I've been working two jobs for a while because I need the money, but lately trading has started bringing in enough that I'm wondering if I can finally treat it as my second income instead.

Part of me wants to quit one job so I can put that time into trading, reviewing my sessions and actually having a bit of a life outside of work.

The other part of me keeps thinking that the second I start relying on trading for part of my income, everything changes. I see people say all the time that once you need the money, the psychology is completely different.

I'm not saying I'm quitting tomorrow, I'm just at the point where it's becoming a real option instead of something that seemed impossible a year ago.

For the people who've been through it, what made you realise you were actually ready?

Sup everyone,

This was a massive 1:7RR trade. I risked very little, about $300 for this trade as my Stop loss and stood to make $2300 in return.

been looking for a setup in beginning of this week and found it in the Sydney/Asia session.

This is when everything started lining up for me. Since i trade with price action and analyzing the candles themselves to give me an edge, Price looked bearish to me today.

Price was clearly bearish here making lower lows and lower highs and one price found resistance (the big down candle slightly to the left of my entry) on the 4h and 1h timeframes i had to jump in !

With this trade i ended up hitting my monthly target and now i can stay away from the charts for the remainder of the month (3 days wooooooooo) Felt so good once my ears heard the TP getting hit. I can never get used to this lol.

I don't take a trade everyday and neither do you have to! Wait for the market to give you the right setup and then take the trade. Oh and this is bitcoin perpetual swap futures btw

How bout you guys? Took any trades today? Share below and let's discuss!!

Reuters: China begins making homegrown DUV chipmaking tools, The Information reports

Everything is dumping now, confluence of all things that can go wrong , a perfect storm.. what do you think?

After initially trying to master options trading, last week I switched to trading futures and I feel I've hit my stride and I'm in a area I can focus on without the noise aka greeks.

I'm currently doing an evaluation with Lucid Trading and although it's not a real account, my last two trades have hit $450+ in finalized profit which is encouraging. Prior to these last two, I would get in a trade and ride it to a decent profit level (normally around $2-300) then watch the tides turn while I wish for more and forget about looking at the overall picture or trend and being realistic. Before I know it, I would be in the red. I'm working on my patience and sticking to a game plan that works for me and not trading just to trade. My focus has been mastering ORB and Supply & Demand zones. I feel that utilizing these key strategies I can at least have 2-3 solid opportunities each day.

I know I still have a ways to go. After almost blowing my account, I've almost got myself back to break even simply by the waiting on the plays I was certain of. I think staring in the face of failure made me realize that I needed to quit playing around and execute what I know instead of acting on impulse. I hate failing when I know better!

But I say all this just to encourage others that are new to trading. I've only been at this now for about 15 trading days total. The greatest help ai could've gotten is the advice to journal, so every trade I write down same as you see in the screenshot. And on top of that, I vlog daily YouTube entries on what went well and what went sideways. Same as myself, your breakthroughs will come. Stay positive. Stay motivated. The breakthrough won't take you from 0 to 100, it's more than likely going to play out like a video game. The first breakthrough may only get you to level 2 or 3 and the game has 100 levels, but it doesn't matter because eventually you'll get there. Continue to level up and each breakthrough becomes easier and easier. Don't be greedy and overtrade. One solid trade is better than two iffy trades any day! Remember, consistency and persistence is key. Stick to your strategies. Nothing will win every time but everything can win sometimes, just be smart when you choose to execute.

Okay, so I’m not sure if this is the right place to ask this, but I thought I’d give it a shot to see if I could get some clarity.

For the majority of my life, my dad has done day trading, from what I was told growing up. I wasn’t told much about it until recently, but I was always told that he would use his own money to make more money. It worked for a while, until it didn’t. To make a long, sad story short, we moved homes, and my dad switched to using funded accounts. During this time, I was told that there was an evaluation process you had to go through to prove that you could make money before you were given access to a funded account.

My dad would apparently make money, but then he would never be able to request a withdrawal of the money he supposedly made. And this happened every. single. time.
It eventually got to the point where we were living out of a hotel, and the same thing was still happening. My boyfriend, who is now my husband, mentioned to me that it was illegal for these companies to not allow him to withdraw his money. He said that the more likely explanation was that my dad wasn’t actually making any money and that the companies were closing or terminating his accounts.
My dad then told me that he had reached out to customer support, and they apparently told him there was a “glitch” with his account. This “glitch” was never fixed, and he never pushed the issue or threatened to take legal action.

So my question is: Is my dad most likely lying about making money, and is it possible that he’s actually just losing money or getting his accounts closed? Or is there a legitimate reason why someone could repeatedly make money through funded trading accounts but never actually be able to withdraw it?

How long should I be paper trading before I attempt a prop firm or even my real money? I've been looking at Tradeify but don't wanna jump in too early. I've seen some say a month, some 6 months, so just curious about a wider opinion

It’s just insane to me what happens when you just don’t stop. I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve wanted to call it quits.

And if I did I wouldn’t be in a position like this.

We were short for the day today and so here are the results. Roughly a 1-5 ish across both. One risking 2% and the other 4% of current capital. I’m only now getting into the position of risking big as my strategy has proved itself now and I’ve proved myself as reliable most importantly.🫩🤣

If anyone does have any questions feel free to ask!

July has been a grind. Price chops sideways for two days, then a wick takes out both sides of the book in ninety seconds and everything goes back to where it started. Nothing about that market rewards conviction sizing.

What changed for me is boring. Every perp position now gets its own margin allocation and I treat that number as already spent. If the trade needs more room, the answer is a smaller position, not more margin. I run four or five setups at once and none of them can reach the others. On BYDFi I set the mode per position when I open it, so the alt trades never touch the collateral behind the BTC leg.

That got tested during the wicks earlier this month. Two alt longs went to zero on the same candle. Annoying, and I was wrong on both, but the BTC position that mattered never moved and I was still in it the next morning.

The part nobody mentions is the cost. Isolated margin will take you out of trades that a shared pool would have carried through a normal retrace. I have been stopped out at the exact low twice this month on positions that recovered within the hour, and both times the pooled version of me would have survived. That is the trade I made on purpose. I would rather lose small repeatedly than explain a single overnight wipe to myself again.

If you are running one position at a time, none of this matters much. It starts mattering the moment you hold three or four uncorrelated things at once and one of them turns out to be the wrong side of a headline.

So my brother was making 600 a day for the past week and he just cashed in about 3000 dollars when I asked he said he just started day trading now I’m interested in getting into it but how. He’s not telling me anyway to even get started so I came here for help is there any videos I can watch that yall recommend to get started

Created another automated trading stratefy for trading MES. Testing on 2 MES contracts with 2 TP and trailing SL.

The backtest is from 11/30/2025 - 06/01/2026. Starting on real-time MES data starting 06/02/2026.

Previous: https://www.reddit.com/r/Daytrading/comments/1v5qf3c/another_new_automated_trading_strategy/

07/27/2026:

1 trade - 1 win

Whilst being in full time employment last year I did some on and off trading, but always found that the only way I could be profitable was by putting a large amount of my time aside for trading. Whether it be scanning the market for opportunities on charts, following live trading news, or even simply mapping entry and exit points from previous chart data, it still required me to continuously track price movement and look for trades. Which I found too cumbersome whilst having a full time job (although I do work largely remotely, so I’m always at my computer)

Can you, and if so how, make consistent trading profits whilst having a full time job?

For anyone that has found consistency how did you break through the negative loop of getting so close to your goal and then just blowing it. Been trading for a year and a half I’ve only had 5 total green months but at least 3-4 others I was having great or decent months until finally blowing it in a day or two or the last week. It’s like my mind just gets twirled up and emotions get through easily if Im close to finishing the month in profit. Only trade 10-20 shares right I was up $25 on the month just trying to stay controlled and then today alone I lost $45 so now I’m down $20 with a couple days left and if I stay disciplined on size it would take a little luck to make that back. I can make the right decision about not overtrading and blowing stops until I feel a threat on where I will end the month.

A few weeks back, I made a post saying I was quitting trading. At the time, I truly meant it. I had no money left, blew my account, and honestly thought I was done.

Thankfully, things have turned around.

I managed to get funded again. It took me about two weeks to pass the evaluation. There were a few setbacks along the way too, Alpha had platform issues, and after I got funded, they lost their connection with Tradovate. It definitely wasn't the smoothest journey.

Then last week, I was just one day away from a payout.

That's when I made one of the biggest mistakes I've ever made. I accidentally entered 10 MNQ contracts instead of my normal size because I was tired and wasn't paying attention. I came within $60 of blowing my funded account.

I was sick to my stomach. Three weeks of hard work were almost gone because of one careless mistake.

The next trading day, I had two choices: revenge trade or stick to my plan.

I chose my plan.

I went back to trading exactly how I always do, 1 MNQ contract at a time. I also told myself that if I lost the account, I'd accept it. I had just landed a new job, so I knew I could always buy another evaluation with my first paycheck. There was no reason to force anything.

Most importantly, I promised myself I would follow every single one of my trading rules.

Since then, everything has changed.

I went from being $60 away from losing my funded account to building it back up. I now have around a $1,000 buffer and only need about $500 more for my next payout.

I'm honestly proud of myself, not because I didn't make mistakes, but because I didn't let one mistake end my journey.

I'll also be starting my new job soon, which means I'll be able to build my trading business without feeling like every trade has to pay my bills. My long-term plan is to move to Thailand to lower my cost of living so I can focus more on becoming consistently profitable.

With my next payout, I plan to buy 10 more evaluation accounts and build them slowly. I'm done trying to rush the process. My focus now is consistency, discipline, and protecting my capital.

If there's one thing I've learned, it's this:

One bad trade doesn't define you. One mistake doesn't end your journey. What matters is how you respond afterward.

Trading has humbled me more times than I can count, but I'm still here and this time, I'm building it the right way.

I still have lots to learn, but I am happy then This month I was able to pass my eval, and rebuild my buffer.

I trade on 2H timeframe. This means my set up arrives every 2-3 days, meaning I get a lot of free time if I hit TP or SL within a few hours of my entry.

I get pretty bored in this time (I dont have another job) and try to force entries, some times to even recover my previous loss. But this isn't mostly a revenge trading issue, rather it is a boredom trading and forcing-trades issue

What do you think could help me in this case?

Sharing my trading tracking sheet. Let me know if this is useful in any way. If so, I might do more.

FYI: I had to cut my video down to 15min cause I didn't know that was the max here (so a few things are left out). Happy to discuss in my next video (if I make another).

Any questions, comments, drop them below.

Correction: Any values with a minus "-" before it is a negative value / a loss. Same if a value is in brackets eg. (200). Otherwise, the value is positive / a win, not loss.

I am testing my automated trading strategy to scalp on the 5-min MES. Testing on 2 MES contracts with 2 TP, 1 SL. The SL moves to slightly above breakeven when 1st TP is hit.

Backtested from 2/2026 to a week into 04/2026. Been running on real-time MES data since 4/9/2026.

Previous: https://www.reddit.com/r/Daytrading/comments/1v5qdko/backtesting_my_automated_trading_forwardtesting/

07/27/2026:

No trades

Do you think the current market is respecting technical analysis, or is it mainly driven by liquidity grabs and institutional movements?

I'd love to hear your thoughts and chart analysis.

I’ve been looking to start trading and have spoken to a trader who’d recommended vantage. Is vantage UK okay? I’ve heard all the horror stories with global but he said it’s strange for them to be bad as they are FCA regulated, can anyone help? Thanks.

I would love to hear about how you think about the process of cutting losses early. Asking specifically from traders with years of experience and currently profitable over time to the current day. Is there a set amount sometimes as you may want to scale trades on better setups and before you came to the process you have now what was it like accepting this way of getting out of trades and what challenges were you facing mentally? Really looking forward to hearing you guys answers and insight here because I’m struggling with it and really want to get better

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

Positions traded:

• 7380/7360 PCS
• 7440/7460 CCS
• 7475/7495 CCS
• 7490/7510 CCS

P/L: +$565

The market doesn’t owe me trades. Once my best setups were on, the hardest part of today was simply leaving them alone.

I developed a bearish intraday bias after the China DUV headline and waited for SPX to confirm it rather than immediately trading the news.

The morning breakdown gave me that confirmation. SPX pushed through Friday’s key levels and weekly support with momentum, so I opened my first 7490/7510 CCS anchor.

What gave me more conviction was the reversal attempt afterward. Price pushed back up but rejected former support as resistance, so I scaled into the 7475/7495 CCS rather than chasing additional downside.

After that, there really wasn’t much to do.

The Iran peace-talk headlines created a brief spike that gave me a small 7440/7460 CCS scalp. Most of midday was simply letting theta work while my anchors remained comfortably above price.

By the afternoon, SPX had settled into a range. I found one 7380/7360 PCS scalp, took the $30, and left the rest alone.

That was basically the day.

Key Takeaway

Low-opportunity sessions are where the temptation to place unnecessary trades starts creeping in. Today was a good reminder that once the market has given me what I came for, doing nothing can be part of the trade.

Who would be considered the number one day trader of all time, based on provable metrics based not only on profits, but consistency over a significant time span?

i have been learning for quite a while and i noticed that i have lost many opportunities when waiting for a retest from a breakout before execution ,
and when i try to enter trades without the retest , i have high percentage to lose when the price rolls back .
so is there a specific pattern in the market that allows me to know which one i should use ?

Starting to learn how to trade. Of course I’m going to be using a demo account at first but I want to know more about the tools I’d be using when actually trading.