Total Wine store brands.

4:28
I don’t think it’s that great. It’s funny though, because it actually kind of looks like it’s diluted a little bit already. It’s just, it’s got a like a very thin color to it. If there was probably a good use for it, I’d probably use it for a Jack and Coke, and I’m not even really a big fan of Jack and Coke anymore. If I’m gonna drink something that’s like a cocktail with, with bourbon, it’s gonna be like a old fashioned, but this is pretty much the only thing I could find a really good juice for it would be a jack and Coke.

4:43
It, it would probably do great with that. I think it’s a little bit better than like if you were drinking like a Southern Comfort or a Jack Daniel’s, but it’s not that much better. I may even say Jack Daniel’s is better, and I’m no fan of Jack Daniel’s. If I was given a score on a scale of 1 to 5, I’d give it like a 23. It’s just not that impressive.

4:59
Anyways, let’s talk about this email that I got, right? Hello, Ryan. I accidentally came across your podcast and immediately became a big fan. I’m not sure if you already covered these topics in your podcast before, but could you please advise us new traders to trading about tools that you use for stocks?

5:14
What software websites do you use to buy and sell stocks? What resources, websites do you use to gather technical and fundamental data, and what you use for recording your trades history, how many monitors one needs to have to do trading comfortably, etc.

5:36
Thanks again. For sharing your knowledge and experience. Well, that’s, that’s kind of nice. The guy was like straight to the point here. He, uh, had a lot of questions actually. I don’t know if you can get to all of these in, in just one episode. I’m gonna try to. I think these are all very good questions and while I can give you like the insights into what I use and what I use to trade with, with it being a podcast, I can’t get like really into the, the nitty gritty details.

5:52
Maybe for the on the patrons side, if you go to the swingtradingthestockmarket.com, I’ll go ahead and post a snapshot after I get this podcast posted. Of my trade setup here at the office. So in any case, go ahead and break down this email here. He’s a big fan of the podcast.

6:10
Um, but he wants to know about the trading tools I use for stocks. So the main one for me in terms of doing like research, I don’t focus a lot on fundamental research. In fact, most of the time, if I need to do some fundamental research, it’s usually at the very basic kind. So I’m going to like a Yahoo. If I need to see a balance sheet, they usually have them there.

6:32
I haven’t looked at a balance sheet in ages. But, um, if it’s not like something like that, if I’m just trying to find out like what a PE ratio is or or something of that nature, I usually just go to uh Yahoo Finance. So I think that’s like what yahoo.com/finance. Probably one of the more fundamental aspects that I’m most interested in usually is, one, the earnings states, because I don’t want to trade through earnings, and the other is the market cap.

6:49
So I don’t want to be trading like a stock that’s only like $10 million in market cap or some extremely low flow. So I like to look at the volume. I like to know. Uh, what kind of market cap am I dealing with? Most of the time I don’t have to look at that, but if it’s a stock that I’ve never traded before, then I will do that. I mean, like I don’t have to look at the market cap for Apple.

7:05
I know it’s like, you know, 100 quintillion for a market cap. It’s like absurd. But yeah, so when I need that information, I, I use my software for that I use for charting because that they make that available along with a lot of other fundamental data as well, and that’s called TC 2000 and whatever platform.

7:23
Listening to this on if it’s on the Apple platform. I have a link actually to the TC 2000. Um, it’s a, it’s a referral link, so I do get a little bit of compensation for it, but I’ve been using that since, I want to say I’ve been using it since like 2010. I mean, it’s been a long time that I’ve been using it, and it, I’ve never really had a desire to go outside of that.

7:40
I’ve seen some people, I’m talking to this guy on a weekly basis in Australia who I’m coaching one on one, and Uh, it’s, it’s kind of fun because I’m being exposed to the Australian markets and I’ve never even traded in the Australian markets, but technical analysis is technical analysis. So you, it applies across all the spectrums.

8:06
But I’m, I’m learning a lot about the Australian markets right now, and he uses trading view, and I think that’s a pretty good one. And so I’ll, I’ll tell you straight up front, you know, like, if you signed up for the TC 2000, I’ll get compensated for that. I’m not telling you that. You need to do that. That’s why I’m telling you also about TradingView because TradingView also seems like it’s a pretty good platform in terms of what I’m the most comfortable with is TC 2000, and it’s one of, one of the things that I like the best about it is the customization.

8:28
I think it’s very easy to customize it exactly the way you want. I think I’ve had the same layout for maybe 89 years now. I haven’t changed it that much. I mean, I changed it from time to time, just maybe add a little tweaks and stuff, but Not nothing too crazy, but one of the other things that I like, and I think a lot of times we don’t appreciate this enough, but it’s how fast can you go from one chart to the next.

8:44
One of the biggest things for me when I’m looking at a charting software is that how hard is it to go from Apple to Google? Like if I have a watch list, and let’s say I have 100 stocks in it. And let’s say like the 1st 5 is Apple, Google, Netflix, Amazon, Facebook, the Fang stocks, right?

9:01
Do I have to click on each one of those to bring up the chart, or can I just hit like a space bar and it just goes to the next one on the watch list? It’s one of the things I like about TC 2000. I can flip through so many charts per second, like it is like instantaneous hit space bar, next stock loads up, hit the space bar, next stock loads up.

9:18
And that’s something that I really, really appreciate. Because you can’t find that a lot of places. A lot of times you gotta type in each one, or you got to click on it with your mouse, or you got to wait for it to load. I don’t want that. I just want, boom, come on up. And so, when I can hit the space bar and it instantly shows up for me, that’s what I like about a charting platform the most.

9:34
And so that’s why I use TC 2000. That’s probably the number one reason why I use it. And it’s a great software, very customizable. I can pretty much do anything I want on it, and that’s huge. Any case, TC 2000 is the one that I like the most. It allows me to organize my watchlist very well.

9:49
It’s a very good alert system. Um, if you’re using alerts, it has just the ability to add any kind of indicator that you could possibly imagine. I think it even allows you to create your own indicators, which that’s pretty cool too, um. And just a whole host of other things. Just I like the organization on it.

10:04
I can create a lot of different like I have like one tab for just sectors, right? And then it lists all the sectors out for me and I have another tab for industries and it allows me to have all the industries. So it’s a really cool thing. So what software websites do I use to buy and sell stocks? Again, pretty simple. I have a Fidelity account. I use Think or Swim.

10:20
I think they’re a pretty good platform overall. I think I’ve been with them probably since like 2007. I was. them before they were part of TD Ameritrade, which is kind of cool. I really liked them when they’re the most when they were not part of TD Ameritrade. Not that TD Ameritrade has done anything wrong to them, but I always liked that small time feel that it had.

10:37
It was really cool. It was just a totally different vibe. But TD Ameritrade has done a pretty decent job of keeping them as is. They haven’t, they do their updates and stuff like that, but they’ve kind of kept the spirit of Think or Swim alive from many years ago. So Think or swim. Fidelity, they’re both $0 commissions in the United States here, so that’s good too.

10:52
Again, I’ll bring up the Australian, uh, guy that I’m working with here. They don’t have free commissions in Australia. It’s brutal. Um, they actually pay a decent amount for every one of their trades. I wish it wasn’t like that for them. I wish they can make their trades at 0. Commission, I bet you they’ll come around though. They see how it works in the United States. Somebody will pull the trigger on that.

11:08
But again, uh, for, for technical fundamental data, TC 2000 is my main component for that, um, because he was asking me again what, what resources websites do you use for to gather technical and fundamental data. Uh, I’m pretty simple when it comes to trading. Uh, what do I use for recording my trade history?

11:24
That’s a good point. Actually, I use, I use Google spreadsheets. Um, nothing too fancy there. I just, that’s, that’s what I’ve always used. So I have like just years of data, in fact, you can go on my website, there’s just years and years of data of all my traits that I’ve ever placed and stuff. I’m trying to update that about now about once a year.

11:45
Um, I used to do it every month, but it’s just become a little bit exhausting constantly uploading that to the website and everything else, but, um, nonetheless, uh, there’s about, I think you can go from, uh, the beginning of 2020 all the way through 2011 was the first year I started posting them, uh, publicly, so you can go back and see just a ton of different trades.

12:00
With, with the podcast, uh, becoming a lot more popular and with YouTube channel, like just exploding and growth as well, time has become a very precious resource for me. I’m a single parent as well. I have a 12 year old boy, a guy is rock solid as a, as a kid.

12:19
I mean, he makes me look like an all-star parent or at least I know what I’m doing. Um, not to say that I do, but he makes me look like I know what I’m doing. He’s definitely requires some time too just because I want to be a good father. So there’s a lot of time constraints on me right now these days, uh, especially with, like I said, the YouTube and the podcast just exploding in popularity, which I’m hugely thankful for.

12:36
It’s been awesome. It it wasn’t really something I plan on happening, at least not on the YouTube side, but it did, and the podcast has just been consistently growing over the years, but it’s that even that. Starting to pick up some major steam too, which, by the way, if you guys can, whatever platform you’re listening to me on, make sure to leave a review if you haven’t done so yet.

12:51
A lot of you guys are leaving some unbelievable reviews. I mean, like I’m really humbled like sometimes I can’t even get through them all because it’s just, it’s hard to, it’s hard to believe that some of you guys could think so fondly, uh, of, of the stuff that I’m saying on the podcast and my and the help that I’m providing. But I’m just trying to keep it real with you guys.

13:10
I’m trying to tell you about the struggles and uh. And the the hardships, like, for instance, Friday, there was a part of me that wanted to get out of the Nvidia trade and, and I didn’t do it and it was mainly because I didn’t want the emotions to get the best of me because I felt like by doing that, I was just trying to take the easy way out because when I was looking at the chart, there was no technical damage on the chart so I was like, why would I get out of it?

13:26
So I held on to it and of course you had a decent, decent run in it today. We’ll see if it can continue in that tomorrow, but nonetheless, um, there’s always a story in the stock market. There’s always a story almost every day there’s a story. Another question, how many monitors do you need to have to do trading comfortably?

13:46
That’s a, that’s an interesting question because I have had a number of different monitors over the years. I’ve had some really strange setups. Now, when I first quit my job, I thought, OK, I need a massive set up. I need the set up of all setups because. I kind of felt like, OK, if I have a bazillion monitors, if I have 10 monitors, I will be set to go.

14:05
So I, when I bought my system, I had a friend that helped me and we, we set up a con a configuration where I think it was like 4 video cards inside the computer, and at the time we could only find video cards that supported 2 monitors at a time. So we had 4 video cards supporting 2 monitors each for a grand total of 8 monitors.

14:24
So I sat at this desk, got it at Sam’s Club. And it had 8 monitors, so it was like 4 crossed on the top and 4 crossed on the bottom, and it kind of like curved around. It was like, like Batman, not, not like Dark Knight, which was a pretty good one, but I’m talking about like Jack Nicholas, Mike Keaton Batman, that was kind of my setup there.

14:41
If I was in a cave with some bats hanging, it would have been legit. But in any case, and by the way, while Dark Knight was good. I still think that Batman with with Jack Nicholson and Michael Keaton was the best, the best. No, I didn’t, I, I can’t say anything about the sequels. The sequels sucked.

14:57
Which is not the case with Batman Begins, Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Returns. Um, those were all great. I loved every one of those, but there, but that one Batman movie, that was good. You want to get nuts? Let’s get nuts. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you need to watch the movie.

15:15
So back to the original question, how many monitors does one need to do trading comfortably? Right now, I’ve kind of gotten into these, uh, wide screens, not like your traditional wide screens, but it’s kind of like they’re like these stretch wide screens. I don’t know how do you explain them, but I got 3 of them, and I got 2 on the bottom and then I got 1 on the top.

15:32
And it’s kind of cool because the 2 on the bottom are basically at the level of the desk, like they’re, they’re vertical, they’re perpendicular to the desk, but Bottom of them are actually touching the desk themselves. So that’s kind of cool and then I have the monitor, a much bigger monitor, but it’s also wide screen going across as well.

16:02
Like I said, um, if I can do it, I’m gonna take a picture of it and I will post it to the Patreon account. Remember, you guys gotta, gotta check that out. But you don’t need a ton of monitors to be able to trade comfortably. I mean, I think you can do it, honestly, on 2 monitors. I, I think 3 is a good, good combination because Like for me, on one monitor, I have my Thinkorswim or the Fidelity, whatever it is that I’m using at that time, and then I also on the top monitor have the TC 2000, and then I have web browsers on the other, and uh that’s nice.

16:21
I also have a TV, uh, in the room here, so I can like play, you know, Laverne and Shirley or I Love Lucy during the day. But, uh, no, I, in all seriousness, the, the that sometimes the TV is nice, especially if it’s like a FOMC day, I want to be able to hear what, what’s the Fed gonna do to, uh, tank the markets this time.

16:42
Um, or rally the markets depending on how they’re feeling. So I’ll, I’ll have the TV handy for that. I use YouTube, uh, TV for that. That’s actually pretty good. I like, I’ve been really impressed by it, quite honestly, it’s way better than like what DirecTV is or, um, Comcast or I had Hulu uh cable too, but I still think YouTube TV takes the cake.

17:08
But, um, I also had another time too, and this might be an option for some of you. I, I just basically had like a 55 inch TV and looking back, I don’t know if that was my favorite setup, but when I used the 8 monitors, the big problem with that was the heat that it was putting out. And I’m sure the technology is a little bit better because that’s like 10 year old technology I was using at the time, but I remember I’d had a, like a, like a freaking air conditioning unit sticking out of the, out of the window just to be able to cool down.

17:24
My office, like, if I didn’t do that, the whole house could be like 75 degrees, but that back room would be like 91 degrees. I kid you not. There was times where I was like sitting in my boxers working just because it was so freaking hot in there. That was before I got the wall unit and somebody came over and was like, dude, you just got to get a wall unit.

17:40
So I went to, went to Lowe’s and I got one and uh that definitely made my life easier. Um, it made the house look ghetto as anything that sucker sticking out, but, um, you just don’t have a lot of those down here in Florida. Anyways, got that done, but I, I, I, I don’t think that you need 8 monitors, quite honestly.

17:57
There was a lot of times where I had inactive monitors, and then I like kind of even went even further nuts. I had another computer that I put on there and I, at one point I had like 11 monitors in the room, again, way overkill. Uh, I was flexing hard on that one. I didn’t. Need to be doing that. But right now I’m very comfortable with the 3 monitors. I think the 3 monitors is still, uh, been really good for me.

18:23
It it it balances it out really well and I’m not like searching all over like 8 monitors to figure out where a certain document is. And then when I did the big screen, which was like 50 or 55 inches. Um, I had a software where you could like create basically like custom quadrants or uh sections on the big screen so that you could like attach a browser to a certain section of your monitor and it wouldn’t overlap anything else that was going on and you just could do that with all of it.

18:42
So that was kind of nice too, and I’m sure that software is still out there somewhere. I, I got, I got it off of some, some website. I don’t even remember what it was, but it does work good. I think, um. That’s something to consider too if you don’t want to pay out for a lot of monitors or like 3 monitors, you can just get a big monitor. But again, you’re gonna find yourself looking up, uh, really high and sometimes you get a kink in your neck.

19:18
Overall though, um, just to wrap it up here, again, Think or swim, Fidelity is what I use for my brokerages. They’re not giving me any kickback for that they should, but they don’t, uh. They, uh, the, the charting software that I use is TC 2000.

19:39
I think that’s great. I think in another alternative is trading view. They seem to be a pretty good one as well. As far as trying to gather fundamental data, most of the time you can get that through your, your charting platform. They usually provide some technical data there unless you’re like a legit fundamental trader, you’re gonna ignore the technical data, then, then you, you might have to do some research on where to get that out.

19:55
I would probably say like a Bloomberg uh type subscription. I’m not sure. And then for my trading history, I just created my own on Google spreadsheets. And actually, I have a lot of tools on the website that I give out for free using spreadsheets, some checklists and stuff like that. You just go to the top of my webpage on shareplanner.com, click free resources, and it’ll, it’ll give you access to it.

20:14
And, 03 monitors, I kind of like that. The best, get the little stretchy widescreen monitors, whatever they call those, but they were pretty good. I like them. Um, make sure to have a good amount of RAM, at least like 16 to 32 gigabytes of RAM in your computer because some of these programs are. intensive.

20:33
I think I have 48 gigs on my computer and I still think I should probably go up to 64, but I also use some pretty intensive resources like Dolby Audible for, for my podcast that you’re hearing here and then also like the resources for doing video editing software as well for like the YouTube channel. Nonetheless, if you guys have any questions, feel free to hit me up, ryan@shareplanner.com.

20:33
So thankful you guys listen to me every week. Your emails are awesome. Make sure to keep sending them to me because, um, I have a folder of all of your emails. I stash them in there and, uh, if it’s something that I feel like, man, this needs to be immediately addressed, I’m gonna get to it right away. Um, otherwise, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll stick them in there and I’ll try to use them at the right time for a future podcast. So make sure to keep sending them my way. I try to do them in the fastest manner as possible. Thank you guys, and God bless.