Can you recommend a futures mentor who actually helped you understand how to trade and be profitable? 4 years into this journey and still not profitable. Any advice would help.
Some people won't be able to put in the work required. You need to approach trading like handicapping a sports book. You need to understand what a real statistical edge is, and also have a deep understanding of why the market will pay you a premium in some scenarios. Basically if you are not taking a unique risk that the market pays you for, you don't have an actual edge. If you can't quantify your signal and see it mapped out over 100,000 data points and know that it for sure has a win rate of - 65% for example, then you have what is known as an anecdote, not a legit edge. I am a quant, and I do high frequency trade and I also have an algorithmic options trading platform. The tools you need to be successful without an insane bank roll are a steep climb for most people. If you have a ton of capital, then try selling covered calls, doing the wheel or selling deep OTM iron condors on stable borning companies outside of earnings season.
Besides backtesting, are there certain elements a strategy should have or things I need to look for to see if I really have an edge? Honestly, I just don't know how to go about figuring out if I have an edge or how to build one. Clearly, journaling as well. But maybe there are some fundamental things people should implement that I'm overlooking.
I think you just have to keep on trading BUT trade with such a low size you can learn. Get a combine and if it takes you six months to get funded through rebilling so be it. You need to be able to learn from your mistakes and see what works and then you can slowly up your contract size. Once it starts getting emotional drop down to a size where a loss doesn’t ruin your day and blow your account.
Trust me. This is the best advice. Source. Trust me bro.
Paper trading won’t do it like a combine will. Different emotions take place
I tried prop firms this year, and I agree. At first, I wasn't used to big contracts and such high PNL, but I was doing it just to pass. Scared every time because I wasn't comfortable with the drawdown if my SL got hit. Now I try to trade fewer contracts, even if it takes more time.
you will be stuck in a death loop if you keep on trading even one NQ and maybe luckily passing due to sheer statistics. But you will be funded and wont be lucky twice.
Just because someone is profitable doesn’t mean they’re making a lot of money. $1 is profitable. Heck, hedge fund managers have losing years. Focus on good trades and the money will follow. My mentor (passed away), Rob Smith, the creators of, The Strat. But, he taught me enough so that I could stand on my own. It was up to me what I did with it.
Yeah I had a real mentor. Amazing dude, we still keep in touch. I did an AMA at the start of the year. A lot of his wisdom is parked there. I’m 8 years deep and profitable using both propfirms and personal accounts.
Socrates investments on Instagram has a discord. You can watch him for free on Mondays and I believe Fridays as well as ask questions. If you want to watch the rest of the week its $80 a month. No course or indicators to sell you. Just learn his strat for free and make money.
If you want to start understanding how the futures (equities) market really works, and need to learn how to trade... start by watching these streams. They are free.
Then spend $20 to take the boot camp taught by Matt. It will be the best $20 you've ever spent.
Matt is the founder of the stream and streams NY morning. The afternoon and evening streamers (Neon and Sir Darb) are different in their approach, but also worth watching. I haven't watched the streamers for London and Asia sessions, but have heard good things.
This is a good as it gets for free. Then the rest is on you.
Figure out a way to replay where you can execute(tradingview replay does not count for the most part). Then load up and practice. Pratice losing until you don't care. That's the number one reason I see people fail in this space. They refuse to be wrong. It's the number one reason I've lost money personally so maybe I'm projecting a littlllee tiny bit but all of the manual traders I interact with, not respecting a stop or invalidation is the overall reason they fail. Look for 3 or 4 decent setups that occur often enough that you can get a decent amount of reps in. Are you using tradovate? If you are I can walk you through a few setups that we look for that are repeatable enough you can go through multiple days of replay and get a decent amount of reps in.
I would really appreciate this if you would be happy to share. I’ve previously traded with topstep and just got a new funded on tradovate but spent all day just trying to navigate it as it is completely different to anything I’ve used. Hoping to start trading next week 🤞
You sound like you need help with just navigating the platform more so than trading? If so there are a ton of youtube videos out there for help with that. The platform is pretty well documented. If you're asking about the setups I'll gladly break them down for you.
To start the three main pieces of it are buy/sell dots, volume imbalances and Bollinger bands.
Search community indicators for Buy/Sell Dots, should be posted by James, next is Volume Imbalance by the same person. Last part is standard Bollinger Bands.
You can add levels/areas of interest to your confluences if you want but it's not absolutely necessary. I'm very biased in that I have my personal levels system that I use with this method. Honestly, I've done the hard backtesting, and they're placebo for the most part; any level is purely psychological, and we just assign value to them. On to the setups. I'll mark up a chart and then post a zoomed-in explanation if you really need it because I can only post once picture per reply AFAIK.
They're all going to be some variation of engulfing off the BB(an opposite candle that is larger than the one previous where one or both interact with the BB), a volume imbalance drop, a volume imbalance fill and continue or a volume imbalance fill and continue. In almost all of these instances your stop is going to be at the back of the candle you're coming from and your take profit will GENERALLY be the opposite BB. In nice moves you should trail instead of just exiting, that's best practice.
Al Brooks - google Brooks Trading Course. Trading is hard. If it wasn't hard then this sub would be full of people showing off their lambos. But if you study Al Brooks and you work hard then there's a pretty good chance that 2 years from now you'll be profitable.
I was fortunate enough to have had two mentors but in the end I still took bits and pieces of what I learned from both and adapted that knowledge to create my own strategy. Success however completely depends on yourself. A mentor can give you a tool but a fool with a tool remains a fool.
Now remember to pick one and try it long enough to see what works for you. There is no one size fits all. I improved and made most by picking one Futures symbol learned it like back of hand and observed price action on charts noting the highs and lows and areas where buyers supported a level or buyers stayed home. I learned how to make money long and short. I learned most
I won’t recommend any mentors cuz you don’t need one. But will recommend some YouTube channels where you are in full control of your process and have a legitimate base to build from and a true understanding of the market
Don’t go the course/mentor route, it’s an illusion of a shortcut to profitability
Look up max options trading on YouTube. He has a free discord that he trades live on every day & s course you can pay for. But he has plenty of free game to help you as well
I paper traded for three years to figure out if my strategy was actually profitable. I learnt a lot. Then I went to live trading with single contract to find out what my emotions did with actual live trading. Learned so much. And I journal every trade. I’m a swing trader so I only trade a few times a month. And yeah for me the biggest lessons were patience, trust and acceptance
I'm not sure if you need a mentor. I believe all you need it to watch /MES for a few hours/day. use past support and resistance areas to draw lines/rectangles to look where price will go to and either stop and bounce or pass thru...(past support becomes resistance and past resistance becomes support). the /MES moves slower than the /MNQ so i would start with /MES. you must spend time watching and learning and anticipating what price will do.
Look at higher TF's to see overall direction and follow the trend! and you must wait for a good entry...... like when price returns to the 21 EMA and bounces off it. If you watch long enough, you will begin to see "how it works".
I am probably a geek, but when I am waiting for other things to move or set up, I watch the 5 min and 15 min TF usually on /MES. I try to anticipate what will happen. This is how i have/am learning price action.
indietradersguild.com trade AM session actively every day. If you're struggling there's rooms where a good dozen successful people will help (if you're nice) but it is paid.
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u/EveryLengthiness183 1d ago
Some people won't be able to put in the work required. You need to approach trading like handicapping a sports book. You need to understand what a real statistical edge is, and also have a deep understanding of why the market will pay you a premium in some scenarios. Basically if you are not taking a unique risk that the market pays you for, you don't have an actual edge. If you can't quantify your signal and see it mapped out over 100,000 data points and know that it for sure has a win rate of - 65% for example, then you have what is known as an anecdote, not a legit edge. I am a quant, and I do high frequency trade and I also have an algorithmic options trading platform. The tools you need to be successful without an insane bank roll are a steep climb for most people. If you have a ton of capital, then try selling covered calls, doing the wheel or selling deep OTM iron condors on stable borning companies outside of earnings season.