Hi Everyone!
I'm back with a public journal after several years away from FIO (but still trading the entire time).

I've been through several methodologies all as an intraday trader with some success (albeit inconsistently), but with my timezone and recent health issues, I've re-evaluated what I want from life and trading and in late 2025 I made the decision to pivot to swing trading.
I've had some recent success with this, although I still see some recurring mistakes. Despite all that, this has been the most sustainable and excited I've been in a while. It barely feels like work and it fits right into my life.

The purpose of this journal is to bring some more accountability to fixing my mistakes, and through interactions, hopefully deepening my understanding of this style of trading and highlighting any gaps in my knowledge.

My style is Tom Dante's trading style applied to futures. 95% of my trades are blind touch limit orders. There's no real name to this style.

I chart on TradingView. I analyse the weekly and daily for biases and execute on the hourly timeframe.
My daily review and prep is roughly across a 2 hour block between 3-5pm central time (futures maintenance hour).
I currently trade 13 markets (ES, NQ, RTY, CL, GC, HG, 6A, 6E, 6B, 6C, 6J, ZS and ZW).
The only indicator I use is the daily ATR.

Weekly levels and zones are in red.
Daily levels and zones are in orange.
Hourly levels and zones are in green.


I superstitiously believe that sharing trades you're currently in means it's doomed to fail. So I'll only be sharing completed trades

To start with, this is the trade I missed yesterday on 6J, and my first mistake of the week.

6J.
We had a daily engulfing that took out the low and closed above the daily zone. Likely target was the bottom of the weekly shooting star (BoSS)
My mistake here was trying to perfect the entry rather than just getting in. There were several naked highs to the left that I could've entered from, instead my order was missed by a tick.

Of note is that the weekly shooting star failure is now in play. I have an order in to try and get long.

creamyyy 

To start with, this is the trade I missed yesterday on 6J, and my first mistake of the week.

@creamyyy,

Nice start on the journal! Quick reminder -- the NexusFi Journal Challenge - February 2026 is running with prizes from Tradier (Amazon gift cards + TradingView Essential).

Share a link to your journal in that thread and you're automatically entered. Good luck!

-- Fi
"Every level tells a story -- the journal is where you learn to read it."

3 trades filled overnight for a total of +1.92R

ZW (-1R)
This was an aggressive entry, the conservative entry would've been to wait for a daily close above 531.6 - 533.4 zone then looking for an entry.
Worth nothing though, that my read was correct and if I'd gone for the conservative entry level at 528.4, I'd have confluence with 38.2% fib and it'd only be a 2 tick drawdown. Always tough to balance an entry vs a perfect fill.



6E (+1.36R)
Mean reversion trade, this was far out of the way outside daily ATR, so I left the order in despite NFP. Surprised it filled. Would've been nice to target a bit higher, but I was asleep, otherwise I'd have targeted 1.19040.
This was a process error, because I had this order and 6B position open at the same time, with correlations of 93 this was a Nono.



6B (+1.76R)
This was a weekly idea for a shooting star pattern failure, however I broke this trade up into chunks as I wasn't confident it'd clear the daily zones.
Bid the high of the hammer with a stop just below the daily zone. Ended up taking quite a bit of heat on this. The ideal entry would've been the 1PM - 2PM candle.
When the session had closed, I realised we'd put in an inside day, where the target on an inside day failure pattern should've been the high of the inside day, but I stuck to my original target - again another process error. I got greedy and tried to run it for more instead of accounting for market generated information.
I was saved by evolving R. I closed the trade at the close of the 9-10pm candle as evolving R had deteriorated.


Overall not happy.
Process goal for tomorrow is to take conservative entries only. I'd still rather be filled than miss out on a trade.

This weekends review will be rough.

No other trades last week. Spent the weekend going over the trades and updating my process.

Woke up to a green day. Always nice when that happens.

CL +2.08R



6B +1.93R
This trade offered 2 places to get in. I could've offered lower but because I wasn't sure we'd make it past the weekly level, I opted for the higher level for a better R:R.


Currently also in a wheat trade although that's taking its sweet time.

ZW +1.11R

Was targeting a gap close but evolving R took me out.
I'm going with a set and forget (except for evolving R) approach for the first half of the year only because I'm unable to manage a trade consistently due to a 9-5 + being asleep during RTH hours. If this starts eating into profits too much, I'll most likely move to a 4h timeframe to capture more.


Currently watching an ES trade develop, may offer an entry, although I wouldn't be expecting a whole lot with FOMC coming up.

Didn't trade Wednesday and Thursday last week due to the new year, missed a couple of trades. Nothing on Friday.

Got filled overnight on HG and 6J.
HG +1.9R
I was a bit conflicted on the target. The long term target is a weekly level much higher, and there were 2 daily targets to shoot for. On the daily, we'd lost 5.8435, but on the hourly we'd touched the level. I opted to go for the more conservative closer level rather than the higher daily level 5.8930.
I'm still looking for an opportunity to rejoin long, although I'd want to see a strong daily close above 5.8930.



6J -1R

This was the questionable iffy trade. I know because when I look back on it, I feel like I should've skipped this.
When I put the order in, the daily was borderline a hammer candle, but closer to a dojo. We'd also almost formed a shooting star opposing it. We've also been back and forth at the bottom of the weekly shooting star.
Despite that, we had a good naked level, I knew I'd probably get squeezed on this since there was an open gap below. I knew that given the TPO on this (up, then right back down), that it was likely a balanced day, and we'd likely retest the value area formed intraday. My initial hope was that we'd remain in balance, and go for a second day play higher.
I knew I was wrong on this trade when we accepted back below my entry level (since I entered at the edge of a composite profile), so the likelihood was that we'd move lower.
However my trade management forbids me to take early exits except for evolving R. Would've been a -0.5R loss instead.

I'll be looking to enter short on 6J as long as we get a rounded retest.

I've also done a bit of coding over the weekend, I now have an evolving R indicator that will fire off an alert when the threshold has been hit. For now, I just want to use this alert to let me know to make a trade management decision, but with enough sample size, the goal will be to automate this and keep the code on a server somewhere so positions can be managed while I'm asleep.

Woke up to a missed fill on GC. Have since pulled the order.


I said I was looking for an opportunity to rejoin longs on copper, and I was really on the fence on this one but decided not to take it. I had a great level to lean on, a good target, the issue was I wasn't sure where to place my stop. The thrust candle stop would've been right back into a composite value area high.


This one will be one to tackle in the weekly review and development. I have an idea of how to access these trades, but need some more testing.

6C + 0.77R.


This was a weird trade. It hit my stop first, and 2 contracts filled but the rest didn't. It then went nearly to target before evolving R took it out. I was 99% sure we'd hit target since at that point we'd formed a triple top, however I wasn't sure we'd hit it today. So I let evolving R play out.
The stop side was also weird, I would've expected all my contracts to be a filled since it was a stop market order. Not sure what happened. My stop placement was a little tight too, it was essentially behind a micro poor low, and at the time I was thinking that was a little tight, but given I was playing for a trade within CVA, I thought it'd be ok.

6J was a real pain in my butt. After yesterday where I missed a fill by 1 tick, it happened again with 6J. I then missed the engulfing bar because I was heading into a meeting (I saw it, but couldn't frame the trade on my phone).


This is a recurring problem for me, trying to finesse an entry too much rather than just being in.

So an update on Thurs & Friday. Combined entry since I was out most of the week.

My worst trading behavioural pattern is when I miss a trade, then I tend to find any reason to get into a trade.

6J Trade #1 -1R
Poor trade. I compromised on my stop location, ignored market structure (double distribution). Hated missing out on all the prior trades.

6J Trade #2 +2.38R (not included in Feb stats)
Got in on a levels trade, but readjusted target to bottom of IDF as inside day formed.


ES -1R
Not much to say here, was a good level, lined up with single prints and a PVA.



6A - 1R
Took an aggressive stop, maybe could've gone for a lower entry, but overall not a bad trade.


Friday
HG +1.85R
Evolving R took me out. It got pretty close to target.



Overall stats for February


Seeing improvement every month.


Will likely move back to Sierra or Motivewave. Tradingview is a pain in the butt to journal and markup screenshots from. Also seeing more value in TPOs, which TV sucks with.