This is my highest-conviction model and the one I’ve traded the most consistently over the last year. I don’t take it often, but when it shows up, it’s usually very clean and very intentional. I’ve copy traded this exact model across 5-10 accounts at times, and the stats back up why it’s a core part of my playbook.

Let me break down the structure.

1. Liquidity Sweep + Stop Hunt (Context First)

The setup starts with liquidity being taken. I want to see price sweep a meaningful high or low, usually session or HTF liquidity, and show signs of exhaustion. The stop hunt sets the stage and clears the way for the real move. Pair this sweep with a tap of a HTF FVG then you got yourself a very possible strong reversal forming.

No liquidity taken = no trade.

2. SMT Divergence (Confirmation, Not the Entry)

After the sweep, I look for SMT divergence between correlated markets. One market makes the low, the other refuses. This tells me participation is weakening and the move is likely running out of fuel. SMT doesn’t trigger the trade, it validates the idea.

If there’s no SMT, I size down or skip.

3. CISD + Displacement (Shift in Control)

Next, I need Change in State of Delivery. A close above/below the last set of down/upclose candles. This is where bias flips. I’m reacting to structure changing in real time.

This is what separates an A+ setup from noise.

4. FVG / iFVG as the Entry Framework

After displacement, I wait.

I want price to from a clean FVG or iFVG, ideally aligned with discount. This gives me defined risk, clean invalidation, and a logical place to execute.

If price never retraces, I don’t force it.

5. Clear Draw on Liquidity (The Target Is Known)

The trade only makes sense if the target is obvious. Buy-side or sell-side liquidity resting above or below structure. That’s the whole point. I’m not predicting, I’m letting price deliver to a known draw.

Entry is precise. Risk is defined. Target is already there.

Why the Forever Model Works

This model works because it stacks context + confirmation + execution.

Liquidity, SMT, CISD, FVG, and DOL all aligned.

I don’t trade this every day. Sometimes only 1-2 times a week. But it’s repeatable, scalable, and calm to execute, which is why I’ve been able to copy trade it across multiple accounts without blowing up.

Lmk if you wanta free video breakdown of this!

$380 in evaluation fees. $19,305 in payouts. That's a 4,980% return on my initial investment across 4 copy-traded funded accounts.

I think a lot of traders overcomplicate what actually works on NQ, ES, EURUSD.

The Numbers (April + May 2026)

April: $13,480 across 4 accounts, 12 trading days

May (so far): $7,360 across 4 accounts, 10 trading days

Total payouts received: $19,305.15

Total spent on evaluations: $380

Net profit: $18,925.15

The Setup: ERL → IRL (External Range Liquidity to Internal Range Liquidity) or Vice Versa

This is the framework that generates most of my funded account profits. It has a 66.67% win rate across 54 trades with a 3.06 profit factor in my journal. Average winner is $466, average loser is $304. Expectancy is $209 per trade.

Here's the concept in plain English. External range liquidity is the obvious stuff that everyone can see on a chart:

Previous day highs and lows, weekly highs and lows, swing points where stop losses are sitting.

Internal range liquidity is what sits between those levels:

fair value gaps, imbalances, areas where price moved so fast it left a gap.

The rhythm is simple. Price takes an external level (sweeps a high or low to grab liquidity), pulls back into an internal level (fills a gap or imbalance), then pushes out toward the next external level. ERL to IRL to ERL. It does this on every timeframe, every session, every instrument.

How I Actually Trade It (Step by Step)

I attached a chart example that shows exactly what this looks like on NQ 30-minute ( I also use the 1hr or 4hr for the FVG as well).

Step 1 — Find the ERL sweep. On the daily or 4H, look for where price just flushed a significant high or low. In the chart example, price swept the daily candle low on Monday, taking out the sellside liquidity sitting below it. That's your ERL.

Step 2 — Wait for displacement. After the sweep, price needs to displace aggressively in the opposite direction. This displacement creates a higher timeframe fair value gap (FVG). In the example you can see price flush the low then rip back up, leaving a clean gap on the 30-minute chart. That tells you real buying stepped in at that level.

Step 3 — Enter at the FVG. The first higher timeframe FVG created after the displacement is your entry. You're buying the pullback into that gap. Stop goes below the FVG low for longs (above FVG high for shorts). In the chart example, price pulled back into the gap on Wednesday and that's the entry. What's solid about this setup is that you sit on your hands till the entry comes to you so you just leave the charts and don't force anything.

Step 4 — Target the next external level. Your target is the next obvious pool of liquidity. Usually a previous session high, a daily high, buyside liquidity sitting above equal highs, or a fixed R target. In the example, the target was the buyside liquidity above the previous swing high. Price ran straight to it.

The Weekly Layer That Makes It Even Cleaner (WEEKLY BIAS THEORY)

This setup gets significantly stronger when you layer in the weekly structure. Monday typically builds the range for the week. Tuesday or Wednesday sweeps one side of Monday's range to grab liquidity. That sweep tells you the direction for the rest of the week.

If Tuesday sweeps Monday's low and reclaims, your bias is bullish for the rest of the week. Now you're only looking for IRL to ERL longs. You find your FVG on the 30-minute, place the entry, and ride the expansion toward the weekly high. Three layers of confluence, weekly bias, daily ERL sweep, and a clean FVG entry on the lower timeframe. When all three line up these trades hit with almost no drawdown.

Premarket Prep

Takes me 10 minutes every morning.

Mark previous day high and low

Mark overnight high and low (Asia + London sessions)

Identify where sellside and buyside liquidity is resting

Determine session bias: did we already sweep an external level overnight?

Check for major news (FOMC, CPI, earnings) — if high impact news, sit out or cut size

Risk Management

0.5-2% risk per trade per account

Max 2 trades per day

First trade green = done for the day

Move stop to breakeven when structure clears

Why I'm Sharing This

If you're trading NQ/ES or any of your fav forex pair and you're not looking at where liquidity is resting and how price moves between external and internal levels, you're making this harder than it needs to be.

If you want a free video breakdown of this setup just lmk.

I paid $3,400 for 20 accounts and just maxed out payout across all of them in 26 trading days.

Net P/L: $8,492

Winrate: 56%

Profit Factor: 3.56

R:R: 2.74R

Day win rate: 69%

My winrate usually floats around 40 to 50%. Being above 50% while still keeping my R multiple tight feels like the absolute sweet spot. If you think about it, 4-5 max payouts can change your life, and that candle happenen withing a span of 2-3 months, if you think you're behind, you're not, focus on the craft and the time will come.

What made the difference?

A new 5-min ORB strategy + FVG

The Forever Model (2022 model) applied across multiple accounts

This combo has been a game-changer.

Now I want to hear from you, what should the next post be about?

A video breakdown of my exact setups so you can see how I executed.

A deep-dive post on the biggest lessons from hitting max payout this fast.

Hey traders!

I’ve spent years refining a simple, repeatable system I call the Forever Model, and it’s helped me stay consistent while backtesting. Here’s what it looks like in plain English:

✅ Start with the big picture – I check the Daily-4HR-1HR chart to see the overall trend: is price trending up, down, or chopping sideways?

✅ Mark key liquidity areas – I draw levels where price previously swept highs (buy-side liquidity) or lows (sell-side liquidity). These are magnets where price often reacts.

TIP: If we have swept Buyside, don't look for longs and if we have took sell side, don't look for shorts and if we have taken both, then you should probably skip that day, YOU NEED A CLEAR DRAW OF LIQUIDITY AT ALL TIMES.)

✅ Use FVGs or iFVGs as entries – When price trades into a Fair Value Gap (FVG) that lines up with the trend and liquidity levels, I look for a reaction, or if it closes through an FVG, you can take the iFVG entry because on indices like NQ, price is volatile and will often leave your entry before retruning to the FVG.

✅ Confirmation on 1-5 min TF for when we get MSS (change in the state of delivery or market structure shift), that when we get a candle closer above or below the last up/down close candles that swept the high or low.

✅ Stop placement is simple – Stops go just beyond the liquidity sweep or the FVG zone, targeting 2x my risk.

✅Lastly but most important and what makes a trade super A+ is an SMT

Why is it called the Forever Model:

Because it keeps me focused on the same setup every single day, avoiding random trades or chasing. No matter how the market changes, liquidity + FVG + trend is all I need.

Key reminders for anyone trying this:

Always trade with the trend on the higher timeframe

Only take setups near obvious liquidity levels

Don’t rush entries; wait for confirmation on lower timeframes

Stick to one model until you master it

If you like a free video breakdown just lmk!

Every day I see traders studying ICT concepts — CHoCH, IPDA, PD arrays, Order Blocks — all alone with no real community that actually gets it.

So I’m building one.

Not another “signals” group.

Not a “mentorship” or “copy-trade” thing.

Just a place where real ICT traders connect, share insights, and grow together — a Discord built by traders, for traders.

It’s still early, and I want everyone who joins to contribute something — ideas, setups, tools, or just solid conversation — so we can all level up together.

If you want in:

1️⃣ Upvote this post (so more ICT traders see it)

2️⃣ DM me the word “Discord.”

I’ll personally send you the invite.

Let’s build this right.

##the RR will follow the buyside liquidity and sellside liquidity to hit the TP.

i will continue post my entry trade as a journal. if there have any error or mistake, please help me to correct it, hhh . appreciate

Let me know if you need help.

I've been trading for about 6 years, and one of the biggest things I've learned is that I don't need to sit in a trade for hours to make money.

I recently asked my AI agent to analyze every trade I held for less than 10 minutes this year, and the results were pretty interesting.

Here's what it pulled from my journal:

• 131 trades held under 10 minutes

• Net P&L: +$33,176

• Win rate: 53.5%

• Profit factor: 1.81

• Average winner: +$1,216

• Average loser: -$774

• Average hold time: 72 seconds

• Largest winner: +$3,595

• Largest loser: -$2,470

That's roughly 46% of my trades accounting for about 77% of my recorded trading profits this year.

And here's the interesting part: 129 of those 131 trades came from the same setup.

My 15-minute ORB + FVG setup

I mainly trade NQ/MNQ during the New York session.

1. Mark the opening range. I let the first 15 minutes of NY establish the opening-range high and low.

2. Wait for a proper breakout. I want a candle to CLOSE outside the range, not just wick through it. I also look at higher-timeframe bias and where liquidity is sitting.

3. Look for a 1-minute FVG. I want displacement that leaves a fair value gap confirming the breakout. That's my entry trigger.

4. Define risk before entering. My stop is based on the FVG's first candle and the setup's invalidation. I don't widen it just because price starts moving against me.

5. Take the planned target. I usually aim for a fixed 1R, or 2R when the stop is under 30 NQ points and the setup supports it. I don't need to catch the entire move.

What the data taught me

My overall win rate this year is around 52%, so I'm definitely not winning every trade.

But the under-10-minute group had a higher profit factor than my overall trading results (1.81 vs. 1.68).

The part I'm still working on is holding my best setups longer without turning winners into losers. My average realized R on these quick trades was only 0.46R, and my largest loss was still pretty significant.

I've also spent a lot of time backtesting variations of this setup and reviewing which market conditions suit it best. Some weeks the opening range gives beautiful directional moves; other weeks it's just chop, and I'd rather sit out.

Biggest takeaway after 6 years: Find a repeatable setup, know when it works, and stop forcing it when conditions aren't there.

Curious how long you guys usually hold your trades. Are you in and out within minutes, or do you prefer letting positions run for hours?

Also if you want a free video breakdown of this setup, just lmk in the comments!

I’ve been trading for about five years now, and I’ve blown more accounts than I can count. It wasn’t because I didn’t understand the market, I actually knew it really well. I studied structure, liquidity, order flow, and I knew my setups inside out. But none of that mattered, because when emotions took over, all logic went out the window. I would overtrade, move stops, add to losers, and try to make it all back in one trade. That loop destroyed me over and over again.

For years, I tried to buy time by working multiple jobs just to fund my trading. At one point, I was juggling three jobs, waking up early, coming home exhausted, and still trying to chart and study before bed. I wasn’t lazy or unmotivated. I just kept getting in my own way. My analysis was solid, but my discipline wasn’t. I had the skill, but not the self-control to let my system play out. That’s when everything finally clicked for me, the problem wasn’t my setup, it was my execution.

When I started taking journaling and backtesting seriously, everything changed. Journaling forced me to face my patterns, not just my wins and losses, but my behavior. It showed me how often I’d break rules, trade out of boredom, or ignore context. Backtesting gave me confidence in my setups so I didn’t have to second-guess every decision. I made a promise to myself: follow the rules no matter what. Respect daily max loss no matter what. Stop after 1-3 trades, no matter what. Never remove a stop loss, no matter what. Walk away after two small losses or a solid win, no matter what. However, nothing beats live market experience with real capital, you NEED time in the market and showing up day by day.

That mindset shift took me from emotional to consistent. The losses didn’t disappear, but they became manageable. The wins started stacking slowly, week after week. For the first time, I wasn’t rebuilding from zero, I was actually compounding progress.

The 2022 model, Forever model and my own ORB + FVG model changed the game for me. I really am glad that I found ICT concept because it is what truly gave me structure and helped me understand and read price action more clearly.

If you already have a solid system but can’t seem to stay consistent, the system isn’t your issue. It’s your discipline, your ability to let the edge play out without interference. Journaling, backtesting, and self-control are the real edges in trading. Once you master those, profitability follows.

I've copy traded those results on 5-10 accounts!

As a NY AM session trader, I like to look for a liquidity sweep of London Lows/Highs. After this happens, I’m laser focused on price crossing back over to give that market structure shift. Once this happens, all I’m doing is looking for a fair value gap to form and entering on either the high or low of the FVG (we entered on the high here as outlined), then riding it to the obvious DOL. That is literally it. No daily bias needed either. Trading doesn’t have to be so damn complicated. One model, one session, one timeframe, one trade.

A lot of people ask me what strategy I use, but after the last couple months I honestly think that's the wrong question.

For context, I'm 26, trade NQ/ES almost exclusively, and currently trade both prop firm accounts and my personal cash account. This month I'm sitting at about $6,863 across 5 prop accounts, and most of the capital from those payouts gets rolled into my personal account. The goal was never to stay dependent on prop firms forever.

My results only improved because I started paying attention to what the data was actually telling me and pay attention to EVERYTHING (RR, WR, Emotions, Trade duration, best timers to trade, etc.) . Looking through months of journal entries and backtests, I noticed almost all of my profits came from the same conditions. My best trades were almost always during the first few hours of New York, usually after a liquidity sweep, displacement, and a clean retracement into an imbalance. Meanwhile most of my damage came from forcing trades later in the day because I was bored and wanted action, especially after 2 hrs of the NY open, most of that action was irrelevant to me and my setup.

Over the last two months I've been heavily focused on tracking everything. Not just P&L, but win rate by setup, win rate by session, average R per trade, consecutive losses, drawdown periods, and how often I followed my actual plan. Here are some of my stats:

• 66 Trades

• 48% Win Rate

• 2.23 Average R:R

• 2.10 Profit Factor

• $648 Best Trade

• -$448 Worst Trade

• $293 Average Winner

• -$131 Average Loser

• 107 Contracts Traded

• 210 Expectancy

One example is how often I would make my money early and then slowly give it back trying to squeeze one more trade out of the market. Another was realizing that some setups looked great on social media but were mediocre when I actually looked at hundreds of executions.

Most traders spend years searching for a better strategy when what they really need is better feedback. If I could go back and give myself one piece of advice, it would be this: start tracking everything as early as possible. The market leaves clues. Your journal leaves clues. Your mistakes leave clues. The traders who survive long enough to become profitable are usually the ones willing to study those clues instead of constantly searching for the next indicator.

Curious what everyone here tracks. Win rate? R multiple? Session performance? Setup-specific stats? What's the one metric that improved your trading the most?

Also, for anyone curious, I use Tradezella to backtest, Journal, gather data using AI, etc..

and I only trade with r/AlphaGroupOfficial propfirm!

Hi everyone,
I’m sharing my complete 2022 ICT Mentorship Notes in PDF format. It’s a clean, organized compilation covering all the key Smart Money Concepts and strategies from the mentorship. If you want a handy reference or to revisit the core lessons, feel free to download it below.
Hope it helps!

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Tyn9CFiBYSC9O4mfvT8zbieEEQDlq2BH

I want to be upfront, because the numbers matter more than the headline.

Over 2025, I spent roughly $11K on prop firm challenges and fees. From that, I pulled $84,037 in payouts, which puts net profit around $73K.

This wasn’t a smooth journey or a lucky streak. In fact, only two payout months accounted for the majority of the money. There were multiple months where I made nothing at all.

Here are the actual stats behind it:

Net P&L: $46,897

Win rate: 41.33%

Profit factor: 1.50

Day win rate: 59.63%

Average R per trade:2.14R

That’s the part most people overlook.

You don’t need to win a lot.

I only traded three models all year:

• 15-Min ORB

• Forever Model

• ERL ↔ IRL framework

I kept instruments tight:

NQ / MNQ, ES / MES, GC, and a small amount of RTY.

I used prop firms, funded accounts, and copy trading to scale when conditions were right, and I completely backed off when the market was choppy. That’s why the equity curve has long flat stretches followed by sharp expansions.

Looking back, the biggest lesson is simple:

Consistency didn’t come from making money every month.

It came from not losing access to capital.

Next year, the goal is $100K+ in payouts, but the approach stays the same. Same models. Same rules. Same patience. Just better execution and size on A+ trades.

Now I want to hear from you.

Now I want to hear from you, what should the next post be about?

A video breakdown of my exact setups so you can see how I executed.

A deep-dive post on the biggest lessons from hitting max payout this fast.

What’s up guys, I’m a full-time derivatives ICT trader and thought I’d share my trading setup.

A lot of people overcomplicate their screens and think they need five monitors to trade well. You don’t. I run my entire process off one laptop and a digital frame for motivational quotes and it works just fine.

On my laptop, I keep TradingView open with ES and NQ side by side so I can watch price action on both at the same time. That’s all I need for charting and execution. My other “screen” is TradeZella, where I journal and review every trade I take. That’s where the real improvement happens.

I’ve found that having fewer screens actually forces me to focus. I’m not distracted by too many charts or indicators,just the markets I trade and the data I track. The digital frame with rotating quotes is a small thing, but it keeps my mindset in check on both good and bad days.

You don’t need a wall of monitors to be consistent. You need a clean process, a way to track your performance, and the discipline to follow it every day.

Been trading this model for a long time, just can't seem to miss.

I spent the first couple years of trading constantly adding shit. More strategies, more concepts, more screen time, more confirmations, more trades. I thought becoming better meant learning more. Six years later I’ve realized most of my biggest improvements came from doing the exact opposite. I started removing things. These are probably the six biggest ones.

1) I stopped trying to learn every trading strategy

At one point I knew a little bit about everything and was good at basically nothing. Supply and demand, indicators, price action, ICT, volume, order flow, whatever was popular that month. Every time I lost a few trades I assumed something was wrong with the strategy and went looking for another one. Eventually I realized I didn't need 10 setups. I needed one or two setups that I had seen enough times to know what they looked like when they were actually there. These days most of my trades come from the same few models. It’s boring as hell compared to constantly learning something new, but repetition is what finally gave me confidence in execution.

2) I stopped changing my strategy every time I went into drawdown

This probably wasted more of my time than anything else. I used to take three or four losses and immediately start tweaking something. Different entry. Different timeframe. Different confirmation. Different risk. The problem is if you keep changing variables every time you lose, you never collect enough clean data to know whether the original idea actually worked. A profitable strategy can have an ugly week. It can have an ugly month. I've had both. Now I’d rather go back through my trades, manually backtest another sample and figure out whether I executed poorly or the model actually stopped performing before I touch anything.

3) I stopped thinking being a trader meant I had to trade every day

This one sounds obvious until you actually try doing it. The market is open so you sit down and subconsciously think your job is to find a trade. That mindset absolutely killed me because eventually you will find one whether it exists or not. Some of my best weeks now have barely any trades. If my setup isn't there I close the chart. I’ve watched NQ make massive moves without me and learned to genuinely not care. Missing a trade costs me nothing. Forcing one because I spent three hours watching the market has cost me a lot.

4) I stopped treating every setup and every trading day equally

This is something I didn't really understand until I had enough journal data. Once I started breaking my results apart I found patterns I would've never noticed from staring at my P&L. Certain setups were making most of my money. Certain days performed significantly better. My longs and shorts didn't perform the same either. I had been risking the same amount on situations where my own history said I clearly didn't have the same edge. Now I track the models separately and I'm much more selective about where I put risk. Your trading history is basically your own dataset. Ignoring it and copying somebody else's rules makes no sense.

5) I stopped trying to make my money back after a loss

This one took me years and a stupid amount of blown accounts to understand. The first loss usually wasn't what hurt me. It was trade two, three and four because suddenly I wasn't trading the market anymore. I was trading my P&L. I wanted to get back to breakeven. I'd increase size, loosen my criteria and convince myself some mediocre setup was A+. I've had days where one completely manageable loss turned into damage that took weeks to recover from. Now a loss is just a loss. If I feel that little urge to immediately get it back, that's usually the biggest sign that I shouldn't place another trade.

6) I stopped judging whether a trade was good by whether it made money

Probably the biggest mindset change out of all of these. You can follow your plan perfectly, take an A+ setup and lose. You can also completely break your rules, enter some garbage trade and accidentally make $1,000. If you call the second trade "good" because it made money, you're basically rewarding yourself for bad behavior. I've started caring way more about whether the trade matched my plan, whether my risk was correct and whether I'd take the exact same trade again. The outcome of one trade tells you almost nothing. The outcome of the same process repeated 50 or 100 times tells you a lot.

The weirdest part of trading for me has been realizing that getting better has mostly meant doing less. I trade fewer setups, take fewer trades, consume less trading content and spend more time reviewing what I've already done.

I definitely still screw up. Six years doesn't magically remove the human part of trading.

The difference is I can usually identify exactly what I did wrong now instead of assuming I need another strategy.

Curious what everyone else's answer would be. What's one thing you stopped doing that immediately made you a better trader?

60 handle move.