3.14.2023

Still here. Still trading. Still learning.

Currently SIM trading NQ. My trade plan is to head back into my prop's in April. I've been trading the same set since 2.20.2023, no resets. This set would have blown a prop, but not by so much and is not the fault of the strategy as its the rules of the prop. The numbers look good, and the strategy is very useable.





There is a lot a room for improvement, but the fundamentals are there. The core tenants of the strategy is modeling my behavior to take trades only when I feel confident about direction on the higher time frame, and make those trades consistent to prior trades so that trade metrics are uniform across the board.



This is the trade that I took today. Despite having made money, I was not particularly happy with this trade, but it did show me how I might improve the set-up. In this trade I bought at a premium, but if I would have been a little more patient here, I would have been able to buy at a significant discount. Less risk, more reward I could have done more with less contracts.

Thanks for the insight. I found this helpful in improving my strategy.

3.15.2023

More importantly than knowing when to trade, is knowing when not to trade, at least that's what I think. I just got off night shifts. I'm tired. I got home at 5:45 AM, and the NQ has sold off significantly. News come in at 6:30 AM. There's no real direction to it. I historically suck at trading pre-market.

I'm not going to trade today. I'll watch when I can, but a better use of my time would be to sleep. Here's what I see today-



There is always consolidation, manipulation, and distribution. What I'm seeing now is consolidation. Mabey if I wake up in the last hour of the trading day, there will be a trade, but for now, I don't see anything I like.

3.16..2023

I did end up taking a little bit yesterday, despite what I said. After the manipulation to the downside, confirmed by displacement higher, I took a small trade, that netted me $400+ dollars for the day. Here's where that was.



So I'm flush for the week, by flush I mean that I've netted $2k+, I'm not really looking to trade right now, rather I'm just seeing what it is.



Tiny candles right now. This looks like a place a trader could really get wrecked. My trade idea right now is that the NQ is headed to that higher fair value gap. delivering price higher. If I do trade, I would be bullish right now, but just barely.

We shall see what happens.

3.17.2023

yesterday's trade.



NQ traded into a 15-minute point of interest. There was the judas swing, followed by displacement. This would have been a good trade to hold, because there was such a good target to the upside. This week's trading was "stable".

3.20.23

So ends 1 month of testing. This morning trade was rough! Mondays are always challenging for me. So much witchy price action. Today's thesis is that NQ was retracing from last week's strong push higher. I was and am still focused on 12500. When I entered the trade this morning, price immediately reversed back to the 15M FVG, so I sold my remaining orders here, and got out when I was in profit. Again, there was a loss in this set of trades, but I was over all green on the day, which is always my goal. As I write this, I think that price is actually going higher! that is challenge of trading. At the moment that I was trading. I made the best decisions that I could for the sake of my account balance. Here are the results of the month of testing-





This is a descent amount of data. What it's telling me is that I'm right more often than I'm not about to the direction of the NQ, and that my day-to-day trade management is pretty strong. Also, it tells me that my ability to hold, when I know that I'm right, is shit. So this is my question to myself- Is what I'm doing now enough to start trading live again?

I think so. If I accept the fact that there is a good chance that I'll blow 1-2 prop accounts on the way, but if I stick to my guns, 1-2 accounts are going to pull through in the end.

3.29.2023

Back from vacation. While I was on vacation I didn't trade, I vacationed. I got back Monday night and resumed trading on Tuesday morning. Still in SIM for the rest of the week. I want to make sure that my hand and head is still where they need to be. So far, they appear to be with the account being $428.96 in profit for the week.



This is the kind of consistency that I have managed to generate for over a month now. I don't know how long I can keep it up To date, on this account, I went from 2.20.2023 until today having not one single losing day. Yes, there were some losing trades in the mix, but overall, this every aspect of this account was very consistent. Right now I would describe my trading strategy as "managing account consistency on all fronts". This account is getting retired soon, most likely at the end of this week, and I will now be attempting to replicate this result live. Trade after trade, day after day, month after month, and so on.



I haven't gone into it much here, but the mechanical aspect of the strategy is nothing special. This is what I'm looking at day to day.



Literally all I'm doing is getting a real good idea about the direction of the day, and entering short, chopping trades when price is moving in the right direction, after the first 30 minutes of the open, in the hour or so after.

3.30.2023

NQ looks kinda grody today, like its stuck around 13050 and can't make its mind to go up or down.



That said, I think the move is up. NQ is challenging recent highs around here, so really I'm looking for it to hold above those highs, say 13080, or fail below 13000.

3.30.23

Done for the day, and most likely the week. Trade taken on the premise the market is bullish and flirting with 13100. Thought that I was getting in for a short scalp, but NQ took sell side liquidity one more time. I could have gotten a WAY better price on this move. As it stands, I added another winning day to my 100% since 2/20/23 streak.

100% winning days for last month plus is nice. What is your plan on going live with real money?