Hi Traders, I'm Luke from disciplined trader.
In this video I want to run you through mytrading setup and give you some advice on how to build your own.
I don't have the fanciest setup in the worldbut I'll let you know the things I'm glad I did as well as the things I wish I'd doneor not done when putting this setup together.
So lets start with the chair, this is a SteelcaseLets B Task chair, it's a solid chair with adjustable height and arm supports.
I haven't owned many desk chairs but I canreally recommend Steelcase as a brand, I've had this chair a few years now and it's stillgoing well.
You may notice as well I have a memory foamcushion on the chair, this is just because it helps me stay comfortable for long periodsof time.
This again was a good purchase and can bepicked up from amazon for around £20.
Staying of the theme of comfort, I also havea memory foam foot cushion which acts pretty much as a foot rest.
Again this helps keep me in a supported andcomfortable position whilst I'm at my desk.
This was a little more expensive than theseat cushion and can again be picked up from amazon for about £30.
Over to the computer itself.
I have a Hewlett Packard Prodesk 600 TowerPC.
It came with an Intel Core i5 Processor, 4GBof DDR3 Ram, 500GB Hard Drive and an on-board graphics card.
I picked this up a few years ago now for around£600-700.
Since then I have upgraded the RAM to 8Gbs, added a 250GB Solid State Drive and installed an Nvidia GTX960 graphics card.
If you aren't computer savvy, these upgradesaren't particularly expensive or difficult to do yourself.
I upgraded the Ram and hard drive purely toincrease the speed and performance of the machine.
I specifically choose the Nvidia GTX960 graphicscard as it supports up to four monitors – which we'll look at shortly.
I'd say all in all I've probably spent another£200 on computer upgrades over the time I've had the PC.
I'll talk about these more at the end of thevideo Moving on to the desk.
I picked this desk up from an office furnitureshop local to where I live for about £200-£250.
I went for this desk as I like a lot of roomto work and also prefer desks that sit in a corner as this makes it easier to utiliseall the desk.
It's definitely not much of a looker but I'dchoose usability over aesthetics when it comes to a desk any day.
Looking at the peripherals now, nothing toofancy here either to be honest.
I have a standard Hewlett Packard keyboard, I stuck with this mainly because I like the tactile feel of the keys.
I intend to buy a proper mechanical keyboardat some point but this keyboard is still working fine so why change something that isn't broken.
Then I have a Logitech Proteus Spectrum G502mouse – a mouthful I know.
I think I picked this mouse up for about '50but it's price changes all the time.
I chose this mouse because nothing infuriatesme more than a mouse than doesn't work well, especially when you're trying to put a tradeon! It's a wired mouse so there's no need to chargeit or change batteries, it tracks well and I like to do a bit of gaming in my down timeso it's obviously good for that too.
Underneath these two I have an extra largemouse pad, again this is just for convenience, I find this much better than a small mousemat and my desk is big enough to have one.
I think I picked this one up for about £15.
On my desk I have a phone stand for my Pixel2, data cables coming from a USB hub under the desk and just some general stationary.
I have a headphone standing supporting a pairof Audio Technica ATH-M50x headphones.
These were more than I thought I'd spend ona pair of headphones coming in around £100 but they are well worth the money.
I use them a lot for editing and just generallylistening to music.
Highly recommended if you are in the marketfor a pair of headphones.
Speakers wise I am using Bose Companion 2Series 3 desktop speakers.
If you just want some speakers for generaluse then I highly recommend these.
The sound is fantastic and you just plug themin and they're good to go.
I picked these up for around £70.
I then have a Rode PSA-1 microphone standholding a Blue Snowball microphone.
This is the mic I use for all my live tradingvideos and any voice overs I do for other videos- including this one.
I think it's brilliant and I picked this upfor about £40-50.
If you wanted to spend a little more on amic I have heard very good things about the Blue Yeti as well although I've never triedit.
The mic stand I bought purely for convenience.
It cost about £60 and there are cheaper alternativesbut to be honest none of them came close to this one.
It's really stable, doesn't make any creakingnoises, very easy to adjust and stays exactly where you put it.
Again I'm very happy with this and would definitelyrecommend it.
For video when sat at my desk I use a LogitechC920 HD webcam.
I paid around £50-60 for this a year or twoago and have been very pleased with it.
I think the video quality is very good andit even has a built-in microphone.
The audio can sound a little bit tinny butit's useful to have a backup.
Moving on to the main aspect of what makesthis setup easily identifiable as a trading setup and that's the monitors.
I'm using four Acer K22HQL 22 inch monitors.
These things are not the flashiest monitorsyou'll ever see but they served me very well so far – especially considering I picked themup for about £75 each.
I've had them for about the same time as I'vehad the PC, one of them needed repairing within the manufactures warranty and one developeda screen issue about a year later and I replaced it.
I seem to recall buying them from some sortof closing down sale from an online retailer, which was why I got them cheaper.
The last of part the desk is the unsung hero, the monitor stand.
This is the Lavolta four arm monitor mount.
I picked this up from amazon for around £60with mixed expectations.
However this is a very very good piece ofkit.
It's extremely well built and sturdy and hasbuilt-on cable clips to make managing cables very easy.
It may not be the most attractive monitorstand on the market but I'd be happy even if I'd paid double what it cost.
And that's it, that's my trading setup.
I didn't buy everything we've covered herin one go, it has been a working progress where I added and upgraded parts as and whenI can and needed to.
But I'm assuming if you're watching this videoyou are thinking about building your own setup or making changes to an existing one so letme give you some advice based on my experience.
Point One – don't over overboard.
If all you plan on doing on your machine istrading, surfing the web, answering emails and so on then you don't need a super powerfulPC.
Something with a Intel core i3 processor orsimilar with 4-8gbs of ram and a decent sized hard drive will do just fine.
If you want to only use one monitor then moston board graphics cards will deal with this no problem.
However, if you want to use a multi monitorsetup then you'll probably need to buy a standalone graphics card.
Again don't go overboard with this either.
You'll find when looking at graphics cardsthese things can be very expensive.
All we need ours to do is provide multi monitorsupport and this isn't that taxing for them.
Look at the older models and find one thatsupports the number of monitors you want to use.
Then obviously use the advice we covered earlierin the video to make sure it's compatible with your other parts.
Point Two – Ask yourself, do I really needeight monitors? Or however many you are thinking of using.
In truth, I probably don't need four monitors.
I've become very used to having all that screenreal estate but it's not a necessity.
When I come to changing my setup I will probablyopt for two larger monitors instead of four.
Point Three – if you are going to have a multimonitor setup, take care when buying a graphics card.
As I've mentioned, the card I use wasn't thatexpensive and there are definitely cheaper alternatives if needed.
Just make sure than when choosing a graphicscard you're sure of three key things, 1) it fits in your machine – so make sure your motherboardhas the correct slot to support it (it's usually a PCI Express port although you can checkon the specification page of the card you are looking at to make sure) and also makesure that there is physically enough room in the PC case to house the card (some ofthese cards can be very large!).
2) Make sure it supports the amount of monitorsyou want to use.
Again this can be found on the specificationpage of the card you are looking at.
And 3) Some cards need an extra power supplyif they are particularly powerful, if so, make sure the power supply in your machinehas the extra wattage to power not only your graphics card but the rest of the componentsas well.
The specification pages of these cards usuallynot only states the power needed for the card but also recommend a minimum overall powersupply for a PC using this card which can be used as a good guide.
They also tell you what type of power connectorthe card will need so you can make sure your power supply has the correct one – adapterscan be used if need.
Point Four – Now we've talked about makingsure the specification of your graphics card is compatible with your machine, an easy thingto overlook is make sure the outputs on your graphics card can be matched with the inputson your monitors.
For example, my graphics card has 1 HDMi output, 2 DVI D Outputs and a display port output.
My Monitors only have a DVi D and a VGA inputon each.
Therefore I had to buy two DVi D to DVi Dcables, 1 Hdmi to DVI D cable and a display port to DVi D cable.
This part can be very tricky when trying toget four monitors to work.
It's much easier when using less.
Point Five – if you haven't got a use forit don't buy it.
I have a drawer in my home office and a boxin the garage with a host of things I've bought and never used just because I thought theylooked cool at the time.
Save your money for things that you will useor put it towards a better PC or monitor.
Point Six – if you are thinking of buildinga pc from scratch, use a website called pc part picker as a starting point.
It has a comprehensive list of pc parts andcomponents and will tell you which parts are compatible with others.
It can be a huge help.
And the last point – remember who the setupis for.
It-s easy to start buying certain things becausesomeone else likes them or recommends them but this setup is for you so make sure thethings you include suit you.
For example, the first desk I bought was avery narrow rectangular desk that I bought because I thought it looked cool.
It lasted about 6 months and then I had toget rid of it as I hated working on it.
I bought the big bulky corner desk I havenow and I love that desk.
And that pretty much covers everything! You are now ready to build your own tradingsetup.
Let me know if the comments below if you haveany other questions or if you have any tips, advice or trading setup stories, I'd loveto hear them.
I hope you've found the information in thisvideo useful, if you have please consider leaving a like on the video, it helps othersknow that it's worth watching.
Also if you haven't done already, considersubscribing to the channel.
Everything I upload on the channel is aimedat making people better and more informed traders.
Thanks again for watching and I'll catch youin the next one.
.
