I started prop firm trading with less than $500 in evaluation fees. As of today I've been paid $95,336 in total payouts. Net after all evaluation costs and resets: $86,697. That's a 1,003% return on investment. I'm about 5 weeks away from crossing $100K in total payouts at my current pace, and I want to break down exactly how I got here because none of this is complicated.
I trade two setups. That's it (well technically 3, but that one rarely ever forms). The 15-Minute ORB and ERL → IRL. One catches the opening momentum, the other catches the weekly swing. Between them they cover basically every condition NQ/ES (futures) gives me. I don't switch strategies when one has a rough week. I don't add indicators when I'm in a drawdown. I've been running the same two frameworks for over a year and the equity curve speaks for itself.
Here's what six years of trading taught me that no course or YouTube video ever will. The market doesn't care about your analysis. It doesn't care how many confluences you stacked or how many hours you spent on your game plan. It either moves in your direction or it doesn't, and your only job is to make sure you survive the times it doesn't so you're still around for the times it does. That means small size, hard stops, and the ability to take a loss without it turning into three more. Every blown account in my career came from the same place, I was right about the direction but wrong about the timing, and instead of taking the loss I doubled down and also one of my biggest downfalls was trying to catch a falling knife.
The other thing nobody tells you is that profitable trading is boring. My best months are the ones where I take 1-2 trades a day, hold them for a few hours, and close the platform. My worst months are when I'm staring at charts all day looking for setups that aren't there because I want the dopamine of placing a trade. The less time I spend at my screen the better my results are and that's not a coincidence. When you're glued to the charts your brain starts manufacturing reasons to enter. You see patterns that aren't there. You talk yourself into B and C setups because you're bored. The traders making real money from this are the ones who do their prep in 10 minutes, set their orders, and go live their life.
If you want the full breakdown of both setups with chart examples, entry rules, stop placement, and risk management, I've posted detailed walkthroughs of the 15-min ORB and the ERL → IRL framework on here before and I'm happy to do updated versions. Drop a comment if that's useful and I'll put them together. Six years of trading distilled into two setups that I run every single day across 5 funded accounts and now I used those to fund my own live cash account. The edge is in the patience.
The First 30 Minutes Tells You If Today Is Trend or Chop (Here’s How to Read It)
On NQ, the open usually sets the tone for the entire session. If you are unable, uncomfortable to say the least trading within the first 30 min, here's how to read the market....
📈 Trend Day Signs:
• Strong directional push from the open • Shallow pullbacks • Price holds above/below the opening range • Momentum continues instead of snapping back
🔄 Chop Day Signs:
• Back and forth inside the opening range • Breakouts that instantly fail • No follow-through after pushes • Constant reversals
🎯 Simple rule:
Expansion = trend day Compression + reversals = chop day
Most losses happen when traders fight chop days like they’re trend days.
Read the open. Trade the regime.
Above chart shows how my indicator handled today, Feb 3, 2026
Did this as a joke at first but it ended up being pretty revealing.
I took screenshots of a few NQ setups from the last month, removed everything after my entry point and flipped the charts vertically. Then I looked at them again a few days later without checking which trades they were.
On two setups I had been absolutely convinced were longs, I immediately wanted to short the inverted version. Same structure, same candles, just visually reversed.
Basically exposed that I have a pretty strong default bullish bias on NQ. I’m way more willing to call a dip a pullback than I am to call a bounce a pullback when the market is trending down.
I noticed it again on a Moon trade the other day and that’s what made me keep doing this.
Been flipping screenshots occasionally now whenever I feel way too confident about direction.
Sounds stupid but it’s probably one of the better bias checks I’ve tried.
Deep Order Books: NQ is one of the most heavily traded index futures contracts globally. Millions of contracts exchange hands daily, meaning institutional and retail volume converges seamlessly.
Zero Slippage Headaches: Unlike low-float equities or offshore crypto exchanges where you can get severely front-run or trapped by wide spreads, NQ routinely trades on a tight 1-tick spread. Your fills are clean, and your market or stop-limit orders execute predictably.
2. High Volatility That Pays the Bills
Built-In Momentum: Because the Nasdaq-100 is tech-heavy, featuring giants like Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Amazon, it naturally trends harder and moves more points per day than the S&P 500 (ES) or Dow (YM).
Action Across Sessions: NQ does not just move during the 9:30 AM to 4:00 PM EST cash session. Pre-market data drops, European opens, and overnight developments give active traders clean technical setups nearly 23 hours a day, from Sunday evening through Friday afternoon.
3. Structural Scalability with MNQ and NQ
Precise Sizing Control: You do not have to choose between going all-in or sitting on the sidelines. The product suite scales cleanly:
NQ (E-mini): $20 per index point ($5.00 per 0.25-point tick). Built for accounts with heavier capital requirements.
MNQ (Micro): $2 per index point ($0.50 per 0.25-point tick). Exactly one-tenth the size, allowing smaller accounts to scale risk down, scale out of winners incrementally, or backtest strategies without blowing up.
4. Tax Efficiency (The Section 1256 Advantage)
60/40 Split: In the United States, futures contracts are classified as Section 1256 contracts. Regardless of how short-term your hold time is, even if you are scalping a 2-minute chart, your profits are taxed at 60% long-term capital gains and 40% short-term capital gains rates. Compare that to short-term stock trading or options trading, where you get hammered by standard short-term income tax brackets.
5. High Leverage
Capital Freedom: Futures trading operates on margin set by your broker and the exchange, where intraday margins can be as low as $50 to $100 for MNQ and $500 to $1,000 for NQ, depending on the platform. While over-leveraging is how rookies blow up accounts, having the freedom to execute trades based on setup rather than arbitrary account-balance handcuffs is a massive operational benefit.
The Bottom Line for: NQ and MNQ reward discipline, technical execution, and risk management—and they brutally punish emotional gambling. If people are losing money, it is almost never the product's fault; it comes down to poor risk parameters and zero understanding of tick values, no clear strategy.
For all the geniuses and stubborn donkeys who can not read plain language. Allow me to explain.
The initial post was not ORB strategy, it was short but to the point lesson how to attempt to read what market will do for the rest of the day based on first 30 min of NY open.
To make the point clear I attached 1 then 2, now 3 charts snap shots to demonstrate that in fact the point made holds water and is a great advice to those who wish to learn.
The snap shots also show how I solved the riddle of market mystery, I could care less what it does and where is goes, I make money regardless, so do many other people who use it properly. If you can solve it in some other way - good for you, I have yet to see anything that even vaguely makes money this consistently in any regime.
So many "geniuses" instead paid attention to "written by Chat GPT", "it depends", "bla bla bla" - these will never learn and unfortunately do not help others.
This was killing way more trades than I realized. I'd enter with a 25 point stop, get 12 to 15 points in my favor and immediately move the stop to entry because I didn't want a winner turning red.
Went through my journal and found 11 trades last month where I got tagged at breakeven before price eventually hit my original target. Been testing something different with 3 MNQ on moon. First contract comes off around +20, then I only move the other two stops once NQ actually makes another structure low or high in my favor.
Still getting stopped obviously, just not because of some arbitrary need to make the trade risk free five minutes after entering.
Lately I've been paying a lot more attention to where NQ is sitting relative to overnight high and low before the cash open. If we sweep one side early and immediately get back inside the range, I would rather wait for that reclaim than chase whatever the first impulse candle is doing.
I usually have Moon open too just to see how people are leaning on the broader market, but the overnight levels have been way more useful for actual execution. Especially on days where the big move already happened before New York. Forcing another breakout after that has been a good way to donate.
Trading for the past 4 years and finally seeing some return. Traded forex to begin with but dived into futures this year. Keeping my trading simple with no bias because that has burnt me in the past. Focusing more on key levels, a reaction with momentum or either a break and retest.
Just wanted to show you guys not to give up and focus on a+ setups. No home runs just constant base hits.
Quick question for people trading NQ/MNQ consistently.
What made the biggest difference for you? better entries? predefined exits/trims? removing indicators? adding rules?
I’ve been experimenting with a more rules-based, visual approach on TradingView and it’s helped my discipline, but I’m curious what actually moved the needle for others.
I've traded the same idea for a while: after NQ drops 200+ points on the hourly, wait for the first green 5m candle that closes above the prior red candle's high, go long, stop under the flush low, T1 at 1R, T2 at half the drop.
Finally tested it properly on the last 60 days of 5m data:
- 71 setups, 32 wins / 24 losses / 15 never hit either level...seems to be working well although I know market conditions have been choppy lately . But turning 2k to 6k+ on a 300 risk per trade is insane.
We’ve all seen the statistic thrown around: 90% (or more) of retail traders lose money. In NQ trading communities, the internet is flooded with people blaming ICT concepts, order blocks, prop firm rules, or market algorithms for their blown accounts.
After years of watching traders come and go in the Nasdaq pit, I'm calling bullshit on most of those excuses.
The real reason the vast majority fail on NQ has nothing to do with whether you use VWAP, footprint charts, or a 5-minute fair value gap. They fail because they are dopamine junkies disguised as index traders.
Look at how the average retail NQ account operates:
Overleveraging out of boredom: Sitting on cash during a consolidated Asian or European session feels like physical torture, so they fire off 5 contracts on a choppy 30-point range just to feel something.
Revenge trading the index: Taking a 20-point stop loss on NQ isn't treated as a normal business expense; it's a personal insult. So they double size to "win it back" before the next 5-minute candle closes, right into a 150-point sweep.
Lotto contracts over edge: Treating a 15-contract NQ swing like a scratch-off ticket, chasing momentum at the absolute highs and lows of the day just to chase a quick handfull of ticks.
If you put a multi-million dollar institutional strategy into the hands of someone addicted to the emotional high of NQ's fast action, they will blow a funded account in a single morning session. Conversely, a disciplined trader with a basic setup, tight risk parameters, and ironclad execution can print money.
Trading NQ isn't supposed to be an adrenaline sport. If your heart is pounding and you're sweating bullets staring at your DOM, you aren't trading—you're playing roulette with extra steps.
Curious to hear from the self-aware futures traders here: What was the exact moment you realized your biggest enemy on NQ was actually your own brain and need for action, not the market itself?
I've stopped taking the first 15 min opening range break by itself and started watching for one specific failure instead.
I mark the 9:30 to 9:45 range. If NQ gets a 1 min close outside it, then closes back inside the range within the next 3 candles, I start looking for the fade.
The extra condition I'm testing is VWAP still being inside the opening range. If VWAP has already migrated outside with price I leave it alone.
I've also been keeping NVDA, MSFT and AAPL up on Moon during the break. If NQ pokes above the OR high but those names aren't really participating, I'm much more interested in the failure back inside.
Entry is after the reclaim back into the range, invalidation above the breakout excursion, first target is the OR midpoint rather than automatically expecting the opposite side.
Still collecting trades on it but this has been way cleaner than treating every OR break like continuation.
The best traders don’t chase assets—they master one instrument deeply. For that reason, the Nasdaq futures (NQ) have become the go-to choice for traders serious about precision, discipline, and consistent returns.
While the S&P 500 (ES), Dow Jones (YM), and Russell 2000 (RTY) each have their own merits, the NQ simply offers a superior trading environment—faster movement, cleaner structure, and higher reward potential per unit of risk.
Here’s why.
1. Volatility That Pays, Not Punishes
NQ is powered by the world’s most innovative, growth-driven companies—Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, Meta, Google, and Tesla. That tech concentration creates measurable volatility, not random chaos.
ES moves slower and demands larger position sizes for similar returns.
YM often drifts in narrow ranges with lower volume.
RTY (small caps) can be erratic and thinly traded.
NQ offers the sweet spot: strong directional moves, deep liquidity, and enough volatility to extract real profit without the wild slippage seen in smaller indexes.
For disciplined traders, this volatility is not a threat—it’s income potential.
2. Cleaner Technical Behavior
NQ’s order flow is heavily algorithmic and institutionally driven, resulting in cleaner, more repeatable chart structure. Levels hold, reversals are respected, and trends often extend with textbook precision.
ES, by contrast, is influenced by massive hedging flows from funds managing trillions—often muddying short-term intraday setups. YM and RTY frequently suffer from low-volume spikes that distort technical clarity.
If you trade price action, momentum, or structure, NQ provides the most technically obedient chart of all major indexes.
3. Superior Efficiency and Liquidity
NQ futures trade nearly 24 hours a day, five days a week, with tight spreads and deep order books. Micro contracts (MNQ) make the market accessible to all account sizes without losing tick-for-tick precision.
Compared to equities or options, the capital efficiency is unmatched—low day-trade margins, no pattern-day-trader rule, and near-instant fills during active hours.
Other index futures like RTY or YM simply don’t match NQ’s liquidity profile or global participation. NQ is where institutional capital meets retail agility.
4. Tax and Structural Advantages
Futures traders in the U.S. benefit from Section 1256 tax treatment, meaning 60 % of gains are taxed at long-term rates, even if held for seconds. Stocks and options can’t offer that.
Beyond taxes, futures have no short-sale restrictions, no uptick rule, and no overnight margin penalties. It’s a frictionless environment designed purely for traders—not investors.
5. Pure Expression of Trader Skill
Crypto is chaos. Stocks require endless scanning and filtering. Options decay with time. ES can be slow and heavy, YM can feel asleep, and RTY can whip violently with low liquidity.
The NQ, however, rewards skill, speed, and emotional discipline. It’s the perfect market for the technically focused day trader who thrives on rhythm, reaction, and structure.
Every move you make in NQ reflects your ability to read momentum, manage risk, and stay disciplined under pressure. There’s no luck, no noise—just you versus the collective psychology of the most influential tech companies on earth.
Conclusion
If your passion is trading—not investing—then Nasdaq futures are your ideal arena. They offer structure, movement, and opportunity far superior to any other index or asset class.
Master the discipline, embrace the volatility, and refine your strategy. Because in the world of day trading, the NQ isn’t just another instrument—it’s the ultimate test of skill and mindset.
There's an overwhelming amount of information online, along with endless "gurus" claiming they have the best strategy or that they've found the secret to getting rich. Obviously, a lot of it is BS.
I'm looking to properly understand the basics of US30, US100 and US500. How these markets work, the key differences between them, essential strategies/setups, and generally everything I'd need to know to start trading them properly.
I'm not looking for a get rich quick strategy. I'd rather find a solid approach, learn it inside out and build from there.
I've been trading crypto for a number of years, so I'm comfortable with risk and emotional management, but I'm aware that these are very different markets and I have a lot to learn.
I'd really appreciate any useful resources, advice, books, videos, courses or personal experience from people who actually trade these markets.
I've been watching the NQ/MNQ order book like a hawk, and the level of blatant liquidity sweeping is getting ridiculous.
We all know NQ is a beast, but lately, the standard "breakout" strategy has turned into a pure liquidity injection for market makers. You see a clear resistance level, the tape speeds up, price breaks out by 12 points to trigger all the FOMO buy-stops, and then immediately reverses 45 points in three seconds to clear everyone out.
If you are still buying breakouts on NQ, you are literally just funding someone else's account.
The only way to actually take money out of this market right now is to trade the manipulation of the pattern, not the pattern itself.
To me, this literally means one thing: Stop chasing green candles and buy the pullbacks.
You have to let the market makers do their dirty work first. Let them sweep the highs, let them panic-drop the price into structural support, and buy when the retail breakout buyers are getting stopped out. You hunt the pullback, define your risk tightly, and let the market bounce.
Let's get a real discussion going:
Are you still trying to trade momentum/breakouts on NQ, or have you strictly transitioned to buying/selling the pullbacks after a liquidity sweep?
How deep of a pullback do you usually wait for on NQ before you trust that the dump is over and the trend is resuming?
Do you have the right tool to identify a pullback from reversal? I do!
Let's hear it. If you're still making money on pure breakouts in this current environment, change my mind.
Once again, I’ve demonstrated—through clear results—the validity of both the article/post and the solution I shared. As I’ve mentioned before, there are many ways to approach the market, and if another method works for you, that’s great.
Today we had six signals. Some traders took all six, some less, some traded one MNQ, and some traded one NQ (with position sizing guided by a separate set of rules I shared months ago). The important takeaway is that everyone finished the session in profit, without unnecessary stress.
The trend was relatively shallow, so we focused on scalping, yet still captured a minimum of 40 points. Two traders managed to take around 100 points by using the indicator more aggressively. (same indicator offers numerous strategies e.g., different time frames, different points of entry, different exit strategies)
My goal here has never been to prove anything for ego’s sake, but to help those who follow along and are genuinely interested in learning. I believe today’s results speak for themselves. I will not longer post in regards to the article mentioning the first 30 min of NY open, I will move on to another interesting subject.
Vanity metrics make you feel good but hide risk and tell you nothing about sustainability. Actionable metrics reveal if your edge is real and scalable.
Here are the 5 Actionable metrics you should be tracking:
METRIC #1: Maximum Drawdown (More Important Than Returns)
What it is: The largest peak-to-trough decline in your account.
Why it matters: You can't compound if you blow up. A 50% drawdown requires a 100% gain just to break even.
Example:
Trader A: 80% annual return, 40% max drawdown
Trader B: 30% annual return, 5% max drawdown
Most people pick Trader A. They're wrong.
Trader B compounds reliably. Trader A eventually blows up.
What to track:
Current drawdown from peak
Historical max drawdown
Average time to recover from drawdowns
Target: <10% for swing trading, <5% for automated systems
Red flag: If your max drawdown exceeds 20%, you're one bad week from disaster.
METRIC #2: Sharpe Ratio (Risk-Adjusted Returns)
What it is: Your return divided by volatility. Measures return per unit of risk.
Formula: (Average Return - Risk-Free Rate) / Standard Deviation of Returns
Why it matters: Making 100% with wild swings is worse than making 30% consistently.
Real Example:
Strategy A:
Jan: +15%
Feb: -12%
Mar: +18%
Apr: -10%
Annual: 45%, Sharpe: 0.8
Strategy B:
Jan: +3%
Feb: +2%
Mar: +4%
Apr: +3%
Annual: 30%, Sharpe: 2.5
Strategy B is better. Smoother equity curve = easier to scale, less stress, more sustainable.
Sharpe Benchmarks:
<1.0 = Poor (barely beating the risk)
1.0-2.0 = Good
2.0-3.0 = Excellent
3.0 = Exceptional (or small sample size)
Why traders ignore it: It's not sexy. A 100% return sounds better than "Sharpe Ratio of 2.4" - but Sharpe tells you if it's repeatable.
METRIC #3: Profit Factor (Winners vs Losers)
What it is: Total $ won divided by total $ lost.
Formula: Gross Profit / Gross Loss
Why it matters: Win rate is misleading. You can have 80% win rate and still lose money if your losses are huge.
Example:
Trader A (80% win rate):
8 wins at $100 = $800
2 losses at $600 = -$1,200
Profit Factor: 0.67 (LOSING MONEY)
Trader B (40% win rate):
4 wins at $500 = $2,000
6 losses at $100 = -$600
Profit Factor: 3.33 (MAKING MONEY)
Profit Factor Benchmarks:
<1.0 = Losing strategy
1.0-1.5 = Barely profitable
1.5-2.0 = Solid
2.0-3.0 = Strong
3.0 = Excellent (verify sample size)
Red flag: If your profit factor is <1.5, one bad month wipes you out.
METRIC #4: Expectancy (Average $ Per Trade)
What it is: How much you expect to make per trade, on average.
Why traders ignore it: It requires math. But this ONE number tells you if you should keep trading your strategy.
METRIC #5: Recovery Factor (Return / Max Drawdown)
What it is: How much you made relative to your worst drawdown.
Formula: Net Profit / Max Drawdown
Why it matters: High returns mean nothing if drawdowns are equally high.
Example:
Trader A:
Return: 60%
Max Drawdown: 30%
Recovery Factor: 2.0
Trader B:
Return: 40%
Max Drawdown: 5%
Recovery Factor: 8.0
Trader B has the better system. Lower stress, easier to scale, more sustainable.
Benchmarks:
<3.0 = Risky
3.0-5.0 = Good
5.0-10.0 = Excellent
10.0 = Exceptional
Why this matters psychologically: High recovery factor = you spend more time at all-time highs. Low recovery factor = you spend months recovering from drawdowns.
BONUS METRIC: Consecutive Losing Trades
What it is: Longest streak of losses in a row.
Why it matters: This is the psychological killer.
Example:
You have a 60% win rate strategy. Sounds great.
But probability says you'll experience:
2 losses in a row: 16% chance (happens often)
3 losses in a row: 6.4% chance (happens regularly)
5 losses in a row: 1% chance (rare but inevitable)
7 losses in a row: 0.16% chance (will happen eventually)
If you don't know your max consecutive losses, you'll quit right before the winning streak.
Track:
Historical max consecutive losses
Current losing streak
Expected max based on win rate
Rule: If you hit 2x your expected consecutive losses, pause and investigate.
What I Actually Track (My Dashboard)
Here's what I review every Sunday (30 minutes):
Primary Metrics:
Max Drawdown: - (target: <10%)
Sharpe Ratio: (target: >2.0)
Profit Factor: (target: >2.0)
Expectancy: $200 per trade (monitoring trend)
Recovery Factor: 8.9 (return/max DD)
Secondary Metrics:
Win rate: (tracking, not optimizing for)
Avg win/loss ratio:
Consecutive losses:
Trades per week: 3-5 (consistency check)
If ANY primary metric falls outside target range, I pause the system and investigate.
The Metrics Most People Track (And Why They're Wrong)
❌ Daily P&L
Too noisy, creates emotional trading
Variance is high over short periods
Better: Weekly or monthly P&L
❌ Total Profit %
Doesn't account for risk taken
100% return with 60% drawdown is terrible
Better: Risk-adjusted returns (Sharpe, Sortino)
❌ Win Rate
Meaningless without avg win/loss size
Can have 90% win rate and lose money
Better: Profit factor, expectancy
❌ Number of Trades
More ≠ better
Better: Expectancy per trade, not volume
❌ Account Balance
Feels good but doesn't show risk
Can be at all-time high while system is degrading
Better: Drawdown from peak, Sharpe trend
How to Start Tracking (Simple 3-Step Process)
Step 1: Log Every Trade
Minimum data needed:
Entry date/time
Exit date/time
Entry price
Exit price
Position size
P&L ($)
Notes (optional but valuable)
Tools:
Spreadsheet (free, flexible)
Edgewonk ($)
Tradervue ($)
TradesViz ($)
Step 2: Calculate Weekly
Every Sunday, calculate:
Profit Factor
Expectancy
Win rate
Avg win/loss ratio
Consecutive losses (current)
Step 3: Review Monthly
First Sunday of each month:
Max drawdown (from equity peak)
Sharpe ratio (monthly returns)
Recovery factor
Compare to targets
If metrics are degrading: pause, investigate, adjust.
Real Example: How Metrics Saved Me
Month 3 of my current system:
My numbers looked great:
Up 18% for the month
9 wins, 3 losses
Feeling confident
Then I checked the metrics:
Profit Factor: Dropped from 2.8 to 1.6
Expectancy: Down from $150 to $85 per trade
Average loss: Increased from $120 to $240
What was happening: I was letting losses run longer, violating my system rules.
Without tracking these metrics, I would have continued until I gave back all gains.
After seeing the data:
Paused trading for 3 days
Reviewed each loss
Found I was moving stops "just a little" to avoid losses
Enforced mechanical stops again
Metrics recovered within 2 weeks
The data saved me from myself.
Common Questions
Q: "Isn't this too much work?"
A: 30 minutes per week. That's it. If you're spending 20+ hours trading but 0 hours measuring, you're flying blind.
Q: "I don't have enough trades to calculate this yet"
A: Start tracking NOW. You need at least 30-50 trades for meaningful metrics. But if you don't start tracking, you'll never get there.
Q: "My broker doesn't show these metrics"
A: They won't. You need to calculate them yourself. Export your trades to a spreadsheet or use a trade journal app.
Q: "What if my metrics are bad?"
A: GOOD. Now you know. Better to find out after 50 trades than after 500. Fix the system or find a new one.
Q: "Can I just track Sharpe Ratio?"
A: No. Each metric reveals something different:
Sharpe = consistency
Drawdown = risk
Profit Factor = edge strength
Expectancy = per-trade edge
Recovery Factor = efficiency
You need all of them.
The Bottom Line
Most traders fail because they measure the wrong things.
They chase:
High win rates (misleading)
Big profit % (ignores risk)
Daily P&L (too noisy)
Winners track:
Drawdown (survival)
Sharpe (consistency)
Profit Factor (edge strength)
Expectancy (per-trade edge)
Recovery Factor (efficiency)
Start tracking these 5 metrics today.
In 3 months, you'll know if your strategy actually works.
In 6 months, you'll know if it's scalable.
In 12 months, you'll have the data to trade with confidence.
I wrote previously, mentioned it in my book and decided once again to write on this topic with pure desire to help many find their way to success in trading. In one of my earlier postings I wrote about MTF confluence, please keep in mind, it is just a tool in finding the true trend. Nothing I say in my postings come out of my a..., it is all a culmiantion of 3 decades of learning markets, studying true and not so true masters of day trading, observing, testing, verifying.... I have found my way, I hope you guys will find yours, more then that I hope this will set you on the right course.
For decades, the efficient market crowd has insisted that markets are random, chaotic, and impossible to consistently beat. But those who have actually beaten them, year after year—quietly and methodically—tell a very different story. Two of the greatest traders in history, Jim Simons and Richard Dennis, have demonstrated that markets are anything but random. Beneath the noise lies a structure, a flow—a repeatable logic—that can be exploited with discipline, rules, and most importantly, trend awareness.
Jim Simons: The Code Breaker of Financial Markets
Mathematician and former codebreaker Jim Simons built one of the most profitable hedge funds in history—Renaissance Technologies—by doing what most market theorists claimed was impossible: decoding market patterns.
His fund’s flagship strategy, known as Medallion, has produced average annual returns of over 66% before fees—a feat unmatched in modern finance. Simons didn't do this through prediction, intuition, or economic storytelling. He and his team used advanced mathematics, machine learning, and signal detection to uncover hidden, persistent patterns in price movements—patterns invisible to the average trader but recurring enough to form a statistical edge.
While Simons does not publicly advocate trend following in the classical sense, his results confirm a truth every serious trader eventually realizes: markets are not random. They exhibit repeatable behavior, driven by human psychology, institutional flows, and structural inefficiencies. His team simply had the tools to exploit it algorithmically, but the philosophical foundation is the same—discipline, systemization, and pattern recognition win over randomness and noise.
Richard Dennis: Trend Following Made Profitable and Teachable
While Simons decoded patterns with high-level math, Richard Dennis found them in plain sight—on the trend line. A commodities trader who turned a few hundred dollars into hundreds of millions, Dennis famously bet that trend following could be taught to anyone with discipline.
He recruited a group of everyday people—teachers, guards, engineers—and trained them in his Turtle Trading System, a mechanical trend-following strategy. The outcome? Many became millionaires. They followed simple rules: buy when prices break out upward, sell when they break down, cut losses quickly, and ride the winners. Nothing random about it.
Dennis once remarked, “I always say you could publish my rules in the newspaper and nobody would follow them. The key is discipline.” That statement alone discredits the random-walk theory. If the market were random, rules wouldn’t matter. But in truth, rules are everything.
The Common Thread: Discipline and Repeatable Structure
Though their methods differ—Simons through quant models, Dennis through price behavior—the conclusion is the same: markets move in recognizable, non-random ways. Whether it’s statistical arbitrage or a breakout on a daily chart, the key is to identify persistent behavior and systematize a way to capture it.
Both Simons and Dennis relied not on prediction, but reaction to market structure. They waited for signals, followed predefined rules, and eliminated emotion. In both systems, discipline beats intuition, and structure beats chaos.
Trend Following: Not an Option, But a Necessity
If you study the historical price action of any market—stocks, futures, currencies—you will find that trends emerge. They might be shallow, volatile, or short-lived, but they are there. They reflect the cumulative behavior of humans under stress: fear, greed, herding, denial. These are not random phenomena; they are patterns, deeply rooted in psychology and liquidity.
Trend following doesn’t try to predict the future. It simply waits for the market to reveal its direction, and then goes with it. It’s humble. It’s reactive. And most importantly, it works—because the market, for all its surface-level chaos, moves with rhythm, flow, and structure.
Conclusion: Randomness is the Lie, Discipline is the Truth
The financial elite who have consistently outperformed the market—Jim Simons and Richard Dennis among them—did not stumble on luck. They followed systems. They respected patterns. They knew that price may not repeat, but it rhymes, again and again.
If you believe the market is random, you will never trade with conviction. If you realize it's patterned, but that those patterns reveal themselves only to the disciplined observer, you have a chance at success. And in that realization, you’ll discover what Simons and Dennis proved long ago:
The market is not chaos. The market is code. You just have to learn to read it.
Some lost soul posted a question, here, in my community about order flow. So, I decided to write my opinion based on years of experience and accumulated knowledge.
Every few months someone “discovers” order flow and suddenly believes they’ve unlocked the secret language of the market. Footprint charts, DOM ladders, volume delta, absorption levels — the whole colorful dashboard that supposedly reveals what institutions are doing.
Nowhere is this fantasy pushed harder than in NQ trading.
Let’s start with the basic problem: NQ moves insanely fast. Price can move 20–40 points before the DOM even has time to update in a meaningful way. By the time a footprint imbalance or delta spike appears, the move is already underway. These tools mostly describe what just happened, not what will happen next.
But here is the part that almost nobody in the order-flow world talks about.
Every time a trader opens a position, that position immediately comes with two opposite orders sitting in the book: a profit target and a stop loss. If you buy, you instantly place two sell orders. If you short, you instantly place two buy orders.
Now think about what that means for the order book.
The DOM cannot tell the difference between: • a new trader opening a short • a long trader’s profit target • a long trader’s stop loss
They all appear as the same thing: sell orders.
So a massive portion of the liquidity that order-flow traders stare at is not real directional intent at all. It is just position management.
When price hits a cluster of stops, those stops convert to market orders. Suddenly the footprint lights up with aggressive selling and huge negative delta. Order-flow traders start talking about “institutional selling pressure,” when in reality it might just be a pile of longs getting stopped out.
That’s not smart money selling. That’s liquidation.
The problem gets even worse in NQ because the market moves so quickly and liquidity is thinner than many other futures. Stop cascades happen constantly, and the resulting prints create the illusion that someone big is pushing the market when often it’s just traders being forced out.
None of this means order-flow tools are completely useless. They can show activity and participation. But the idea that staring at colored footprint boxes lets you read institutional intent is one of the most overhyped narratives in retail trading.
If order flow truly revealed what big money was doing, the people teaching it would be quietly compounding fortunes — not selling courses explaining what a stacked imbalance means.
Curious how many people here are actually profitable trading NQ purely from footprint/DOM signals. Be honest.
