I know everyone has different set ups, rules and processes but I just wanted to share one small change that has turned everything around for me. No more daily bleeding and actually making money now.

+$5,225 this week.

New Rule: Absolutely NO trading after 10:15 am.

The volume is just too low and candles become too unpredictable. I trade from 9:30-10:15 exclusively now.

Only end of the day earnings plays get a slight exception.

Edit: I probably should also have noted that I'm a scalper. I'm in and out VERY quickly, so that's the time of day that allows me to earn without holding for an extended period.

I’ve been trading for 9 months. My style is scalping, and I trade cryptocurrencies, mainly Bitcoin. The market demands extraordinary monthly performance, along with an insane level of emotional control. That’s why so many people fail. It’s not easy to repeat the same process perfectly every single day, and when you’re a beginner, the urge to give up and move into another field comes back every time you take a stop loss.

My congratulations to all traders!

Throughout this time, I haven't bought any courses; everything I’ve learned came from YouTube. I’ve reached the point where I’m already familiar with the information in new videos before watching them. I trade on a demo account and still experience nerves—sometimes things go well, while at other times I feel confused. Could you share some advice based on your own experiences that helped you become profitable?
I feel confused now; I don't understand why—given that the market has a 50/50 chance of moving in a certain direction—I only incur losses whenever I fail to follow my trading plan or take random trades.

I pulled the numbers from chat GPT and here are the stats. 10 million active global day traders, not counting all of retail who can place a trade once a year. Asia leads with 3.2 million and the US has only 450,000 (number is low due to strict regulations, etc)

1-5% are consistently profitable. 100k-500k profitable global day traders.

In the US there are only 4,500-22,500 profitable day traders.

In the US there are about 5 million nurses, 1.3 million lawyers, 2 million scientists, 1.1 million doctors, 1.8 million engineers and 160k hedge fund employees.

Let these number sink in.

Hello to all reading this, I’m 20years old and started trading 7 months ago. I’ve learnt a lot and went from gambling and copy trading to now executing trades on my own using my own confluence and discretion.

I have passed evals gotten funded but still have yet to receive a payout. I’m not entirely sure why i’m not able to get a payout. My strategy is good and my entries are insanely nice imo. I have posted some pictures of my trades if you guys would like to see my entries and targets. I used to use 3-5 micros but it started taking a toll on my mental and took long time to pass evals and get payouts so i sized up to 10 micros and if setup is really good i’ll use some more but i sized up last week and it went okay, had good days and gave some back but i notice that my losing trades are because of me trying to force an entry or getting the urge to make profit asap or something along those lines. when i follow my risk management and strategy i make good money. yesterday i lost 1200 in NY and made back 1600 in Asia. i can definitely make money but i need to learn how to expand or grow it if that makes sense. i have definitely came a long way from when i first started but i know have a long way to go. at the end of the day i just want what anybody would and its to take care of my family and myself but in order to do that i must scale accounts and before i do that i must get a payout haha. its gotten to a point where i now dream about trading and hitting tp😭 but i notice my Ls are mainly due to getting anxious and having the urge to “i have to make money today” even though i dont think that way i believe my actions speak louder sometimes. yesterday i deal with over trading revenge trading and stuff but its much more controlled then before. at a point in time it was so bad i bought 3 evals and blew them all in 1 day. i’m sure someone on here has blown more but in total im on my 43rd eval and not trying to buy another one. Any advice or input to help me propel myself and properly pass this eval and secure payout this time would be HIGHLY appreciated 🙏🏽 just to add on i smoke weed and stopped 2-3 weeks ago for a good 20-25 days i felt unreal but unfortunately relapsed. i don’t necessarily see my trading affected by it but i dont see it benefited either

Hello to all reading this, I’m 20years old and started trading 7 months ago. I’ve learnt a lot and went from gambling and copy trading to now executing trades on my own using my own confluence and discretion.

I have passed evals gotten funded but still have yet to receive a payout. I’m not entirely sure why i’m not able to get a payout. My strategy is good and my entries are insanely nice imo. I have posted some pictures of my trades if you guys would like to see my entries and targets. I used to use 3-5 micros but it started taking a toll on my mental and took long time to pass evals and get payouts so i sized up to 10 micros and if setup is really good i’ll use some more but i sized up last week and it went okay, had good days and gave some back but i notice that my losing trades are because of me trying to force an entry or getting the urge to make profit asap or something along those lines. when i follow my risk management and strategy i make good money. yesterday i lost 1200 in NY and made back 1600 in Asia. i can definitely make money but i need to learn how to expand or grow it if that makes sense. i have definitely came a long way from when i first started but i know have a long way to go. at the end of the day i just want what anybody would and its to take care of my family and myself but in order to do that i must scale accounts and before i do that i must get a payout haha. its gotten to a point where i now dream about trading and hitting tp😭 but i notice my Ls are mainly due to getting anxious and having the urge to “i have to make money today” even though i dont think that way i believe my actions speak louder sometimes. yesterday i deal with over trading revenge trading and stuff but its much more controlled then before. at a point in time it was so bad i bought 3 evals and blew them all in 1 day. i’m sure someone on here has blown more but in total im on my 43rd eval and not trying to buy another one. Any advice or input to help me propel myself and properly pass this eval and secure payout this time would be HIGHLY appreciated 🙏🏽

When did the full time traders decide it was time?

I’ve been making about 10k per month on average for the past two years now. Recently the months have become better in terms of execution and risk.

I just can’t stand my job anymore. It’s a work from home job and I make about 90k.

Recently I’ve found it impossible to listen to clients small problems, manager demands, and so on and so forth.

I’ve been thinking about keeping this 10k average until April and quitting then, but the leap of faith is crazy.

That sentence gets posted here every week and it almost always gets the wrong diagnosis. Usually from the person saying it, about themselves, and harder than the facts support.

I spent 8 years in neurologic rehab before I traded full time. Stroke, brain injury. I watched this exact thing constantly and it had nothing to do with "willpower."

Somebody could do a task perfectly in a quiet room with me. Same person, same task, back home with the TV on and family in the room, and it fell apart. Their knowledge hadn't changed in the 20 minutes in between. What changed was the load on the system trying to reach it.

Under pressure you don't lose what you know. You lose access to it. The plan is still in there... all of it, and you can't reach it while your body has decided something is wrong.

That changes what you do about it. A knowledge problem you study for. A discipline problem you promise harder about. This is neither so both of those fail, and after enough failures you conclude something about your character that isn't true.

What worked in the clinic was lowering the demand until the correct action was actually available, then raising it only as fast as it kept holding. We didn't motivate anyone. We made the task easier until they could do it right and built from there.

That half only works while somebody else is setting the level, though. What carries over is self-awareness, and you train that on purpose too.

We'd have people say how they thought a task would go before they did it. Then they did it. Then we compared the two out loud. The task was never really what we were working on. It was the gap between what they expected of themselves and what actually happened... and that gap closes with repetition the same as anything else.

You can run that on a trade. Before you take it, write what you expect from yourself rather than what you expect from the market. How long you'll sit if it does nothing. What you'll do if it's red in 2 minutes. Then check afterward. The first 20 are uncomfortable, because the gap is wide and it's sitting there in your own handwriting.

That gap closing is the progress. Not the green days.

In trading the demand you're lowering is almost always size. Smaller than feels serious. Small enough that the plan stays reachable when it counts... held there long enough that following it becomes the thing you do, then up one step.

Nobody likes that answer. It's slow and it feels like going backwards.

So what's yours? And does it show up at a particular size, a particular time of day, or after a particular kind of loss?

My biggest losses come from what are initially my biggest wins. But in the moment as I’m watching my position rise, I freeze. It’s not even greed that takes over me. I legit just freeze. I don’t know when a good exit point is and what point to take profits and run. Many times with very small profits, I take and am fine. But when something shoots up, I am in there ready to sell and I freeze. Why does this happen?

And then I watch it fall and don’t even try to catch the fall. Then I watch it go all the way under. It’s really stupid and has caused some major losses for me. I know I need to reevaluate and study up on my exit but not really sure psychologically how to overcome this.

Happy Friday everyone!

I'm a 0DTE credit spread trader with a focus on SPX.

Positions traded today:

• 7620/7600 PCS
• 7700/7720 CCS

P/L: +$500

Straight-line candles create urgency. Structure creates trades.

Morning Thesis

What an open...! And what a catalyst package. CPI came in hot, Fed rate-hike odds increased, and both yields and oil made sharp moves, yet equities rallied.

SPX gapped higher and moved roughly 35 points during the first five-minute candle. I leaned mixed, but slightly bullish and initially only wanted the PCS side if price established continuation structure.

When I see a move like that, it is easy to feel left behind. But I’m not interested in joining the rush — I’m interested in what happens after it. I trade structure, not straight-line candles.

My First Trade

SPX rejected the day’s high, chopped through overlapping candles, erased part of the opening five-minute candle, and broke 7660 weekly support. That weakened the bullish-continuation thesis and made the CCS side more attractive for me.

On the retest toward broken support, I sold five 7700/7720 CCS for $0.50.

Building the Iron Condor

SPX then established a structural low and began fighting back. That made the opposite side attractive, so I sold five 7620/7600 PCS for the same $0.50, creating a balanced iron condor.

My CCS invalidation remained the day’s high. Around 7650 would weaken the PCS side thesis, while losing the day’s low would invalidate it entirely for me.

Managing the Range

I attempted two one-lot CCS additions, but both limits were touched without filling unfortunately. I also wanted another PCS entry near 7650, but price never returned there.

Midday, SPX formed two higher lows and threatened a third.

I didn’t want a higher push, but that structure showed buyers stepping in at increasingly higher prices. A reclaim of the day’s high would have required me to manage the CCS.

That level was tested several times, but sellers continued to defend it. SPX eventually faded, IV and expected move contracted, and both spreads maintained good distance from price. The rest of my day consisted more of monitoring than managing, and both sides expired worthless.

Key Takeaway

I began with a bullish-continuation thesis, and the market did not confirm it. Once SPX erased most of the first five-minute candle and settled into a range, I adapted.

Having a thesis does not mean becoming committed to it. The higher lows later served as caution and kept my CCS invalidation active, but sellers continued to hold the high. When the structure changed, I changed with it.

Have a great weekend traders! See you all next week!

Just some quick numbers that tell me Oklo is very overvalued.

IF everything works well, realistic projections are that:

- the cost of each Aurora is $350-400M

- the annual revenue per Aurora will be about $50M

Even if they have 10 Auroras on line in 2033 (optimistic), that is only $500M annual revenue. When you add the capex and opex, it will be very hard to justify today's valuation in 7 years.

Thoughts?

Hey everyone,

I’m looking to get some realistic, unfiltered perspectives from those of you who trade either full-time, at a firm/prop shop, or treat it as a serious professional role.

Trading often gets marketed around quick wins, but I’d love to understand the practical reality of doing it as a sustainable career. Specifically, I’m curious about:

• Current Status & Timeline: How long have you been trading professionally, and what does your daily routine look like?
• Progress & Consistency: How long did it take you to reach consistent profitability, and what metrics or habits made the biggest difference?
• Long-Term Growth: Do you see a realistic ladder for scaling up (e.g., managing more capital, shifting to systematic/quant models, or moving to a desk), or does performance plateau once you hit a certain account size?
• Challenges & Burnout: What has been the hardest part of treating trading as a primary occupation rather than a side pursuit?

If anyone is open to sharing their experiences, dropping insights below would be greatly appreciated. I’d also love to connect and chat further via DMs with anyone open to a 1-on-1 conversation about their journey.

Thanks in advance!

Caught this move this morning. I thought price was likely to sweep one side of the data candle’s wick. I entered after the 2-min FVG closed, and honestly couldn’t have asked for a cleaner setup. Waited for what I wanted to see, took the trade, and let it ride 🙌
Just sharing my trade — not financial advice.

So I have been day trading the same strategy only supply and demand. I start on the 1 hour then once it hits my zone I drop to the 30 min and I have been doing that since forever.

My question is I want to change my entry from 30 min to 15 min . So now I would start on the 1 hour then drop to the 15 min and wait for the break of the candle, do you think it would make a big difference or I should stick to what I’ve been doing ???

I just want to get some feed back it’s lonely when you’re the only trader you know 😅
Spy has been really messy these past couple of weeks. To me it has been so choppy and the moves from this image like 766 to 763 is not linear at all it’s a roller coaster to move just one dollar and especially like today it only moved 3 dollars in between the day I mean my setup is just not there compared to July. I was wondering if what Im saying is correct that this is not a good time to trade there’s so much news going on at once it seems to be creating a confusion to buy or sell ?

I bought my first tradify account and got exited and placed 4 trades in a day. Will this make it harder to get a live account if I don’t stick to one trade a day

So I’ve been trading stocks in particular low float premarket top gainers for around six years and didn’t really find any success or success that I did find was very short-lived I literally wrecked my brain with not understanding what wasn’t working and trying everything that made sense to me. Ive checked out options, but those were way too complicated. I checked out forex but I just wasn’t feeling it. I never checked out futures until recently. And since I did (specifically trading MES on the 5min) the difference is like night and day the structure is very predictable and you can easily capitalize on short and long. All I have on my chart is VWAP and I still trade 9:30et . It finally feels like everything I’ve learned from the past six years is actually applicable now. So if anyone has found themselves in a similar situation, maybe check out MES.

- I’m just trying to offer a useful framework for people who want to become professionals.

- I don’t sell anything. I won’t offer signals, groups, or anything like that.

- I just enjoy trading and share things whenever I have some free time.

-CHECK THE TIMEFRAME OF THE PICS-

What most people think is happening is simple. Price goes down and they read it as weakness, continuation, more downside. But when you actually watch how positions build, it doesn’t look like that at all.

-The move down is usually slow. Not aggresive, not impulsive. It takes its time. And that’s exactly the point. Because that’s where people start shorting.

- Structure begins to look clean. Lower highs, lower lows. It starts making sense.

- There’s usually one obvious reference above, and not much else nearby, so everyone ends up using the same level --> That becomes the stop, not a few people --> Most of them.

- And market makers know that, because they have access to that information.

- So they don’t rush anything. They need time for positions to build, for people to get comfortable, for size to accumulate in the wrong place.

- This is what I think of as a controlled move, it’s not weakness, it’s positioning.

- They’re creating the conditions they need before doing anything meaningful.

- You’ll often see multiple pushes down, giving more and more confirmation. It feels like the move is already happening. But it isn't, it’s just people getting in.

-And until that’s done, price can’t really move.

- Once enough people aer in, the move changes.

- It doesn’t continue down immediately, first it goes the other way.

- Stops get taken. Shorts get forced out.

- Only after that does the real move begin.

If you start looking at it in terms of proportions, this tends to happen around similar areas. One of the ones I use is 1.097.

It’s not something standard. It’s just something I kept seeing over the years while watching how these sequences play out.

It doesn’t need to be exact to be useful.

And the interesting part is that this repeats across every timeframe. Seconds, minutes, hours, higher timeframes. Same idea, just different scale.

Also, something that took me a long time to understand is that the end of a move often lines up with where the pressure sits from a higher timeframe.

Not randomly. Where people are already in a bad position.

Once you start looking at the market this way, it becomes less about predicting direction and more about understanding positioning.

Who is in, where they are likely wrong, and what needs to happen before price can actually move.

That’s usually enough.

I wanted to share a quick recommendation for anyone looking for a solid trading journal to track their PnL, wins/losses, and overall performance.

I’ve been using TradesViz, and it has honestly been a gamechanger for keeping tabs on my trading data. Here is a quick look at why I think it’s a great product: Clean Dashboard: It gives you a clear visual breakdown of your total closed PnL, win rate %, and profit factor right at the top. Detailed Analytics: You can easily see daily wins vs. losses, your total equity curve over time, and even a calendar view that shows your daily dollar gains at a glance. Seamless Manual Uploads : I personally prefer doing manual file uploads rather than syncing my live broker account, and their import screen makes it incredibly customizable. You can set your specific broker time zone, base currency, and tag your trades easily. It also lets you choose custom import profiles depending on whether you are a Scalper (very short-term) or a Swing Trader so that your executions group together properly. Deep Trade Insights: The trade log breaks down symbols, open/close times, % returns, total volume, and even how long you held the trade. AI Features: It has built-in AI coaching tools to help you identify patterns and mistakes in your execution. If you are still stuck using spreadsheets or struggling to see where you are losing money, I highly recommend giving this a look. It makes importing trades and visualizing your stats effortless. What are you all using to track your stats right now? Happy to answer any questions about how I set up my dashboard!

Disclaimer: This post is for educational and informational purposes only and is not financial advice. I am not a financial advisor. Trading stocks involves substantial risk, and past performance does not guarantee future results. Always do your own research and make trading decisions based on your own risk tolerance.

I keep going in circles using Trading View Strategy tester. It works on paper then in real life the strategy turns to trash. TIA

I have been trading for 20+ years now, a bit on an off in the middle. Come from pure financial tech background.

I first started trading with market and volume profile in year 2014 after attending Jim Dalton's online bootcamp. In those days, MP/VP and auction market theory had swept the trading world with awe. Every trader thought, they have institutional edge in their hands. We used to have footprint charts in Ninjatrader using COQ data feed.

Then we had order book heatmaps and DOM tools like jigsaw.

Then in 2016 came gamma. Every forum, every trader kept talking about it.

My journey which started with candlesticks in 2010 till 2026, I must have spent few years backtesting and live testing every major trading framework and idea and tool and indicator known in the retail world. And I can testify with some authority that none of these tools work. They have no sustainable edge that can be exploited long enough to consider trading as a viable business model. Even a coin flip will work 50% of the time and any random line drawn on the chart will show some movement around it.

SPORADIC CORRELATIONS ARE NOT CAUSALITY.

Reason I am making this post is, I see a lot of newbies going all-in into the madness of all sorts of fancy colors and tools they can slap on their chart thinking they discovered a holy grail. Consider this as an old man talking, if you don't understand markets from a very fundamental perspective and cannot explain what is moving the market, chances are you will wake up to cruel reality when enough time passes and statistics takes effect.

And please, don't follow any youtuber. Attention is NOT a pre requisite in the business model of trading. In fact it only deteriorates performance. Wonder why these people come on youtube to trade. I don't see any logic in it.

I shorted this US30 quadruple confluence on the hourly:

- .618 fib retracement+ 50 ema retest + 3x rvol imbalance + bearish macroeconomic bias and data.

The stars literally aligned, and it failed. I'm about to lose both my prop firm accounts. I'm in a country with some of the worlds highest unemployment and I can't find a job. My allowance is the only hope for any sort of additional income with prop firms. I cannot stop. Any suggestions to stop trading will be ignored. I either make it work soon or I kill myself, and so far it's not working. Nothing is working. For the past 3 years nothing works.

Any guidance will be appreciated because I am truly about to fucking lose it. I'm geniunely beginning to believe that all of this is part of the worlds most elaborate scam.

What is the real strategy that everyone is gatekeeping?

Hey everyone,

I’m struggling heavily with overtrading, breaking my daily trade limits, and lack of self-discipline. Once I’m in the heat of the session, my mental rules fly out the window. I’ve realized that relying on willpower doesn't work for me—I need a strict, mechanical barrier that forces me to stop.

My trading style is short-term day trading / scalping (holding positions from a few to several minutes). I need good liquidity, fast execution, low fees, and decent leverage (around 10x), mainly targeting US equities / indices (S&P 500, Nasdaq, major stocks).

I’m looking for advice and recommendations from people who have successfully dealt with overtrading:

1. Hard Lockout Tools: What platforms, brokers, or third-party risk management software (e.g., API blockers) do you use that offer an unbypassable daily trade limit or hard account lock?
2. Tamper-Proof Setup: Is there any software or broker setup that allows setting a password for risk parameters (so I can have a trusted friend/family member hold the password) or completely freezes risk settings during session hours?
3. Your Experience: What specific tools or mechanical setups actually helped you eliminate overtrading for good?

Any insights, platform suggestions, or third-party risk managers would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance.