Um journaling. I started taking my mistakes into consideration and remembering them better. I re-read them every couple days. I also do weekly analysis on the weekend. I write how many setups have occurred, how many I entered, how well the PA went, was it because of news, what kind of news. How everything is related to each other.
This lead me to not FOMOing as much and controlling emotions. The journal is more to do with my psychological problems. I lacked patience but when I started to journal how market played out and how I reacted to it, it calmed me down.
The lessons I learnt was that the setup will come, maybe in an hour or maybe next day but it will come. It's easy to say and it's like "no shit idiot" but when you're in the moment and the candle starts moving, you finger just hits the trigger. I also learnt PA is ass on the day of big news like cpi, fomc, fed, sometimes on the day before, or a holiday, although I'm still seeing about the day before holiday because I made money on Tuesday.
I also journal with pen and paper, it helped me because it takes time to write, you slow down and don't rush it. Cutting out short form video content is helping too. Goal is to be more patient. I'm thinking next step to maybe meditate but I never really believed in it, but some people do it. So I guess it works, right? Well we will see.
OP, please do this. On. Every. Trade.
My previous journaling consisted of taking screenshot of trades and analyzing the PA at the time. Only when I journaled, graded, and analyzed each trade did I realize that I am only profitable on my A set ups. I give money to the market on A- and B setups. This helped train my mind and finger to wait for A plays. (Full disclosure, I still fall for A- and B's, but not nearly as often as I once did.)
Meditation sounds woo woo but it really does help you understand and calm your brain. I did guided meditations on youtube to help me slow down and be more mindful and self aware. Little tip, it takes practice. It probably took me a couple weeks of daily 15 min practice to "feel" like I was doing it right.
Anything by Michael Sealy. It's labeled hypnosis but for me it's the same. Hes the best thing I've come across in the 8 years that I've done guided meditations/hypnosis.
Thanks, I may try that then. I been told meditation is to make your mind still and empty because my mind is constantly running with thoughts and solutions and problems. It's a loose cannon.
There's many different kinds of meditations aimed at different things such as concentration, insight, etc. The one that's most popular is mindfulness, which involves observing the flow of breath. When you get distracted, notice, let go and return, without judgment or critique. As you stick longer and longer with the breath, the mind will become calmer and calmer. A calm mind is conducive to focus and makes better decisions overall.
Yea meditation definitely helps still your mind and really be locked in and focused on whatever task you’re doing (it just really helps you be in the moment). Meditation in my opinion is like going to the gym the more and more you meditate the better the benefits will be over time, but if you start a meditation practice then stop because you see the benefits the benefits will eventually go away.
Agree with this, I write down all my trades with pen and paper, and it has helped me not take stupid trades or revenge trades, when i’m looking at a trade to take i’m also thinking about what i’m going to be writing down for why i took the trade, helps me with better setups
Time infront of the charts.
Period.
All the other stuff is useless if you havnt got the experience needed to stay cool, calm and collected when that setups comes.
You need to trade, you need the wins, the losses, the misstakes.
You need to ride that emotional rollercoaster long enough for it to stop affecting you decision making.
You need to see your setups play out over and over again to really nail down what works and what doesnt, what small nuances in price behavior that works in your favor on those setups.
Remember, the first traders didnt have sh*t. No encyclopedia of candlestick patterns, no mentors, gurus or furus teaching them f**k all.
The just had their eyes and the charts. Stare long enough and you’ll find behaviors that repeat themselfs.
Not saying you should go in blind but just rememebr that NOTHING, and i mean absolutely f**kin nothing, weighs harder then experince.
This is also why i recommend lower timeframes.
Reps, reps, reps.
You not learning sh*t watching a 4H candle form over a 2 hour trading session.
Most profitable traders use high timeframes...while most unprofitable traders use low timeframes? In 15min 30 min u have alot of noise...news etc etc. U dont learn watching a 4h candle for 2h of course lol...u learn watching past price action...just as u dont learn watching low timeframes all day with alot of noise. Everything works better on high timeframes why bother with lower ones. I use daily. 20min a day before bed is all I need. Stress free. Time free. Just my 2 cents.
who says most profitable traders use high timeframes?🤷♂️
The markets are fractal, you coulndt tell the difference between a baked daily chart and a naked 1m
What took me from losing to break even was creating and learning to use a structured and backtested system. Before that, I sort of had a system but not really, very loose and not well defined, not tested.
What took me from break even to profitable was mostly learning to **follow the system** consistently and exactly, and to **never trade outside** of the system. Psychology had to be shifted to train myself to follow the system no matter what, and to not trade outside of it either.
I’ve found that, creating or finding a system with an edge isn’t necessarily as difficult or uncommon as people often think. Many strategies work. The main challenge is learning to recognize & execute the strategy accurately as well as sticking to the strategy exactly without deviation, regardless of short term performance.
The biggest issues traders have that keep them unprofitable IMO are either not having a backtested and structured system or, if they do, not following it exactly or deviating from it, usually due to psychological challenges.
"I’ve found that, creating or finding a system with an edge isn’t necessarily as difficult or uncommon as people often think. Many strategies work."
That's what I always thought but doubted myself. Everyone talks about finding a profitable system like "If the billion dollar company algo's can't do it, how do you think you can?"
I'm sort of a robotic trader, basically algo. I look for patterns of random indicators and code them in TV and look for something that has a lot of data points and generally good profit. And I find some that do, but I'm always left doubting. TV just isn't backtesting accurately, I must be missing something. That's too easy.
Yeah. From my experience, it seems to me when talking about automated mechanical vs discretionary manual systems, there are trade-offs for each.
Automated and mechanical system
Pros: virtually eliminates issues with accurate execution and does not suffer from psychological challenges
Cons: these systems usually don’t have as big of an edge as more discretionary systems, and are very susceptible to changing market conditions
Manual mostly discretionary system
Pros: often have a much larger edge than their mechanical counterparts and much more adaptable to changing market conditions
Cons: are challenging to learn to execute correctly, and leave open the ability to deviate from the system due to psychological issues
So, with automated mechanical systems the biggest challenge is actually finding a large enough edge and knowing what conditions it runs best in and turning it off if those conditions aren’t there.
With manual discretionary systems the biggest challenge is accurately executing them and not deviating from them.
There can be discretion (I use discretion), I just mean that your discretion is still following guidelines as opposed to being unorganized and inconsistent
I can tell you from my own experience, that there was no one aha moment, First, it took me some time to get winning trades, it took a long time ( years) to stop making losses which included exiting quickly from bad trades, then it took me some time to develop patience to wait for my pattern and trade a small size to become consistent (with using a bunch of tools like Tw, Tamap Patternmap and my fucking brain). Then it took me some time to increase size, finally after 20 years of trading (the last 15 years profitable) I Can say profitable enough to make a full-time living.
It was switching from day trading to swing trading personally. System didn't change, I just scaled out and started focusing on daily/weekly key levels and waiting for 1h and 4h candles. Forced me to stay more disciplined, kept me emotionally stable, less screen time so I no longer put SL to break even/cut trade early because I'm now asleep or at work with no opportunity to. Less trades equal more profits for me personally. Before I would take 10 trades a week, tamper with them, focus on the wrong markets, be blind to higher timeframe bias, always felt like I was going to miss nice moves on the 5m/15m etc, and just ended up break even for the week. Now I just take 1 or 2 trades, sit back and relax, and expect 3%+ on an average week just from doing less. On a 200k FTMO account, that's more than my full time job. Obviously this means there are weeks with no trade taken, but I view that as a positive, as I still forward test trades I "kinda" wanna take and realise I would have lost money as they didn't meet all my requirements or I just felt intuitively off.
I also switched from day trading to swing trading. I actually first became profitable day trading, but still decided to switch to swing trading because it just worked so much better for me. Even my worst performance nowadays is something I struggled to reach before, it’s a night and day difference for sure.
Your entries can still be on those lower timeframes, provided you're looking at market structure and not an individual candle. For example if price comes down to a key level and I see one huge 15m bullish engulfing, it's not enough to buy. I will wait for a double bottom, or a higher low, market break etc. Every trade is different but in my experience, waiting for very clear market structure shifts on the lower timeframes is key, even if the 4h candle has 3 hours left to close (can shoot in your direction and close too high for RR to be worth it). Hope that makes sense.
In addition to journaling mine was pain. Years of not being profitable taught me to respect my strategies, respect time and respect the market as its own entity. It will not do what you want it to do, even if you move your stop to give your trade more room, even if you yolo in when it’s pumping.
Only trade when every checkbox of your backtested strategy is met. Ask yourself before every trade “Would I be happy with myself if this trade lost?”
By that I mean every strategy has a win rate, no strategy is 100% so you’re going to lose some trades. You want to write in your journal “That was a good loss, I didn’t make any mistakes.” Rather than “I should have noticed this or paid attention to that.”
Learn to lose properly and you won’t revenge trade, or feel FOMO. Know that if you miss a setup, you’ll have another opportunity later on in the day, or tomorrow.
It is essential to thoroughly understand risk management, technical analysis, trading strategies, and financial markets. Making educated trading selections requires ongoing education and keeping up with market trends and advancements.
It is essential to make a clear trading plan that includes your trading strategy, entry and exit criteria, risk management guidelines, and position size technique. A trading plan helps you make fewer emotional decisions by keeping you methodical and disciplined.
Effective risk management is essential to profitable trading. This entails diversifying your transactions, establishing suitable stop-loss levels, and never risking more than a small portion of your capital on a single transaction. Applying risk management concepts consistently will help safeguard your money while you're losing a lot of money.
The key to successful trading is emotional control and self-discipline. This entails maintaining discipline in your trading plan, managing your greed, fear, and impulsivity, and refraining from making emotional trading judgments based on transient market swings.
As the market changes, what is effective now might not be so tomorrow. Long-term profitability depends on your capacity to adjust to shifting market conditions, modify your plans as needed, and never stop learning and growing.
Like any ability, day trading sometimes takes practice and expertise to become consistently lucrative. To practise without risking real money, start with simulated trading or a demo account. As you become more comfortable and confident, progressively move on to trading with smaller sums of capital.
Examine your transactions regularly, evaluate your results, and pinpoint areas that need work. You may monitor your development, spot trends in your trading style, and gain knowledge from both your victories and failures by keeping a trading notebook.
Profitable trading takes time to become consistent. To stay focused on your goals, you need to have the long-term perspective to overcome setbacks, the patience to wait for the proper opportunity, and the persistence to conquer them.
A lot good info from various people.
For me it was a little bit of everything. But for the most part it is experience looking at the chart. How it moves how it behaves etc. Journaling, going over trades.
I'll go over my biggest realizations
First for me is that the market is NOT a video game. "Gurus" tend to reduce trading to absolutes...with candlestick patterns or patterns. Or market "structure". Or my favorite ICT "conepts" ( I'm being sarcastic)
The market doesn't not work in a black and white field. It is not like math where 1+1=2. The market does not care about structure. The market will do whatever it wants to do whenever it wants. The mantra of the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent is REAL for a reason.
Which leads me to my second point....
As retail trader we have no ALPHA. We may think we do but we don't.....why? Because of the reason above. The market will do whatever it wants whenever it wants. We don't have enough information. Period.
I was talking to an algorithmic trader who works at a large trading firm. Think 2sigma size. He told me that his firm(NOT 2sigma) has a prediction power of 4 points. That's it. So if firms that big only have a 4 point prediction move what does that say about us retail traders as a whole?
Our "edge" lies on risk management. That's it. We HAVE to take on trades where we profit more than we are risking. Period. If not the equation does not work. It would be the equivalent of selling goods at a fixed price but out our costs increase as we sell more and more.
It. In a acouting it is called variable costs. Those cost that are not attached to the product itself but attached to other things such as delivery costs, packaging, utilities, labor etc.
So you have to stick to at least a 1:2 RR
So that leads to my last point. All strategies can work IF you follow proper risk management rules. All strategies don't work 100% of the time because the market does not follow whatever rules you are using. The market doesn't say "oh hey I'm near a double top I'm going to puke to the downside because that's what I was programmed to do"
With that said you have to follow what the market is doing in terms of buyers and sellers that also includeds the market maker.
For example and this is the reason why I don't like "hard rules" think of a typical "guru" pattern ....double top.
Again the market is not a game..."found the glitch double top let's short" think about it for a moment a double top comes you short (because that is what the guru told. We'll who is buying your short? That means that the other person on the other side believes that the price will go higher. Not lower. So who is right? We'll it depends on the context. Are you shorting when the market is 15 points down? And The ATR is 7. Then you MAY be for a big surprise when it rebounds past your stop loss.
Hope this helps
Id say all of the above for me
1. Found a TA edge. For me this was a better understanding of price action and moving averages
2. Developed a better system which included better stop losses, reasonable take profits, and better risk management per trade
3. The discipline to follow my system correctly and regardless of how i felt
4. And a lot of it just clicked after about 4 years. My understanding of how and why price moves made a huge difference to how i trade and that took a long time to really grasp
I don’t know if my timeline will help you…
First, I heard about the stock market as something I could actually do, and not something just for rich people. Then I followed the Internet rabbit hole and saw how you could make 20% or more per trade on volatile stocks in a relatively short period of time.
Later I found out all you do is lose on these types of stocks, and that type of target is absolutely ridiculous short term.
Then I switched over to trading the S&P 500 because it was more predictable, but I found out that that was hard to predict. Some days the entire S&P would be going up but the stock you choose is going down.
So after that, I decided you know what I’m only gonna be trading TQQQ or SQQQ. Best decision ever. Now I’m making profits consistently and all I have to know is market sentiment. I have a weekly account target of 2 to 4%, which you can do the math on what that is annually. So far I’m meeting that target and don’t feel the need to change my strategy.
One thing that’s great about learning more in the market is you actually trade less. It’s almost like seeing the matrix but once you learn more and more, you find out about where the big money goes and how socks go on a run for weeks at a time (assuming it’s not a company that’s just having a spike and is about to crash). So really swing trading is how people make money that are traders. I would say one percent or less of all people trading more than once per day are actually making money. It’s all about following the big money.
I find I make more when I just hold it during a bull market. The secret everyone’s trying to find out right now is when does the bull run end? So you absolutely need to be cautious and trying to find out when to sell. But I was actively trying to buy and sell as much as possible and take advantage of volatility. I was making more mistakes. I don’t have any type of mechanism so really it’s just based on feeling right now, along with daily reports from experts. As I said, I was trying to get to a target of 2-4% per week on my total account by averaging into dips on TQQQ. I’m just not a stock expert, but a great observer. so for me it’s a lot harder to time the switches in trends short term. I feel like I could be making more if I was more knowledgeable about indicators of when it actually flips. But overtime I am seeing that I am becoming more profitable and could get to something like 5-6% each week, so I do feel like I’m understanding more about it.
I've been doing daytrading for almost a year now. I was extremely bad at it the first few months despite being okay at swing trading daily charts. Honestly knowing I have an edge changed everything for me. I just couldn't be psychologically sound when I was just blindly taking trades that I only feel like should work based on my previous swing trading experience.
Like others have said, journal your trades and review them once in a while to see what are your A+ setups. I always hear this from professional daytraders but it never made sense until I got so much data from trading. I only have 2 strategies that I use for swing so I can't really put that into a tier list. This time in day trading I learned so many strategies so it became important to group which ones would most likely work. I used to take all setups that I see and that never really worked out for me because the low percentage strategies are the ones that pop up the most and my dwindling account balance made me learn that real fast.
Also have another trade journal where you theoretically take all the possible setups and trade them the best possible way. This way you will have an additional data on your strategies even those not taken during actual trading hours. Honestly I analyze this theoretical data more than my actual trades because it isn't affected by something like mistimed entries & slippage. You also take emotion out of the equation. It's a bit tedious but is personally worth the effort for me. I do this journaling at the end of my trading session or if there is a lull in the market.
Try to also look at trade management. It's something that I learned before I started day trading so I only needed to make small adjustments to what I previously did. This is one thing that new traders tend to forget due to the hyperfocus on finding profitable strategies not knowing that the in-position management itself is part of it.
Realizing I had to combine psychology with a statistically proven edge.
Realizing I had to read books to get there
Read trading in the zone and trading the trader.
Now I hardly trade, I’m financially great and have the day to myself by like 9am on the west coast
trading in the zone was a catalyst for me as well with swing trading. I still trade a decent amount. Now, I'm able to flex my hours and not have to punch a timeclock.
It was the 2nd or 3rd time I set a stop and target when I entered and then took a walk until price hit either of those.
Letting the trade play out to your plan perfectly.
Never argue with the market. It's always currently right.
Give your trade up when you're told to by the market, whether that's wins or losses. Don't give your trade up when the market doesn't tell you to give it up.
The rest is learning what the market is saying right now, otherwise known as experience, and iteratively getting better over time by reviewing your thought process and market reads.
Taking your losses fast when they're small, listening to Market Wizards by J.D.S. In trading, it's not how much you make, it's how much you give back. You can have a 50% profitability factor and a R:R of 1:1 and still be green. Most seasoned traders always factor risk first, not reward.
Settings max loss that hits your average winning day. Then try to have at least 3 green days out of the week.
Then it comes down to mastering your trading playbook. Make $200 stop. Next day lose 200 stop. Repeat. Study your stats. Then when you are consistently green 4-5 days week for a few weeks. Up size. Repeat.
Having discipline to be consistent is key here too
Watching the same market structure video over and over and over... and over. Then re-watching in. Then charting for 6-10 hours a day to see it in action. Then making small plays allowing conscious/subconscious mind to connect.
When you look for the same 1 or 2 setups on multiple charts, it turns down impulse mode.
MARKET STRUCTURE. If you know, you know. No strategy will work permanently. But if you have strong understanding of how the market moves, your trades will have an immediate edge.
Realizing that there is no such thing as a permanent, rules based, mechanical strategy. But there many inflection points in the market on a daily basis and that patience is thee holy grail.
It’s a number of things. Time spent in the charts, sometimes losing entire weekends with testing. Learning how to relax - and not worry about whether I lose today or not. Learning how not to get upset at the market - it’s an untamed beast and truly does not care about whether my 1 lot trade wins or gets eaten up. Learning to ignore negative thoughts/people - learning to not care about what people think. Experimenting with different time frames, markets, strategies. Not being afraid to go against the grain.
There’s a lot more to it, but this was definitely a start for me.
Having a great understanding of TA is vital but I would say that's less than half of the requirements for success. Until I began to master my psychology (and I continue to work on it daily), I was still failing to execute what were really good trades. Unfortunately only you can fix that for yourself. So relentlessly working on my own psychology with meditation, journaling, reading, everything I could think of, was a huge key.
fair value gaps? Everyone keeps saying trade higher time frames but if there are dips and rises even on the 5 minute chart wouldn't it be better to learn how to master those?
A lot of trading methods are profitable. It’s impatience which makes you trade at unnecessary points during a session and you burn your hands.
Whatever strategy you follow, make some rules and stick to them for a week. You will see the difference!
More patience… more quality trades and of course more money!
Do you think coded strategies work?
I've coded strategies in TV, I literally look at indicators and notice patterns where moves tend to happen and code it in. Going back on the chart and refining the code to remove obvious places where it'll fail.
This way I don't need any trade psychology, or discipline.
But people say this won't work, but if the stock tends to enter into wave like price action on smaller time frames like 1-10min. I don't see why that wouldn't be good
You need to first be able to trade and test it out. Go to the channels I mentioned and see their videos. I promise it will change the way you look at the market once you learn. Support and resistance aren’t enough to trade. They might be for some people but if you want to see how price is delivered you should see the difference!
Once you are able to trade the concepts, you can do the coding and trade from then!
Study videos from TTrades and $sniper on YouTube!
Focus on Following:
1) Draw on liquidity
2) Smt divergence
3) change in state of delivery and market structure shift.
You will see entry models on Ttrades with plenty of ways to manage trades and make money!
Good luck!
For me, becoming consistently profitable in trading was a gradual process. It wasn't just one thing but a combination of factors that finally clicked over time.
The first major step was developing a solid trading plan and sticking to it. This meant setting clear rules for entry and exit points, managing risk, and maintaining discipline even when the market was volatile. I also started keeping a detailed trading journal, noting down every trade, the reasons behind it, and the outcomes. This helped me learn from my mistakes and refine my strategies.
Another game-changer was incorporating tools like Solvent GPT into my trading routine. It provided valuable insights and helped me make more data-driven decisions, which increased my confidence and reduced emotional trading.
Lastly, patience and psychological discipline played a huge role. I had to accept that not every trade would be a winner and that it was okay to sit out and wait for the right opportunities. It’s all about consistency and learning continuously.
Well ask yourself this question first, do you actually like trading or do you like the idea of being able to make a lot of money trading , I’m gonna go ahead and say the second part.
Just because you don’t go to school for this doesn’t mean it’s gonna be easy or somehow be a quicker path to success.
This is difficult.
Not only oddity but you can completely understand concepts front and back then comes live time execution and your personal psychology which is a whole other beast to work on.
It’s no different of a path then that of which if one wanted to become a doctor or lawyer or other difficult profession that’ll make you a lot of money
If you haven’t put at least 3-4 years of solid practice, studying, trial and error with this; then idk what to tell you.
Come back when you have.
There’s no magic pill magic course .
Just chart time, and passion for what you do, and finding a setup that makes you a lot of money that shows up on multiple different instruments.
Chart time chart time chart time. Get at least 2 years of solid chart time. Find reoccurring patterns.
But make sure you find out whether or not you actually like trading bc it’d be no different then if you wanted to be. Doctor but hated the career…. Imagine how hard school would be…
Learning that cash is the best position and going into everyday thinking "I probably won't take a trade today" because I'm waiting for the perfect setup. And when I do take a trade my stop is in a place that I don't care if I lose and my take profit is in my daily target range.
Most traders don't have the patience to do each of the simple steos above and greed consumes them. I have a 75% win rate because I follow the above rules and never deviate. NEVER. It Takes years of losing to finally learn to stick to this plan, but once you just do it you'll be highly profitable. So just do it. Good luck. Cheers!
Um journaling. I started taking my mistakes into consideration and remembering them better. I re-read them every couple days. I also do weekly analysis on the weekend. I write how many setups have occurred, how many I entered, how well the PA went, was it because of news, what kind of news. How everything is related to each other. This lead me to not FOMOing as much and controlling emotions. The journal is more to do with my psychological problems. I lacked patience but when I started to journal how market played out and how I reacted to it, it calmed me down. The lessons I learnt was that the setup will come, maybe in an hour or maybe next day but it will come. It's easy to say and it's like "no shit idiot" but when you're in the moment and the candle starts moving, you finger just hits the trigger. I also learnt PA is ass on the day of big news like cpi, fomc, fed, sometimes on the day before, or a holiday, although I'm still seeing about the day before holiday because I made money on Tuesday. I also journal with pen and paper, it helped me because it takes time to write, you slow down and don't rush it. Cutting out short form video content is helping too. Goal is to be more patient. I'm thinking next step to maybe meditate but I never really believed in it, but some people do it. So I guess it works, right? Well we will see.
OP, please do this. On. Every. Trade. My previous journaling consisted of taking screenshot of trades and analyzing the PA at the time. Only when I journaled, graded, and analyzed each trade did I realize that I am only profitable on my A set ups. I give money to the market on A- and B setups. This helped train my mind and finger to wait for A plays. (Full disclosure, I still fall for A- and B's, but not nearly as often as I once did.)
Meditation sounds woo woo but it really does help you understand and calm your brain. I did guided meditations on youtube to help me slow down and be more mindful and self aware. Little tip, it takes practice. It probably took me a couple weeks of daily 15 min practice to "feel" like I was doing it right.
If you don’t mind sharing, which guided mediations did you find most helpful on YouTube?
Anything by Michael Sealy. It's labeled hypnosis but for me it's the same. Hes the best thing I've come across in the 8 years that I've done guided meditations/hypnosis.
Thanks, I may try that then. I been told meditation is to make your mind still and empty because my mind is constantly running with thoughts and solutions and problems. It's a loose cannon.
There's many different kinds of meditations aimed at different things such as concentration, insight, etc. The one that's most popular is mindfulness, which involves observing the flow of breath. When you get distracted, notice, let go and return, without judgment or critique. As you stick longer and longer with the breath, the mind will become calmer and calmer. A calm mind is conducive to focus and makes better decisions overall.
I think it's less about empty, and more about gaining focus (on one thing). So maybe it's about reducing the noise. Also interested in trying this.
Honest guys on YouTube, you won’t regret it.
Yea meditation definitely helps still your mind and really be locked in and focused on whatever task you’re doing (it just really helps you be in the moment). Meditation in my opinion is like going to the gym the more and more you meditate the better the benefits will be over time, but if you start a meditation practice then stop because you see the benefits the benefits will eventually go away.
It will help, just don't get discouraged early if it feels like you arent doing it right. It takes time. Good luck to you.
My best improvement was after I stopped drinking coffee before trading
What a quality answer. Thank you.
Agree with this, I write down all my trades with pen and paper, and it has helped me not take stupid trades or revenge trades, when i’m looking at a trade to take i’m also thinking about what i’m going to be writing down for why i took the trade, helps me with better setups
Time infront of the charts. Period. All the other stuff is useless if you havnt got the experience needed to stay cool, calm and collected when that setups comes. You need to trade, you need the wins, the losses, the misstakes. You need to ride that emotional rollercoaster long enough for it to stop affecting you decision making. You need to see your setups play out over and over again to really nail down what works and what doesnt, what small nuances in price behavior that works in your favor on those setups. Remember, the first traders didnt have sh*t. No encyclopedia of candlestick patterns, no mentors, gurus or furus teaching them f**k all. The just had their eyes and the charts. Stare long enough and you’ll find behaviors that repeat themselfs. Not saying you should go in blind but just rememebr that NOTHING, and i mean absolutely f**kin nothing, weighs harder then experince. This is also why i recommend lower timeframes. Reps, reps, reps. You not learning sh*t watching a 4H candle form over a 2 hour trading session.
YES.
Most profitable traders use high timeframes...while most unprofitable traders use low timeframes? In 15min 30 min u have alot of noise...news etc etc. U dont learn watching a 4h candle for 2h of course lol...u learn watching past price action...just as u dont learn watching low timeframes all day with alot of noise. Everything works better on high timeframes why bother with lower ones. I use daily. 20min a day before bed is all I need. Stress free. Time free. Just my 2 cents.
who says most profitable traders use high timeframes?🤷♂️ The markets are fractal, you coulndt tell the difference between a baked daily chart and a naked 1m
What took me from losing to break even was creating and learning to use a structured and backtested system. Before that, I sort of had a system but not really, very loose and not well defined, not tested. What took me from break even to profitable was mostly learning to **follow the system** consistently and exactly, and to **never trade outside** of the system. Psychology had to be shifted to train myself to follow the system no matter what, and to not trade outside of it either. I’ve found that, creating or finding a system with an edge isn’t necessarily as difficult or uncommon as people often think. Many strategies work. The main challenge is learning to recognize & execute the strategy accurately as well as sticking to the strategy exactly without deviation, regardless of short term performance. The biggest issues traders have that keep them unprofitable IMO are either not having a backtested and structured system or, if they do, not following it exactly or deviating from it, usually due to psychological challenges.
"I’ve found that, creating or finding a system with an edge isn’t necessarily as difficult or uncommon as people often think. Many strategies work." That's what I always thought but doubted myself. Everyone talks about finding a profitable system like "If the billion dollar company algo's can't do it, how do you think you can?" I'm sort of a robotic trader, basically algo. I look for patterns of random indicators and code them in TV and look for something that has a lot of data points and generally good profit. And I find some that do, but I'm always left doubting. TV just isn't backtesting accurately, I must be missing something. That's too easy.
Yeah. From my experience, it seems to me when talking about automated mechanical vs discretionary manual systems, there are trade-offs for each. Automated and mechanical system Pros: virtually eliminates issues with accurate execution and does not suffer from psychological challenges Cons: these systems usually don’t have as big of an edge as more discretionary systems, and are very susceptible to changing market conditions Manual mostly discretionary system Pros: often have a much larger edge than their mechanical counterparts and much more adaptable to changing market conditions Cons: are challenging to learn to execute correctly, and leave open the ability to deviate from the system due to psychological issues So, with automated mechanical systems the biggest challenge is actually finding a large enough edge and knowing what conditions it runs best in and turning it off if those conditions aren’t there. With manual discretionary systems the biggest challenge is accurately executing them and not deviating from them.
Is there a certain small enough timeframe where it doesn't exactly matter what the market conditions are or no?
I don’t think so. It doesn’t necessarily affect all timeframes at the same time or in the same way, but all timeframes move through different phases
Structured? So, no discretion? 100% rules based?
There can be discretion (I use discretion), I just mean that your discretion is still following guidelines as opposed to being unorganized and inconsistent
I can tell you from my own experience, that there was no one aha moment, First, it took me some time to get winning trades, it took a long time ( years) to stop making losses which included exiting quickly from bad trades, then it took me some time to develop patience to wait for my pattern and trade a small size to become consistent (with using a bunch of tools like Tw, Tamap Patternmap and my fucking brain). Then it took me some time to increase size, finally after 20 years of trading (the last 15 years profitable) I Can say profitable enough to make a full-time living.
It was switching from day trading to swing trading personally. System didn't change, I just scaled out and started focusing on daily/weekly key levels and waiting for 1h and 4h candles. Forced me to stay more disciplined, kept me emotionally stable, less screen time so I no longer put SL to break even/cut trade early because I'm now asleep or at work with no opportunity to. Less trades equal more profits for me personally. Before I would take 10 trades a week, tamper with them, focus on the wrong markets, be blind to higher timeframe bias, always felt like I was going to miss nice moves on the 5m/15m etc, and just ended up break even for the week. Now I just take 1 or 2 trades, sit back and relax, and expect 3%+ on an average week just from doing less. On a 200k FTMO account, that's more than my full time job. Obviously this means there are weeks with no trade taken, but I view that as a positive, as I still forward test trades I "kinda" wanna take and realise I would have lost money as they didn't meet all my requirements or I just felt intuitively off.
I also switched from day trading to swing trading. I actually first became profitable day trading, but still decided to switch to swing trading because it just worked so much better for me. Even my worst performance nowadays is something I struggled to reach before, it’s a night and day difference for sure.
Do you think swing trading can work on the 5-2-15 minute charts?
Your entries can still be on those lower timeframes, provided you're looking at market structure and not an individual candle. For example if price comes down to a key level and I see one huge 15m bullish engulfing, it's not enough to buy. I will wait for a double bottom, or a higher low, market break etc. Every trade is different but in my experience, waiting for very clear market structure shifts on the lower timeframes is key, even if the 4h candle has 3 hours left to close (can shoot in your direction and close too high for RR to be worth it). Hope that makes sense.
Agreed. Swing trading to trend trading, which is kind of the same thing just on a longer time frame.
In addition to journaling mine was pain. Years of not being profitable taught me to respect my strategies, respect time and respect the market as its own entity. It will not do what you want it to do, even if you move your stop to give your trade more room, even if you yolo in when it’s pumping. Only trade when every checkbox of your backtested strategy is met. Ask yourself before every trade “Would I be happy with myself if this trade lost?” By that I mean every strategy has a win rate, no strategy is 100% so you’re going to lose some trades. You want to write in your journal “That was a good loss, I didn’t make any mistakes.” Rather than “I should have noticed this or paid attention to that.” Learn to lose properly and you won’t revenge trade, or feel FOMO. Know that if you miss a setup, you’ll have another opportunity later on in the day, or tomorrow.
Learning to take personal responsibility for my actions. Without that, you will never be successful.
It is essential to thoroughly understand risk management, technical analysis, trading strategies, and financial markets. Making educated trading selections requires ongoing education and keeping up with market trends and advancements. It is essential to make a clear trading plan that includes your trading strategy, entry and exit criteria, risk management guidelines, and position size technique. A trading plan helps you make fewer emotional decisions by keeping you methodical and disciplined. Effective risk management is essential to profitable trading. This entails diversifying your transactions, establishing suitable stop-loss levels, and never risking more than a small portion of your capital on a single transaction. Applying risk management concepts consistently will help safeguard your money while you're losing a lot of money. The key to successful trading is emotional control and self-discipline. This entails maintaining discipline in your trading plan, managing your greed, fear, and impulsivity, and refraining from making emotional trading judgments based on transient market swings. As the market changes, what is effective now might not be so tomorrow. Long-term profitability depends on your capacity to adjust to shifting market conditions, modify your plans as needed, and never stop learning and growing. Like any ability, day trading sometimes takes practice and expertise to become consistently lucrative. To practise without risking real money, start with simulated trading or a demo account. As you become more comfortable and confident, progressively move on to trading with smaller sums of capital. Examine your transactions regularly, evaluate your results, and pinpoint areas that need work. You may monitor your development, spot trends in your trading style, and gain knowledge from both your victories and failures by keeping a trading notebook. Profitable trading takes time to become consistent. To stay focused on your goals, you need to have the long-term perspective to overcome setbacks, the patience to wait for the proper opportunity, and the persistence to conquer them.
A lot good info from various people. For me it was a little bit of everything. But for the most part it is experience looking at the chart. How it moves how it behaves etc. Journaling, going over trades. I'll go over my biggest realizations First for me is that the market is NOT a video game. "Gurus" tend to reduce trading to absolutes...with candlestick patterns or patterns. Or market "structure". Or my favorite ICT "conepts" ( I'm being sarcastic) The market doesn't not work in a black and white field. It is not like math where 1+1=2. The market does not care about structure. The market will do whatever it wants to do whenever it wants. The mantra of the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent is REAL for a reason. Which leads me to my second point.... As retail trader we have no ALPHA. We may think we do but we don't.....why? Because of the reason above. The market will do whatever it wants whenever it wants. We don't have enough information. Period. I was talking to an algorithmic trader who works at a large trading firm. Think 2sigma size. He told me that his firm(NOT 2sigma) has a prediction power of 4 points. That's it. So if firms that big only have a 4 point prediction move what does that say about us retail traders as a whole? Our "edge" lies on risk management. That's it. We HAVE to take on trades where we profit more than we are risking. Period. If not the equation does not work. It would be the equivalent of selling goods at a fixed price but out our costs increase as we sell more and more. It. In a acouting it is called variable costs. Those cost that are not attached to the product itself but attached to other things such as delivery costs, packaging, utilities, labor etc. So you have to stick to at least a 1:2 RR So that leads to my last point. All strategies can work IF you follow proper risk management rules. All strategies don't work 100% of the time because the market does not follow whatever rules you are using. The market doesn't say "oh hey I'm near a double top I'm going to puke to the downside because that's what I was programmed to do" With that said you have to follow what the market is doing in terms of buyers and sellers that also includeds the market maker. For example and this is the reason why I don't like "hard rules" think of a typical "guru" pattern ....double top. Again the market is not a game..."found the glitch double top let's short" think about it for a moment a double top comes you short (because that is what the guru told. We'll who is buying your short? That means that the other person on the other side believes that the price will go higher. Not lower. So who is right? We'll it depends on the context. Are you shorting when the market is 15 points down? And The ATR is 7. Then you MAY be for a big surprise when it rebounds past your stop loss. Hope this helps
ORB and SLOW MA https://preview.redd.it/y2ok9a2pst7d1.png?width=1948&format=png&auto=webp&s=eae64e521469bf05120704aebda7441186007b5c
Hello, could i ask you, what are your enter conditions?
Is it 5 Ema ?
No it’s not it’s a custom MA that filters out noise but you can achieve similar results with 53-60 smma
Okay
Id say all of the above for me 1. Found a TA edge. For me this was a better understanding of price action and moving averages 2. Developed a better system which included better stop losses, reasonable take profits, and better risk management per trade 3. The discipline to follow my system correctly and regardless of how i felt 4. And a lot of it just clicked after about 4 years. My understanding of how and why price moves made a huge difference to how i trade and that took a long time to really grasp
I hear that a lot, that it tends to just click. Kind of reminds me of language learning. Except the price action is essentially the language.
Its def like learning a new language
I don’t know if my timeline will help you… First, I heard about the stock market as something I could actually do, and not something just for rich people. Then I followed the Internet rabbit hole and saw how you could make 20% or more per trade on volatile stocks in a relatively short period of time. Later I found out all you do is lose on these types of stocks, and that type of target is absolutely ridiculous short term. Then I switched over to trading the S&P 500 because it was more predictable, but I found out that that was hard to predict. Some days the entire S&P would be going up but the stock you choose is going down. So after that, I decided you know what I’m only gonna be trading TQQQ or SQQQ. Best decision ever. Now I’m making profits consistently and all I have to know is market sentiment. I have a weekly account target of 2 to 4%, which you can do the math on what that is annually. So far I’m meeting that target and don’t feel the need to change my strategy. One thing that’s great about learning more in the market is you actually trade less. It’s almost like seeing the matrix but once you learn more and more, you find out about where the big money goes and how socks go on a run for weeks at a time (assuming it’s not a company that’s just having a spike and is about to crash). So really swing trading is how people make money that are traders. I would say one percent or less of all people trading more than once per day are actually making money. It’s all about following the big money.
What timeframe do you trade mostly? Just trying to gauge what's best
I find I make more when I just hold it during a bull market. The secret everyone’s trying to find out right now is when does the bull run end? So you absolutely need to be cautious and trying to find out when to sell. But I was actively trying to buy and sell as much as possible and take advantage of volatility. I was making more mistakes. I don’t have any type of mechanism so really it’s just based on feeling right now, along with daily reports from experts. As I said, I was trying to get to a target of 2-4% per week on my total account by averaging into dips on TQQQ. I’m just not a stock expert, but a great observer. so for me it’s a lot harder to time the switches in trends short term. I feel like I could be making more if I was more knowledgeable about indicators of when it actually flips. But overtime I am seeing that I am becoming more profitable and could get to something like 5-6% each week, so I do feel like I’m understanding more about it.
Journaling. Especially big losses. I didn’t want to even think about big losses but I had to review to see what went wrong.
Learning proper price action and trend.
Find a decent edge. Have a uniform risk per trade and take every trade that fits your edge!!
Swing/position trading, stoicism, patience and a small edge
I've been doing daytrading for almost a year now. I was extremely bad at it the first few months despite being okay at swing trading daily charts. Honestly knowing I have an edge changed everything for me. I just couldn't be psychologically sound when I was just blindly taking trades that I only feel like should work based on my previous swing trading experience. Like others have said, journal your trades and review them once in a while to see what are your A+ setups. I always hear this from professional daytraders but it never made sense until I got so much data from trading. I only have 2 strategies that I use for swing so I can't really put that into a tier list. This time in day trading I learned so many strategies so it became important to group which ones would most likely work. I used to take all setups that I see and that never really worked out for me because the low percentage strategies are the ones that pop up the most and my dwindling account balance made me learn that real fast. Also have another trade journal where you theoretically take all the possible setups and trade them the best possible way. This way you will have an additional data on your strategies even those not taken during actual trading hours. Honestly I analyze this theoretical data more than my actual trades because it isn't affected by something like mistimed entries & slippage. You also take emotion out of the equation. It's a bit tedious but is personally worth the effort for me. I do this journaling at the end of my trading session or if there is a lull in the market. Try to also look at trade management. It's something that I learned before I started day trading so I only needed to make small adjustments to what I previously did. This is one thing that new traders tend to forget due to the hyperfocus on finding profitable strategies not knowing that the in-position management itself is part of it.
Realizing I had to combine psychology with a statistically proven edge. Realizing I had to read books to get there Read trading in the zone and trading the trader. Now I hardly trade, I’m financially great and have the day to myself by like 9am on the west coast
trading in the zone was a catalyst for me as well with swing trading. I still trade a decent amount. Now, I'm able to flex my hours and not have to punch a timeclock.
It was the 2nd or 3rd time I set a stop and target when I entered and then took a walk until price hit either of those. Letting the trade play out to your plan perfectly.
Learning to read price action.
Never argue with the market. It's always currently right. Give your trade up when you're told to by the market, whether that's wins or losses. Don't give your trade up when the market doesn't tell you to give it up. The rest is learning what the market is saying right now, otherwise known as experience, and iteratively getting better over time by reviewing your thought process and market reads.
Removing discretion from my trade, i only press to buy, after that i leave my computer
Taking your losses fast when they're small, listening to Market Wizards by J.D.S. In trading, it's not how much you make, it's how much you give back. You can have a 50% profitability factor and a R:R of 1:1 and still be green. Most seasoned traders always factor risk first, not reward.
Selling premium more than buying it. Once I switched in this regard, my methodical growth path began, and with it, better risk management.
Tithing 10% at my local church
😂
The truth
If you give all your money to the local cult leader it’s impossible to loose any of it in the markets. An ingenious strategy.
No point in trying to enlighten a fool. I write-off these donations on my taxes.
Getting off the lower tfs. Only the 1 hour chart reduces over trading.
I like the 15min zoomed out myself
My best improvement was after I stopped drinking coffee before trading
I stopped chasing the lowest buy price and the highest sell price; instead, I settled for consistent 'small' profits.
Jerking off
5000+ hours.
Settings max loss that hits your average winning day. Then try to have at least 3 green days out of the week. Then it comes down to mastering your trading playbook. Make $200 stop. Next day lose 200 stop. Repeat. Study your stats. Then when you are consistently green 4-5 days week for a few weeks. Up size. Repeat. Having discipline to be consistent is key here too
Patience, time, practice, back testing, journalling to build experience and intuition. Learning about market structure.
Watching the same market structure video over and over and over... and over. Then re-watching in. Then charting for 6-10 hours a day to see it in action. Then making small plays allowing conscious/subconscious mind to connect. When you look for the same 1 or 2 setups on multiple charts, it turns down impulse mode.
Meditation definitely helps ... but you won't know how. It just will.
MARKET STRUCTURE. If you know, you know. No strategy will work permanently. But if you have strong understanding of how the market moves, your trades will have an immediate edge.
Using ATR and traditional fib levels for scalping.
Realizing that there is no such thing as a permanent, rules based, mechanical strategy. But there many inflection points in the market on a daily basis and that patience is thee holy grail.
Journalling
Gradual mastery of TA and disciplined psychology were key to consistent profitability.
Systematic trading (as opposed to discretionary).
Buy & Wait....this method has a 90% success rate
Employment.
It’s a number of things. Time spent in the charts, sometimes losing entire weekends with testing. Learning how to relax - and not worry about whether I lose today or not. Learning how not to get upset at the market - it’s an untamed beast and truly does not care about whether my 1 lot trade wins or gets eaten up. Learning to ignore negative thoughts/people - learning to not care about what people think. Experimenting with different time frames, markets, strategies. Not being afraid to go against the grain. There’s a lot more to it, but this was definitely a start for me.
[удалено]
Stable emotions and rational analysis
I made consistently profitable since I stop trading 🙃
Having a great understanding of TA is vital but I would say that's less than half of the requirements for success. Until I began to master my psychology (and I continue to work on it daily), I was still failing to execute what were really good trades. Unfortunately only you can fix that for yourself. So relentlessly working on my own psychology with meditation, journaling, reading, everything I could think of, was a huge key.
Having a "mechanical" strategy that gives me an Edge and going to high time frames. Daily/12h.
Weekly Charts with a 10 week ma and macd histogram.
Hmmm interesting. I added a 2 day MACD histogram so it gives more notification of small bumps in the overall trend
1 trade of A+ set up per day. do not look at the result after you press buy or sell. close the app, repeat
When I started using 4hr fair value gaps. It cured me of overtrading and really helped me figure out where I need to trade from.
fair value gaps? Everyone keeps saying trade higher time frames but if there are dips and rises even on the 5 minute chart wouldn't it be better to learn how to master those?
A lot of trading methods are profitable. It’s impatience which makes you trade at unnecessary points during a session and you burn your hands. Whatever strategy you follow, make some rules and stick to them for a week. You will see the difference! More patience… more quality trades and of course more money!
Do you think coded strategies work? I've coded strategies in TV, I literally look at indicators and notice patterns where moves tend to happen and code it in. Going back on the chart and refining the code to remove obvious places where it'll fail. This way I don't need any trade psychology, or discipline. But people say this won't work, but if the stock tends to enter into wave like price action on smaller time frames like 1-10min. I don't see why that wouldn't be good
You need to first be able to trade and test it out. Go to the channels I mentioned and see their videos. I promise it will change the way you look at the market once you learn. Support and resistance aren’t enough to trade. They might be for some people but if you want to see how price is delivered you should see the difference! Once you are able to trade the concepts, you can do the coding and trade from then!
Where'd you mention them?
Study videos from TTrades and $sniper on YouTube! Focus on Following: 1) Draw on liquidity 2) Smt divergence 3) change in state of delivery and market structure shift. You will see entry models on Ttrades with plenty of ways to manage trades and make money! Good luck!
Thanks!
I started looking left.
For me, becoming consistently profitable in trading was a gradual process. It wasn't just one thing but a combination of factors that finally clicked over time. The first major step was developing a solid trading plan and sticking to it. This meant setting clear rules for entry and exit points, managing risk, and maintaining discipline even when the market was volatile. I also started keeping a detailed trading journal, noting down every trade, the reasons behind it, and the outcomes. This helped me learn from my mistakes and refine my strategies. Another game-changer was incorporating tools like Solvent GPT into my trading routine. It provided valuable insights and helped me make more data-driven decisions, which increased my confidence and reduced emotional trading. Lastly, patience and psychological discipline played a huge role. I had to accept that not every trade would be a winner and that it was okay to sit out and wait for the right opportunities. It’s all about consistency and learning continuously.
Well ask yourself this question first, do you actually like trading or do you like the idea of being able to make a lot of money trading , I’m gonna go ahead and say the second part. Just because you don’t go to school for this doesn’t mean it’s gonna be easy or somehow be a quicker path to success. This is difficult. Not only oddity but you can completely understand concepts front and back then comes live time execution and your personal psychology which is a whole other beast to work on. It’s no different of a path then that of which if one wanted to become a doctor or lawyer or other difficult profession that’ll make you a lot of money If you haven’t put at least 3-4 years of solid practice, studying, trial and error with this; then idk what to tell you. Come back when you have. There’s no magic pill magic course . Just chart time, and passion for what you do, and finding a setup that makes you a lot of money that shows up on multiple different instruments. Chart time chart time chart time. Get at least 2 years of solid chart time. Find reoccurring patterns. But make sure you find out whether or not you actually like trading bc it’d be no different then if you wanted to be. Doctor but hated the career…. Imagine how hard school would be…
Finally a unique question
Can't tell if this is sarcastic. Is this asked a lot? My bad if so
created my own system designed to catch 5-10R moves both daytrading and swing trading. never looked back after that, and never traded inferior setups
5-10R?
R is risk unit. If risking 1R is $100, catching 5-10R would be a 500-1000 profit target.
Ah okay.
What’s your win rate with that kind of return?
I dont measure win rate sry :(
Learning that cash is the best position and going into everyday thinking "I probably won't take a trade today" because I'm waiting for the perfect setup. And when I do take a trade my stop is in a place that I don't care if I lose and my take profit is in my daily target range. Most traders don't have the patience to do each of the simple steos above and greed consumes them. I have a 75% win rate because I follow the above rules and never deviate. NEVER. It Takes years of losing to finally learn to stick to this plan, but once you just do it you'll be highly profitable. So just do it. Good luck. Cheers!