Jessica's TCG Progress

I come from a corporate finance background.

What pushed me toward trading was my situation, I’m living in a foreign country, I don’t speak the language well, I don’t have a network, and the job market has very different technical requirements. On top of that, I was tired of the workload in finance and not having enough time with my family.

Trading gives me the flexibility to earn from anywhere and improve my quality of life. I also genuinely enjoy learning about the economy, sectors, companies, and recognising patterns in the market.

I’ve been a TCG member for about two months, but I’ve been watching The Chart Guys YouTube channel for around six months.

I started trading in the second half of 2020, mainly buying and holding technology stocks for several months without really understanding the market. It worked at the time because we were in a strong bull market.

In the first quarter of 2021, I got scared during the drop in growth stocks and sold everything, locking in a big loss. I came back into the market with a much smaller position size. That’s when I decided I needed to actually learn how to trade.

Since then, I’ve been going sideways for about five months and I’m still not consistently profitable. Before that, my account was slowly bleeding.

Right now, I know I need to improve my discipline, sticking to my stops based on my risk tolerance, avoiding FOMO, and not selling winners too early. Another challenge is staying flexible, being able to shift between bull and bear mindsets depending on the intraday trend instead of getting stuck in one bias.

I trade U.S. markets, mainly NYSE and Nasdaq.

What I was looking for from the community was deeper education in technical analysis, help identifying better setups, a stronger understanding of price action, and the chance to exchange ideas with other traders.

Since joining, I’ve improved in a lot of areas. It’s actually hard to point to just one thing.

I’ve learned when to trade momentum versus reversion, how to properly draw support and resistance, how to use moving averages, where to place stops, and how to size positions to manage risk. I’ve also improved in using multiple timeframes, avoiding FOMO, and understanding how important it is to stay calm while trading.

Dan’s videos are packed with valuable lessons, and the whole team and community have been very helpful.

In terms of results, from August 2020 to January 2021, I made about 20% on a six-figure account just by staying long in a bull market, without much knowledge.

From February to December 2021, I gave all of that back. Over the last five months, I’ve been roughly breakeven.

Honestly, I see that as progress. My account isn’t shrinking day after day anymore, and I’ve had some really solid periods even in a choppy market.

I first found TCG through Investopedia as one of the best places to learn technical analysis. After watching the YouTube channel, I realised how much value there was in the short daily videos, and eventually decided to join the community to speed up my learning.

What I like most is the environment. The content is high quality, the platform is well organised, there’s strong support during trading sessions through videos and the chat room, and the members are engaged. The team is knowledgeable, accessible, and easy to learn from.