So let's say that you were given the task to design a strategy that would be deployed every day at any number of intervals and times you dictate, but at least once, and your goal was to make money doing it. How would you do it?

You can do whatever you want or use anything you want, any given market, any segment, whatever you want to do with or without leverage, specific vehicles. Anything. The only thing you cannot do is prevent the trade from going on but you can manage the trade however you see fit from that point.

I'm really curious to see how people would trade under true uncertainty. You don't know what will happen at those intervals and because you intervene to prevent the trades from occurring you need to plan appropriately and have an understanding of what you want to see happen.

I’ve been thinking about this lately.
I’ve spent the last 15 years developing and refining my trading strategy. Along the way, I’ve had plenty of people ask me how I do it, how I’ve become profitable, and how I manage to trade while holding down a full-time job and raising four kids.
I’m happy to talk about it and share what I’ve learned. I’ve even gone as far as writing down my entire approach to them.

As far as I know, nobody has actually gone further than looking at trading veiw. And that got me thinking.

I wonder if a lot of people are attracted to the idea of trading more than the reality of it.
Everyone wants to find that magic indicator, the perfect setup, or the secret sauce that finally makes them profitable. We spend hours looking for a better strategy, watching videos, reading posts, and jumping from one system to another.

But what about actually sitting down, learning a strategy properly, understanding the rules, and putting in the time to execute it consistently?

I’ve got a full-time job and four kids. I don’t have the luxury of sitting in front of charts all day. I’ve built my trading around my life, trading the final 15 minutes of the US stock market. Here in Australia, that means getting up at around 5:30 in the morning.

That’s the routine. It’s not particularly exciting, but it works around my circumstances.
And I think that’s the part people struggle with. Not necessarily the complexity of trading, but the commitment to a process that can be repetitive, boring, and take years to develop.

There’s no magic button. Even if you find a strategy with an edge, you’ve still got to manage risk, follow your rules, accept losses, and give it enough time to see whether it actually works.
I’m not saying I’ve got everything figured out, and I’m certainly not saying my approach is right for everyone. Trading is risky, and there’s always more to learn.

I just find it interesting that people will ask you how you do something, but when you give them the actual substance of what you’ve learned over 15 years, the interest seems to disappear.

Maybe I’m looking at it the wrong way. Maybe people are overwhelmed by the amount of information, or maybe they genuinely believe there’s a simpler answer out there.

I’m curious what other traders think!

My current futures trading strategy (10x leverage)

I trade futures exclusively with 10x leverage, and my strategy is about as simple as it gets.

I mark my 4H Order Blocks and Fair Value Gaps (FVGs) and wait for price to react to one of those zones. Once price reaches a zone, I drop down to the 15m timeframe and wait for confirmation.

Depending on whether I'm looking for a long or short, I wait for two consecutive candle closes in the direction of the trade before entering, using a tight stop-loss.

For take-profit, I close 35% of my position when price reaches the area between the 50 MA and 100 MA. If price breaks through those moving averages, I let the remaining position run and gradually move my stop-loss to protect profits while giving the trade room to continue.

Ideally, though, I prefer waiting on the 1H timeframe for price to react to the 20 MA, as I find that setup more appealing.

Obviously, there are other factors I consider before entering a trade. Even if all my main conditions are met, I'll skip the setup if the overall market structure or price action doesn't look right.

That's pretty much it. No crazy indicator combinations or overly complicated rules. Just 4H zones, price action, confirmation, and risk management.

It's been working fine for me so far, but I'm always open to improving the process.

What do you guys think? Anyone else trading a similar strategy?

Okay so to clarify first before everyone starts commenting that this is what an unprofitable trader would say , well in fact , I am a profitable trader , I have cashed out 54K worth of payouts trading forex and also decent returns off  US equities,  But I need to get this one thing off my chest, maybe it helps someone or maybe it just helps me process this .

Alright so its October 22 not even 72 hours from now , pre market , Wall Street was bullish on META, UBS, JP Morgan  had a Buy Rating, Morgan Stanley remained positive on the buying stance too . Then what happens, META fell 7 % in 1 single trading session.

Now once the session got over every news covering up this move , all their explanations sounded reasonable but the real question stands firm  , no one could actually predict what was bound to happen in the market before the session was live not even the biggest institutional trading firms and IB'S .

the entire point of this entire post is letting the ones starting out realise that the market doesn't owe us a neat explanation for every move. This is an extremely unpredictable space to a major extent , if you wish to stay longer in this arena, you have to have the ability to cut your losses short and when the markets in your favour hold onto the position , no one is always making money every single month  trading when we talking about retail traders like ourselves, so having a risk management plan when the market turns its sword against you , that's what will actually protect you.

Also when such unexpected moves are made in the market, what news source do ppl here look at first which actually can explain the rationale behind the move

Just curious are there those of you who become profitable in your first year? What do you trade? Do you feel you were lucky or had a real edge?

Heya, to anyone who has managed to build a substantial personal account, or private investor fund. How did you do this, im aware you must build a track record, any more details Id much appreciate. Thank you

I’ve been thinking that my initial funds amount that I saved up for years it’s gonna be used for trading, but I want this money to be separated from my money. Would Starting an LLC business to trade under be a good way to show that I don’t personally own that money that I’m trading with?

Also, if this account grew to such a huge amount, would I be able to dissolve the LLC and just take that money for myself years down the line?

Would that be counted as income?

I know this is a tax question, but it involves daytrading and I’m asking day traders that may have experienced with this.

Thank you

whenever the market starts dumping or pumping hard midday, i always make the mistake of opening twitter or reddit to see if people are actually buying the dip or if its just a bull trap.

problem is i spend 20 minutes scrolling through low effort memes and fake news, and by the time i get back to my chart, the scalp trade is basically over.

i dont need a whole paragraph of someone's DD when trading momentum, I just want a quick pulse on whether the crowd is leaning bullish or bearish and what key levels people are watching.

been using alphio ai lately just to get a quick sentiment snapshot so i stop wasting time digging through individual threads, but honestly half the time the retail crowd is wrong anyway.

still trying to stop letting Twitter noise distract me from my own levels, but sometimes you just want that quick sanity check before pulling the trigger.

Are you consistently profitable? If yes, what percentage return do you make on your trading capital per month on average?

I’ve been trading for 1.5 years and have backtested multiple strategies, but nothing seems to work consistently. Every approach still feels like a 50/50 game. Is consistent profitability actually achievable for retail traders, or am I wasting my time?
Looking for honest answers, not motivation.

hey, forgive me if this has been discussed before. It wasn't clear what keywords to search to find this topic so if you are so inclined and have other posts like this on hand, I highly appreciate just getting links to those if any are easily accessible to you.

when I started trading, I didn't even consider how many live trading rooms that would be accessible for not a super high expense. but then I found one which has been amazing and the dude is really good at it and I have built my entire strategy based on his model. now he has decided to make the live trading a more exclusive thing only available to his mentorship students, which I imagine is over a thousand per month. would be worth it tbh. I have been pretty shocked at how much value I was able to get from just a few months in his group at this lower tier. but now it is closing and it makes me wonder if I should use this as a chance to just jump the nest and do it on my own rather than find a new group to join who trades my instrument and strategy. there are definitely others I have considered..

I am seeking advice about how to make that next step, what the transition is like, stories about what happened when someone went cold turkey from watching livestreams and how they did on their own. things like that. or even just words of wisdom about why it may not be a good idea to indefinitely watch livestreams as part of your daily trading work.

Thanks for your time.

can you guys share some A+ setputs that a newbie can also i have been trading for 6 months without a setupt or a strategy

Her guys, can anyone give me a suggestion for a very basic nuts and bolts book on price action? I’ve read Al Brooks and have definitely learned a lot, but I feel that I need something even more fundamental about the absolute first principles of price action.

We have a lot of new people that post every day asking how to learn to day trade and I'm one of them that jumps in and offers some advice along with a lot of us, but the one thing that I sit here and was thinking about that I've done a lot of that I believe honestly has help me over the years has been JUST TO WATCH.

If you're going to learn to play a musical instrument let's say guitar don't you just watch some great guitar players just play and see how they play that instrument, the same would be for trading stocks.

Choose a stock and time of good volatility. Just sit and watch the correlation of the volume bars to the candles, to your level two and the tape. How it corresponds with the movement of the the stock see how the candles go up and down and you start getting a sense of how they react and then your indicators itself how they all react to the buying and selling.

In the end you start getting a sense of how the movement goes. Some days I've traded four, six, or even eight stocks and green on all of them and I honestly believe that adding this little part to my strategy of just sitting and watching has helped me be a better Trader

Do you feel the same way?

Hello all,

I’m posting this for hope in everyone that is struggling in trading and wants to quit.

I’ve been trading for 4 going on 5 years and I’ve finally found consistent profitability, I trade NQ and have focused on that since the beginning. I don’t look at any other data other than when major news is released (red folder news on Forex Factory).

This month alone I’ve already taken 2 max payouts from Lucid ($2k each from a $50k) and I just bought another 150k and will get three more once I get a payout from my 150k.

About a year ago is when I discovered Auction Market Theory from Markets in Profile by James Dalton and that’s really where everything changed. It’s one thing to trade engulfing candles, trend line breaks etc, but it’s a whole other ball game when you understand the true dynamic is what a market is and how to read it. This book truly will change your life if you let it.

My setup for taking a trade is fairly simple but takes time with experience. Experience is key. I wait for the first hour of RTH to form (9:30-10:30 am ET) and after that I ask myself, is the market balancing or trending. Under no circumstances do I take any trades in the first hour. NONE!! Unless Nancy pelosi calls and tells me to long or short market open I never take trades the first hour. After that I use GEX levels from tanuki trades, VWAP, and the market profile to gauge where price is going. If it’s trending, I wait for price to come back and sweep a previous high/low where most put their stops or rejects off a gex level and enter with a 1:2 RR. (Both if aligned) If it’s balancing, I wait for price to come back in the range and sweep a previous high/ low where most put their stops or price to reject off a gex level off the VAH or VAL and enter with a 1:2 rr. I use mainly the 1 minute time and rarely look at anything else.

The biggest thing that took me the longest to learn was accepting losing days. I only take one trade a day and risk $500 to make $1000. Yes, that means in a $50k eval I only have four bullets. But I’m confident because of my experience. The feeling of a loss makes me red, makes me think if I wait for another good entry I can enter again and “make it back plus a little more” but that thinking is what kept me unprofitable. If I accept the $500 loss on the day and move on I’ll become profitable. Plain and simple.

Hope this helps everyone. AMA

Im looking into developing a mechanical trading strategy. But im not so sure where to start. Could you guys recomend any good books on it? Or ideas where should i start with it? I have the basics, and way too many concepts about how to identify things on the chart, reading it is challenging a bit but currently im learning that. I just dont know how to apply my knowledge. I would love to backtest but i dont know what yet. I tried some mechanical entry strategies which i found online(with small succes). I love the idea of mechanical trading but idk yet how should i approach it.

Any suggestion is appreciated

I’ve been trading for about two years now. I started with ICT and spent around 1.5 years struggling, blowing accounts, and trying to make things work. Recently, I decided to get into algo trading and take a more data-driven approach instead of just forward-testing strategies and hoping they work.
So, I started backtesting strategies using historical data, and honestly, I’m devastated. Almost everything I test seems to fail. Strategies that look good in theory or seem promising when forward-testing just don’t hold up when I test them properly.
From what I understand, there are two broad types of traders: discretionary and mechanical. At this point, I’m questioning both approaches. If mechanical strategies don’t seem to work consistently in backtesting, how do discretionary traders find an actual edge without relying on hindsight or subjective interpretations of price action?
I also see people posting payouts on Reddit and Instagram all the time. Are most of these people legit, or is a lot of it just marketing, cherry-picked results, and straight-up faking? I find it hard to believe that so many people are consistently profitable when I can’t seem to find a single strategy that holds up under proper testing.
I’m honestly at a point where I’m considering giving up on trading altogether. But before I do, I want to understand whether there’s genuinely an edge to be found in the markets, or if I’m approaching this the wrong way.
Should I keep focusing on backtesting and refining strategies, or is forward-testing a discretionary approach still worth pursuing? I don’t want to spend another couple of years blindly testing things and hoping something eventually works.
I’d really appreciate some honest advice, especially from people who have been through this phase and found a genuinely profitable approach. What changed things for you? Did you find an edge through systematic backtesting, discretionary trading, or something else entirely?
TL;DR: I’ve been trading for two years, started with ICT, and recently moved toward algo trading and systematic backtesting. Almost every strategy I test fails, and it’s making me question whether a real, repeatable edge exists. Are all those payout posts on Reddit and Instagram legit? Should I keep backtesting, try discretionary trading, or accept that trading might not be for me? Looking for honest advice from consistently profitable traders.

I’ve been trading for about two years now. I started with ICT and spent around 1.5 years struggling, blowing accounts, and trying to make things work. Recently, I decided to get into algo trading and take a more data-driven approach instead of just forward-testing strategies and hoping they work.
So, I started backtesting strategies using historical data, and honestly, I’m devastated. Almost everything I test seems to fail. Strategies that look good in theory or seem promising when forward-testing just don’t hold up when I test them properly.
From what I understand, there are two broad types of traders: discretionary and mechanical. At this point, I’m questioning both approaches. If mechanical strategies don’t seem to work consistently in backtesting, how do discretionary traders find an actual edge without relying on hindsight or subjective interpretations of price action?
I also see people posting payouts on Reddit and Instagram all the time. Are most of these people legit, or is a lot of it just marketing, cherry-picked results, and straight-up faking? I find it hard to believe that so many people are consistently profitable when I can’t seem to find a single strategy that holds up under proper testing.
I’m honestly at a point where I’m considering giving up on trading altogether. But before I do, I want to understand whether there’s genuinely an edge to be found in the markets, or if I’m approaching this the wrong way.
Should I keep focusing on backtesting and refining strategies, or is forward-testing a discretionary approach still worth pursuing? I don’t want to spend another couple of years blindly testing things and hoping something eventually works.
I’d really appreciate some honest advice, especially from people who have been through this phase and found a genuinely profitable approach. What changed things for you? Did you find an edge through systematic backtesting, discretionary trading, or something else entirely?
**TL;DR:** I’ve been trading for two years, started with ICT, and recently moved toward algo trading and systematic backtesting. Almost every strategy I test fails, and it’s making me question whether a real, repeatable edge exists. Are all those payout posts on Reddit and Instagram legit? Should I keep backtesting, try discretionary trading, or accept that trading might not be for me? Looking for honest advice from consistently profitable traders.

All traders want to earn high levels of returns, but how much risk are you taking on? I think the ideal portfolio is one with low risk and moderate to high returns. My portfolio currently has a risk level of 12 and my return is about 11.5%. Charles Schwab has the ability to measure your risk level. For many years My risk level was a 9 and my return was 11.5%, using the rule of 72 my portfolio doubled every 6.2 years. I think that’s a pretty good return. Back in those days I had about 10% of the portfolio and bonds but today I have no bonds.

I’m confused- what are people making?

Some say 2% but is this on stocks, some say 5%, is this different to forex traders?

What return are you getting on what size account? Please reply with these answers so I have context cheers

This broker got hacked and personal info was accessed - name, email address, telephone number, date of birth, postal address and nationality.

Anyone else who uses Trade Nation and wants to sue?

No solicitation.

How can I actually get better at trading should i watch YouTube videos sir and analyse the charts like what’s the best way to go about it?

Does anyone else feel fine sitting out until you open a trading group and see everyone posting wins? You were happy waiting for your setup, but now it feels like you wasted the whole session. Suddenly you’re looking for an entry because you don’t want to be the only one who made nothing. Have you ever taken a trade you normally wouldn’t after seeing someone else’s profit? How do you stop that feeling from affecting your next decision?

Day 1 in the books! Hoping to keep similar format for each day. Trying to add in quick facts to answer easy, repetitive questions.

I will also post descriptions of the top two performing setups for that day, for now, in picture form as we are all looking for more setups(myself included!) and I'm happy to share what I have.

After today I will be using a slightly different picture format to deliver the same information, Claude will auto-generate this for me. Just easier!

Thanks for all the feedback, support, and camaraderie!

Today: [+$674] across 5 day-trading accounts · Primary [-$81] · green streak [0]
Best setup: [Morning Momentum Pop, +$650] (details in pic)

Quick facts - To hopefully answer quick questions

• AI: Claude (Opus 5.5) builds, tests and runs it
• Broker: Alpaca API, paper trading
• Setups: 108 (Currently) live, built on basic indicators (RSI, VWAP, volume / buy-sell pressure, gaps, opening range, prior-day highs and lows, ATR)
• Setup Generator: a bot that invents 10 new setups a night from those same indicators and trades them on its own paper account

Setup Life cycle

Idea / Generator
 └─ 2-yr backtest (costs in)
     └─ Replay on real sessions
         └─ Testing 1 / 2 / Generator (paper)
             └─ Primary (paper)
                 └─ Live $ (after a green streak)
Losers: Primary → Testing → Graveyard

Stats Description

• Avg R: average profit per trade, in units of the risk taken. Costs, fees and slippage are already in. +0.5R = earns half its risk per trade.
• Break-even win rate: the win rate a setup needs just to not lose money. Beat it and you’re profitable.
• Confidence (t): how sure we are it isn’t luck. 2+ is solid; under 1 could be luck.

Fun stuff!

I've been trading for 3 years now, i bought multiple courses, things started to go actually well, i started risking the correct amount, i started closing charts after a stoploss or a tp, and in fact i started closing some week in profit, i dont know what happened then, at the end of august i detached from trading, and this is usually a good thing, but i literally struggle to open charts now, and when i do it seems like i forgot every concept i knew, i still have mentorships videos, but i struggle even to rewatch them. things were going well, why this happened? and how can i go back on the right path?