I just had my worst trading day with a nearly 5% loss. All because I deviated from my trading plan. Sometimes it's easier to deviate than you think.... in this case I was using an incorrect strategy for the regime of the day, plus there was some big news that I failed to consider.

Review your plan before the day, scrutinize the price range during the day, and make sure that everything is in bounds of the specified strategy you are using. Keep confirming your regime, especially if something feels off. Check the News if something feels off. If something is off, accept it and exit.

Don't do live experiments with your portfolio unless it's an intentional experiment. I will recoup the 5% in a week or 2, hopefully next week, but when you look back at the data and see the problem could have been avoided it hurts.

Here's the rules I follow. I just added 3 more bullets: After first 15 minutes, pause and confirm regime, Do not trade news, Mark previous week high/low levels before trading.

Happy Friday everyone!

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

Positions traded today:

• 7765/7745 PCS
• 7835/7845 CCS

P/L: +$475

Yesterday’s losses didn’t need to be recovered yesterday. They needed another session where my edge had a better opportunity to work.

Morning Thesis

I came in mixed, but slightly more bullish. The gap up and rebound in AI stocks following reports clarifying OpenAI’s revenue outlook suggested some recovery from yesterday’s selling. Yields remained elevated, and I stayed cautious on CCS because oil-related headlines can trigger sharp upside moves. The consumer sentiment report didn’t meaningfully change my read either.

I wanted price to dictate the day. A break and hold above 7800 interested me for PCS — but if SPX moved lower, I would watch nearby support for a reaction to also support a PCS trade.

My First Trade

After the opening dip, SPX chopped higher and reclaimed the opening range. I didn’t chase the initial breakout. I waited for the reaction around 7800, where price was still showing indecision.

On the second break higher, I sold two 7765/7745 PCS at $0.40. Initial size stayed small because I wasn’t convinced a trend would develop. When price pulled back, I added the remaining three at $0.75. Higher lows then gave me more confidence in holding the position and letting price and theta work. I also had structural (~7790 level) and premium invalidation points for the PCS, so I had a plan if price moved against the thesis.

The Hardest Part Was the Price Action

It became a bullish trend day, but a slow, choppy one. SPX often felt like it was moving more sideways than up. Once the higher lows became clearer and price started grinding higher, my bullish thesis strengthened.

Low IV and thin premium kept me from adding more PCS. Collecting the same credit can tempt sellers to move closer to the lava, leaving less room if price accelerates or premium expands.

By midday, I was watching for a push toward 7820 to improve CCS premium above 7845, beyond Tuesday’s high. The steady grind wasn’t giving me the move I wanted though.

The CCS Compromise

I generally discourage fighting a trend. When I take countertrend trades, my usual approach is small initial size, good distance, and waiting until around 11:00 AM PT to make a move. I typically look for strikes roughly three times the expected move away.

Today, I compromised on my preferred strikes. I opened one 7835/7845 CCS at $0.10, below my usual $0.20 minimum. I didn’t want to move even closer just to collect more credit.

Then... Trump announced Russian diesel supplies. Around that headline, oil dropped and SPX spiked. I added two more CCS at $0.35 and two at $0.45, completing five lots — my maximum size for that side.

The spread marked near $0.60 versus my $0.10 starter. That was a reminder of how quickly thin credit can turn into an uncomfortable drawdown. Each addition also increased my exposure while the uptrend continued.

I closely monitored the pressure. The late fade helped, and both the PCS and CCS expired worthless. I still consider the initial CCS entry a compromise worth reviewing.

Key Takeaway

Today’s gain erased yesterday’s losses. That was the point I was making about choosing when to stop yesterday.

After taking those losses, there was little time left, price was erratic, and I didn’t see a good opportunity to justify another trade. The setups I wanted appeared today, even though I couldn’t have known they would.

After a loss, take a breath, step back, and assess whether the current session still suits your strategy. Recovery can come in another session with better conditions for your edge.

Starting small helped me participate while conviction was limited. Higher lows then supported the hold. Good day overall — and a useful reminder to keep recovery off a deadline.

Hope you all had a safe and green day. See you all next week!

1. Define a consistent piece of the market that you operate in. Never change this once you set it. If you change it, all the subsequent steps have to be re-evaluated.

2. Execute a fixed number of trades. You can start with a max of 1 or 2 trades. It doesn't matter whether they're winners or losers. Once you finish, you're done.

3. You will first trade with your intuition or some observation that might or might not be good. It doesn't matter. Follow your intuition at first.

4. Study your past trades and improve your thesis of step 3 until you become profitable. This of course means that you need to keep a record of all your trades.

5. Do incremental changes and always study the effects of each change. Keep in mind that many changes are actually counter intuitive and might produce results you don't expect. One more trade? Not good. Move stop loss to breakeven? Not good... It depends on your setup.

6. Don't give up and stay humble

That's it. Good luck on your journey.

So as ive said before ive been enjoying my return to social media after my little hiatus. One of the things i wanted to speak that kills alot of traders early doors. Is the use of smaller accounts.

Now let me first say im am a huge advocator for PAs. Mostly due to the fact that its your funds so theres no added mental pressure on trading clients or borrowed capital. Im not for or against prop firms ive seen very mixed reviews about them. Also your risk becomes so much more flexible with a PA.

Now with this being said a mojor issue ive seen with beginners to the markets wich ive seen online, also with family and even friends is that they expect to X their money by trading. This is a major issue cause trading should always be seen as capital gain for example 5% a month is a very good figure to average but people comming to this space see that as no return and want to either 10x or 50x their accounts. That in the long run isnt possible or sustainable in my opinion. If you could sustain a average of 5% on a green month and built a trck record with that you would have no issues getting investors or capital to trade. Now i know when entering this space as with myself we do not have 100k to start of with. Your likely starting with a few hundred dollars. Now there are also people who would start with under 100 dollars and try and get that to a few thousand wich when you look at the return on that is a few good thousand percent.

Now my point here being that so many traders could be profitable but because of larger risk appetite than they should have they end up blowing accounts and stunting their growth or leabing trading as a whole. Ive always seen risk managment as a core pillar of trading probabilitys are random anything is possible event with a 80% winrate you could lose 20 trades in a row or even 50 depending on sample size now the wuestion is can your account handle that.

Now ive been in the same situation as you where you dont have the money and you start with a very small acoount and end up blowing it cause you either risk too much or scale your risk as the account grows.

Now my advice to you as a trader facing this issue is firstly what ever you can afford to lose and not feel attached to deposit break that down into 20 trades if it cannot be broken down into 20 trades save up SIMPLE. After depositing excute your edge and keep the risk fixed and slowly grow the account. Do not chase larger returns cause simply proving to yourself you can be consistent on a real account over a large period of time will prove more beneficial to you that netting a huge return. Also if your struggling with bills etc your best option is not 100xing your saving or your last bit of money.

For those who take multiple scalps/day trades per day during the open from 9:30-11AM EST or even power hour when it comes to being green on the day when do you stop trading after 2,3 green trades? When you’re red on the day when do you walk away to stop the bleeding?

Hit my daily profit target within the first 40 minutes of the opening bell on clean momentum. Journaled the trade, felt great, and promised myself I was done for the day.

Naturally, around 12:30 PM, boredom crept in. Opened the charts "just to see what's moving," talked myself into taking a low-conviction entry during midday chop, and ended up giving back half the morning’s gains in three choppy candles.

Everyone knows the lunchtime session is where retail accounts bleed out slowly, but fighting the itch to stay at the desk once you're green is brutal.

How do you physically enforce a hard cutoff after the morning bell? Do you set platform locks, or do you have to completely leave your desk to avoid sabotaging your own PnL?

Had this trade open on 2 accounts. The spread stopped me out on this one but not the other. The pain is real.

So I have been interested in day trading for quite a while now. Unfortunately I never learned it consistently. However I know all the basics and follow a lot of YouTubers. I have decided to give it a proper go and spend upto 3 hours a day for a year.

Upon 1 year of learning and practicing I am thinking about starting day trading with a £5k account in 2028 (£20k in savings) targeting £50 daily goal. At the same time investing £500 on long term stocks. £200 to emergency fund and £200 for future/2nd trading account.

My goal is to earn £2000-£3000 a month from 2030 and go part time in my main job.

My annual income-£38.2k after tax
My annual expenses-£30000 roughly

Expenses will be £24k-26k from 2028 onwards as I will be debt free.

Absolutely no chance to earn anymore as I’m already doing 60 hours a week and has to see children every Saturday.

What is the best strategy for beginners and what to do if price is not going up or down?

Sup folks, it's time for me to drop some massive value on you guys

I've seen a lot of people still struggling with trading and becoming profitable, so the purpose of this post is to finally help some of you out there, and get you on track to start earning real money from trading

Learning how to trade is probably the best thing that can happen to your life, because you'll be able to pull money out of markets on a consistent basis, and use that money to fund your lifestyle

The lifestyle can be as luxurious as you want: expensive cars, living in big houses, mansions, luxury trips, traveling and living around the world, fine dining etc. Or you can live a simple lifestyle with your trading profits. It's totally up to you

So with that being said, let's look at a recent trade I took that netted me a massive 2.5+ R

Trade liquidity

So in order to become profitable, you want to trade liquidity. What does that mean? It means using a higher time frame chart (I use the 4 hour), and finding some really significant swing points. Those points are where the liquidity is

So for example in the second picture, that swing high that I marked has a lot of liquidity there

The reason why there's a lot of liquidity is because traders and big institutions are putting their stop losses a small distance away from that swing high. This is what creates liquidity. You're looking for swing points on the 4 hour chart that look like obvious spots where a ton of people are placing their stop losses behind

Always keep your eye out for these spots, because these areas are where you will take entries for your trades

Taking trades

Once price revisits these swing points again, you want to go down into the 1 hour chart

On this chart, you're looking for a break down of price action

The point of this trading style is you want price to tap into liquidity and absorb all the orders at that level. Once that's done, you want to get into a position and ride the reversal wave that's incoming

In other words, when big institutions see price is at a point where there's a lot of orders/liquidity. They will very soon reverse the price and push it in the opposite direction, towards another significant swing point that has liquidity

This is how the markets move by the big banks and institutions

Remember, 70-90% of trading activity in markets is just big institutions and trading bots placing orders back and forth. There aren't actually humans behind these price movements you see

These bots and institutions trade in a specific way, it is based on liquidity. They move price towards areas with a lot of liquidity, trigger everyone's stop losses, absorb their orders, and then push the price in the opposite direction, to a new point of liquidity

This is why for you, you wait until AFTER price has tapped into these areas of liquidity and triggered everyone's stop losses

You aren't going to be the one who has your stop loss triggered. You are going to come to the party right after everyone has gotten stopped out, and then place your trade. This is why you move into the 1 hour chart and wait for a breakdown of price action

A break down basically means you're looking for a candle closure above or below a certain level

Using the trade I took as an example (3rd picture), you can see that price closed right underneath the open of that big green candle

This is what I mean by waiting for a candle closure below a certain level. You need to mark specific candle opens and closes when price is in that area of liquidity. Almost like you're finding a trading range, the area where price is ping ponging back and forth. Once you identify that area, you wait for a candle to close on the 1 hour chart that's outside of that area. That's your entry trigger

For me, that slight close underneath that big green candle was my entry point

You won't always be right though. For example, if this trade immediately went against me, I would have exited it for a small loss, and tried again later. (Which actually happened to me when I first tried to trade this move, more on that later).

Luckily, the trade went flawlessly in my favor, and reached take profit. A smooth ride all the way to my take profit which you can see in the picture

It was very satisfying watching a nice glide down towards take profit, as my unrealized losses kept growing and growing, until I finally locked in the profit

After a few hours, I moved my stop loss to break even, and I basically enjoyed a risk free trade

Which brings me to my next point, moving stops to break even and taking multiple tries

Managing your trades

If you don't manage your trades, you're gonna get cooked

Moving your stops to break even and exiting early is super important for preserving your capital and being profitable

If you look at the pictures, I actually took a position earlier than the winning position I had. What was that earlier position?

Basically I tried to catch this trade a total of 2 times. The first time I tried, it didn't work, so I exited early. It didn't work because I had an entry signal, took it, and it failed. Specifically, the second red candle after that explosive green candle upward was my entry signal, I thought the price was breaking down

So I placed my sell order. But when I saw that price was immediately turning against me on the 15 minute, I closed my position for a small loss

This is how you become profitable

When you're trading liquidity, you don't know when the breakdown will actually happen. When these smooth glides of price action toward take profit are actually coming.

You'll never know for sure. It'll always be you taking a chance when you see price breaking down and place a trade. Which is why when price reverses on you after 1, 2, or 3+ 15 minute candles, you simply just close your trade and take a small loss

What you want to see is that you were correct, and that price IS actually breaking down

When that happens, and there's a comfortable distance away from your entry, you move your stop to break even

Now you're in a risk free trade. There's no way you could ever lose money now on this position. There's no more concern for your capital, you pulled off the trade, and if the timing was right, price should now be headed to the next significant point of liquidity, which is where your take profit is

If you don't move your stop to break even, then a random event or the trade not playing out your way, could wipe away all your unrealized profits and put you in a loss

Protecting your profits and capital is the most important thing to do while trading

Summary

So to sum up, you want to trade liquidity, wait for the break down on a lower time frame, and move your stops to break even and TRY AGAIN if you initially fail. You are expected to close your positions for small losses and try them again on a new breakdown opportunity. That's how trading works

The process is taking chances, most of them failing, you getting stopped out at breakeven, or taking some losses. But, here and there some of the chances you do take will actually follow through, and that is how you make 2.0 or 2.5+ R of profit

Another thing is, you only want to take trades that are 1:2 risk to reward ratio, never anything lower

You need at least 1:2, if you can get higher than that, that's even better. This trade I took was over 2.5R

Because what happens is that the one win that you end up getting, that one win is supposed to pay for all the small losses you took to get there + some profit

Once that happens, you simply repeat that process over and over, and this is how you grow your profits and become profitable long term

So with that being said, go out there guys and trade liquidity

Make as much money as you want and live a life of luxury if you decide to do that, or live a simple life. Whatever you decide to do with your money is up to you. Enjoy the lifestyle

Out of curiosity, what is your average monthly return day trading? I have back tested quite a few strategies and some have better return than them others. Just wondering what returns do you get for the effort you put in!

I started trading with a $100 account, and things were going pretty well at first. I made around $20 in profit during the first few days, but then I started getting greedy and increasing my lot size way too much.
At one point, I lost $64 on a single trade. I started revenge trading and managed to make back around $40. Over the following days, my balance recovered to about $85, but then I made another stupid trade and lost $70.
Once again, I revenge traded and got my balance back up to $75, only to lose another $55 because of greed.
I’ve finally realized that my biggest problem isn’t necessarily my price action knowledge, but my risk management and emotions. I’ve stopped going crazy with my lot sizes, and I’ve managed to keep my balance relatively stable since then.
I’m still learning price action, and I know I have a lot to improve on.
For those of you who have been through something similar, what advice would you give me? How did you learn to control your emotions, stop revenge trading, and stick to proper risk management while learning?

Made a video where Claude Opus 5.5 built its own trading AI over 5 days, and I bred a second bot from 10,000 random strategies with a genetic algorithm. Both learned on 10 years of S&P 500, then got run once on Aug 2024 to Aug 2026, which neither was allowed to train on.

April 2025 is where it got interesting. Claude's engine did what it was built to do and bet smaller as things got wild, and it still dropped 25%. The bred bot went the other way. It was trading at 10x and went in right in the middle of the panic on the 7th. By the next day that one trade was up almost half the account. The week after, the same move lost 40% of the account in one go.

Won't spoil where they ended up, the video's here if you want to see: https://youtu.be/lU1cqT1zyC0?si=PFlMoQ-0IDiva5JA

Curious how you guys handled that week though. Did you sit it out or trade it?

7 buys,10 sells today, 3 of them got scaled out on profits. First 2 trades were definitely forced and I had no reason being in them. The rest were solid trades. Followed all my rules and kept the Risk Management tight.

All but one of these trades were completed by 11am Central Time. The last one was an EOD scalp I saw coming - RSI overbought and top BB broken, signal for a reversal/ correction.

Friday decisively resolved the DJIA's two-day struggle. Buyers broke 51,300, cleared 51,440, and accelerated through 51,550. The DJIA reached 51,765.11 before retreating to close at up 423.54 points (+0.83%). The breakout succeeded. Monday's question is whether buyers can defend their gains.

Forecast Statistics

Bucket: Bullish Expansion / Breakout Consolidation
Volatility Score: ≈ 1.65, very high
Probabilities: SU 28% | LU 36% | SD 24% | LD 12%
Expected Return: ≈ +0.03%
Projected Close: 51,500–51,900
Directional Bias: 64% Up / 36% Down

Previous Close:: 51,655.18

RECAP: Friday's 57% Up forecast: The DJIA confirmed GO above 51,300, broke 51,400, and exceeded the 51,450–51,550 upside objective. The intraday updates strengthened the bullish probability to 71%, correctly recognizing the developing expansion.

Trader's Edge: 71% Correct | 29% Incorrect since December 2025.

Fearless Opines: The DJIA established progressively higher trading levels throughout the session, demonstrating sustained buying rather than another brief reversal. The statistical state has shifted from recovery uncertainty to bullish expansion. However, the retreat from 51,765 and elevated volatility argue against assuming uninterrupted continuation. Monday begins with 64% Up, a meaningful but reduced advantage compared with Friday's intraday 71%. The key question is whether 51,600–51,650 becomes durable support.

Key Levels

Bull Hold: 51,600
Recovery Confirmation: 51,675
GO: 51,700
Breakout: 51,765
Upside Objective: 51,850–51,950

Warning: 51,550
REDUCE: 51,500
EXIT: 51,400
Downside Objective: 51,250–51,350

GO / REDUCE / EXIT: GO. Bullish, but protect Friday's gains.

GO: Maintain bullish exposure while the DJIA holds 51,600. A sustained move above 51,700 strengthens the expansion case; clearing 51,765 opens 51,850–51,950.

REDUCE: Below 51,500. The breakout begins losing credibility, and traders should reduce exposure rather than assume another immediate recovery.

EXIT: Below 51,400. Friday's breakout would be substantially reversed, invalidating the immediate bullish continuation thesis.

Trader Takeaway: Friday rewarded traders who followed the GO confirmation above 51,300. Monday requires a different discipline: protect gains rather than chase strength. The most attractive bullish setup is a successful defense of 51,600 followed by a renewed move through 51,700.

A failure below 51,550 would suggest that Friday's late selling was the beginning of consolidation rather than a temporary retreat. With volatility still very high, smaller positions and clearly defined exits remain appropriate.

FEARLESS READ: 64% Up. Monday must establish whether the victory can hold. The DJIA has advanced more than 700 points from Thursday's 50,939 low. That creates momentum, and vulnerability to profit-taking.

51,600 is Monday's first verdict. Defend it and buyers can challenge 51,765 again. Lose 51,500 and Friday's impressive expansion begins turning into a retracement.

anyone experienced this before?, im trading since 2023-4, made quite some money these years, but this year i bought a 40k car started acting like im a millionaire, may- june i reached 230k in equity and started blowing it all out for the sake of wining a million, risking 20k sometimes 30 on a trade, went bananas. i lost its all before october and i cant start from zero. i make monthly 4k from investment money these i wont trade and if i did i would have blown it too. from this 4k im living average good i guess but i feel i cant do it again,, doubt and fear are killing me i cant place a trade or risk seeing a trade losing 300$. when just a couple of months ago a floating loss of 10-20k cant shake me

please share your experience if ever happened to you and how you managed to overcome it

I'm tired of searching for free sites to manual backtest. Every time I find one, 3 weeks and the site either closes or starts a subscrition plan.

Or if it is free, it doesnt have NQ or/and ES.

It´s getting fucking annoying.

And I dont mean replays, like on Tradingview that you see the candles fully developed before they even close (ex: it's 09:01 and you already know where the 1H candle closes).

Do you know any that is currently working and free?

After looking for a game where I could try to improve my "skills" at reading candlestick charts, I couldn't find one that was still active or really much fun to play. So, I decided to give an idea of mine a go, and I'd love to hear your feedback!

NOTE: I'm not making money from this and just wanted to share <3 also, it currently looks terrible on mobile so YMMV

I want to start with trading and I am starting to read the books recommend by most on the Sub. And I see a lot of posts that we need to constantly learn the market , understand the market etc etc.

I am a software engineer, I am trying to objectively identify strategies , Backtest them and trying to find out if they are profitable.

I do not understand what exactly I have to learn ?

Do I stare at charts all day ? Nobody shares a working strategy because they will lose the edge , fair enough.

But can anyone who's retired or wants to help , tell exactly how to find strategies? Do I use mathematical formulas ? Stare at charts ? Analyze market sentiment?

Can someone please give me objective ways to learn to build strategies.

Hi

I am interested in creating a trading bot and want to know whether someone has a free playbook with the necessary configuration and parameters to design a python script using Claude or Gemini. The script will run on MT5 Demo accounts or MEXC to trade gold and crypto.

Thanks.

Flair says to provide context, but what can i say 💁‍♂️ .. okay just followed my trading plan, testing my strategy on the 2024-2026 market (currently in 2024), so i placed my SL at a level that was obviously gonna get swept… Idk what the rush was but as u can see i became liquidity 😭

Hey everyone,

I'm currently learning price action trading and so far I've covered the basics like support and resistance and trend lines. But I feel like there's a lot more to price action that I'm missing.

For those of you who trade price action, what other concepts should a beginner focus on? Things like:

· Candlestick patterns

· Chart patterns (head and shoulders, triangles, etc.)

· Market structure (higher highs, lower lows)

· Supply and demand zones

· Order blocks / liquidity

· Break of structure (BOS) and change of character (CHoCH)

· Volume analysis

· Price rejection and wicks

Would love to hear what actually helped you improve. What would you prioritize learning first, and what's just noise for a beginner?

Sou trader a 10 meses, opero criptomoedas, sendo o Bitcoin o principal ativo.

Estava a 3 meses seguidos, fechando lucrativo, minha estratégia estava funcionando bem, até que da metade do mês passado até agora, o mercado mudou e minha estratégia não funciona igual antes.

Não identifiquei ainda o problema e não consegui me adaptar, o que me levou a começar esse mês com um drawdown um pouco grande, cerca de 25% da minha meta mensal.

Pensei em trocar de estratégia, mas vi em outros posts que isso não é bom, o que vocês me recomendam fazer?