People email this question more than you'd think, so here it is on one page. The short version: nothing on this page is magic, none of it is sponsored, and the cheapest item on the list (the spreadsheet) is the one that actually made the difference. The usual disclaimer applies twice over — what I use tells you nothing about what will work for you.

Broker & execution

Schwab, cash account, no margin. I moved from a different broker in 2022 mostly for the options chain layout and stayed because moving brokers is the adult equivalent of changing schools mid-year. Charting and order entry through thinkorswim (Schwab's platform, inherited via the TD days), which I have slowly, grudgingly customized into something I can read at 6am without coffee. The mobile app gets used maybe once a month, always in a supermarket, always for something I shouldn't be doing on a phone.

Charting

TradingView on the free tier for weekend chart study and marking up things I'm watching, because thinkorswim's chart drawing tools fight me and life is short. If TradingView ever deletes free accounts I will complain loudly and then pay for it.

The journal

A Google Sheets spreadsheet I built myself in March 2023 and have rebuilt twice since. One row per trade: date, ticker, direction, size, entry, stop, exit, P&L, and — the columns that matter — "setup name" and "what I actually did vs. what the plan said." The second one is where all the lessons live. It syncs to a monthly tab that feeds the trade log numbers, so there's no gap between what I record privately and what I publish. That was deliberate, after year one, when the private version was flattering and the truth was not.

Hardware

A 2021 laptop that cost $480 and a pair of 1080p monitors from roughly the same era, one of which has a dead pixel I've named. Trading does not need a $3,000 machine; it needs two screens so you don't alt-tab your way into bad decisions, and a chair you don't think about. I spent real money on the chair. No regrets.

What I've read

Books that survived three years of annual culling, in the order I'd hand them to someone starting:

• Trading in the Zone, Mark Douglas — the psychology one. If you read one, read this. Reread it every January like a weird ritual.
• The Daily Trading Coach, Brett Steenbarger — 101 short lessons; the "pick the ones that apply" format actually works for self-improvement, unlike most books that demand you read them front to back.
• Market Wizards, Jack Schwager — mostly to remember that the interviewed greats also had years that would have ended me.
• Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman — not a trading book, which is exactly why it belongs on the list. The chapter on loss aversion explains roughly 80% of my 2023.
• Best Loser Wins, Tom Hougaard — the newest one on the shelf. The title is the whole thesis and I'm fine admitting it took me two reads to actually believe it.

What didn't survive the cull: anything with "guaranteed" in the title, anything with a Lamborghini on the cover, and one very thick book on technical indicators that I now realize I kept out of guilt. The library did fine without it.

What I don't use

Signal services, discord groups, prop firms, bots, and anyone on any platform whose bio contains the word "alpha." If a tool promises to trade for you, at some point it will. The about page covers the money side; the archive has the posts where I learned each of these lessons the boring way.