Hi Traders, I'm Luke from disciplined trader.
In this video I want to run you through my trading setup and give you some advice on
how to build your own.
I don't have the fanciest setup in the world but I'll let you know the things I'm glad
I did as well as the things I wish I'd done or not done when putting this setup together.
So lets start with the chair, this is a Steelcase Lets B Task chair, it's a solid chair with
adjustable height and arm supports.
I haven't owned many desk chairs but I can really recommend Steelcase as a brand, I've
had this chair a few years now and it's still going well.
You may notice as well I have a memory foam cushion on the chair, this is just because
it helps me stay comfortable for long periods of time.
This again was a good purchase and can be picked up from amazon for around £20.
Staying of the theme of comfort, I also have a memory foam foot cushion which acts pretty
much as a foot rest.
Again this helps keep me in a supported and comfortable position whilst I'm at my desk.
This was a little more expensive than the seat cushion and can again be picked up from
amazon for about £30.
Over to the computer itself.
I have a Hewlett Packard Prodesk 600 Tower PC.
It came with an Intel Core i5 Processor, 4GB of 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 upgrades aren't particularly expensive or difficult
to do yourself.
I upgraded the Ram and hard drive purely to increase the speed and performance of the
machine.
I specifically choose the Nvidia GTX960 graphics card 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 the video
Moving on to the desk.
I picked this desk up from an office furniture shop local to where I live for about £200-£250.
I went for this desk as I like a lot of room to work and also prefer desks that sit in
a corner as this makes it easier to utilise all the desk.
It's definitely not much of a looker but I'd choose usability over aesthetics when it comes
to a desk any day.
Looking at the peripherals now, nothing too fancy 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 keyboard at some point but this keyboard is still working
fine so why change something that isn't broken.
Then I have a Logitech Proteus Spectrum G502 mouse - a mouthful I know.
I think I picked this mouse up for about '50 but it's price changes all the time.
I chose this mouse because nothing infuriates me more than a mouse than doesn't work well,
especially when you're trying to put a trade on!
It's a wired mouse so there's no need to charge it or change batteries, it tracks well and
I like to do a bit of gaming in my down time so it's obviously good for that too.
Underneath these two I have an extra large mouse pad, again this is just for convenience,
I find this much better than a small mouse mat 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 Pixel 2, data cables coming from a USB hub under
the desk and just some general stationary.
I have a headphone standing supporting a pair of Audio Technica ATH-M50x headphones.
These were more than I thought I'd spend on a pair of headphones coming in around £100
but they are well worth the money.
I use them a lot for editing and just generally listening to music.
Highly recommended if you are in the market for a pair of headphones.
Speakers wise I am using Bose Companion 2 Series 3 desktop speakers.
If you just want some speakers for general use then I highly recommend these.
The sound is fantastic and you just plug them in and they're good to go.
I picked these up for around £70.
I then have a Rode PSA-1 microphone stand holding a Blue Snowball microphone.
This is the mic I use for all my live trading videos and any voice overs I do for other
videos- including this one.
I think it's brilliant and I picked this up for about £40-50.
If you wanted to spend a little more on a mic I have heard very good things about the
Blue Yeti as well although I've never tried it.
The mic stand I bought purely for convenience.
It cost about £60 and there are cheaper alternatives but to be honest none of them came close to
this one.
It's really stable, doesn't make any creaking noises, very easy to adjust and stays exactly
where you put it.
Again I'm very happy with this and would definitely recommend it.
For video when sat at my desk I use a Logitech C920 HD webcam.
I paid around £50-60 for this a year or two ago and have been very pleased with it.
I think the video quality is very good and it even has a built-in microphone.
The audio can sound a little bit tinny but it's useful to have a backup.
Moving on to the main aspect of what makes this 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 monitors you'll ever see but they served me very well
so far - especially considering I picked them up for about £75 each.
I've had them for about the same time as I've had the PC, one of them needed repairing within
the manufactures warranty and one developed a screen issue about a year later and I replaced
it.
I seem to recall buying them from some sort of 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 £60 with mixed expectations.
However this is a very very good piece of kit.
It's extremely well built and sturdy and has built-on cable clips to make managing cables
very easy.
It may not be the most attractive monitor stand 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 her in one go, it has been a working progress
where I added and upgraded parts as and when I can and needed to.
But I'm assuming if you're watching this video you are thinking about building your own setup
or making changes to an existing one so let me give you some advice based on my experience.
Point One - don't over overboard.
If all you plan on doing on your machine is trading, surfing the web, answering emails
and so on then you don't need a super powerful PC.
Something with a Intel core i3 processor or similar with 4-8gbs of ram and a decent sized
hard drive will do just fine.
If you want to only use one monitor then most on board graphics cards will deal with this
no problem.
However, if you want to use a multi monitor setup 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 cards these things can be very expensive.
All we need ours to do is provide multi monitor support and this isn't that taxing for them.
Look at the older models and find one that supports the number of monitors you want to
use.
Then obviously use the advice we covered earlier in the video to make sure it's compatible
with your other parts.
Point Two - Ask yourself, do I really need eight 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 screen real estate but it's not a necessity.
When I come to changing my setup I will probably opt for two larger monitors instead of four.
Point Three - if you are going to have a multi monitor setup, take care when buying a graphics
card.
As I've mentioned, the card I use wasn't that expensive and there are definitely cheaper
alternatives if needed.
Just make sure than when choosing a graphics card you're sure of three key things, 1) it
fits in your machine - so make sure your motherboard has the correct slot to support it (it's usually
a PCI Express port although you can check on the specification page of the card you
are looking at to make sure) and also make sure that there is physically enough room
in the PC case to house the card (some of these cards can be very large!).
2) Make sure it supports the amount of monitors you want to use.
Again this can be found on the specification page of the card you are looking at.
And 3) Some cards need an extra power supply if they are particularly powerful, if so,
make sure the power supply in your machine has the extra wattage to power not only your
graphics card but the rest of the components as well.
The specification pages of these cards usually not only states the power needed for the card
but also recommend a minimum overall power supply for a PC using this card which can
be used as a good guide.
They also tell you what type of power connector the card will need so you can make sure your
power supply has the correct one - adapters can be used if need.
Point Four - Now we've talked about making sure the specification of your graphics card
is compatible with your machine, an easy thing to overlook is make sure the outputs on your
graphics card can be matched with the inputs on 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 input on each.
Therefore I had to buy two DVi D to DVi D cables, 1 Hdmi to DVI D cable and a display
port to DVi D cable.
This part can be very tricky when trying to get four monitors to work.
It's much easier when using less.
Point Five - if you haven't got a use for it don't buy it.
I have a drawer in my home office and a box in the garage with a host of things I've bought
and never used just because I thought they looked cool at the time.
Save your money for things that you will use or put it towards a better PC or monitor.
Point Six - if you are thinking of building a pc from scratch, use a website called pc
part picker as a starting point.
It has a comprehensive list of pc parts and components and will tell you which parts are
compatible with others.
It can be a huge help.
And the last point - remember who the setup is for.
It-s easy to start buying certain things because someone else likes them or recommends them
but this setup is for you so make sure the things you include suit you.
For example, the first desk I bought was a very narrow rectangular desk that I bought
because I thought it looked cool.
It lasted about 6 months and then I had to get rid of it as I hated working on it.
I bought the big bulky corner desk I have now and I love that desk.
And that pretty much covers everything!
You are now ready to build your own trading setup.
Let me know if the comments below if you have any other questions or if you have any tips,
advice or trading setup stories, I'd love to hear them.
I hope you've found the information in this video useful, if you have please consider
leaving a like on the video, it helps others know that it's worth watching.
Also if you haven't done already, consider subscribing to the channel.
Everything I upload on the channel is aimed at making people better and more informed
traders.
Thanks again for watching and I'll catch you in the next one.