goal = pass 50k funded account

method = currently I've settled on volume profile, wait for price to reach important & obvious levels, try to identify potential reversals and/or continuations

tools = Ninja Trader full version (in order to access all the order flow indicators)

Since today is saturday, I'll spend a couple hours practicing via market replay.

Can you elaborate in greater detail on this like when where and why. And for where, I mean what future contracts. Reversal are very dangerous for the average trader not being able to trust when a ranging market will stay ranging and vice versa.


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Zen Garden 

Can you elaborate in greater detail on this like when where and why. And for where, I mean what future contracts. Reversal are very dangerous for the average trader not being able to trust when a ranging market will stay ranging and vice versa.

Thanks for the reply, I figured this would just by my own personal echo chamber lol.

I started this post mainly to help hold myself accountable, as I have been having trouble with discipline to follow through with simple things like daily to practicing or market replay, or put together a more solid gameplan & complete trading rules.

Right now I'm just focusing on NQ & ES.

Primarily the US morning session, and occasionally some pre-market or globex.

The levels I'm currently focusing on are any super obvious S/R zones, as well as prior sessions VAH/VAL/POC, and any significant caves/nodes on volume profile.

For these challenge accounts (at least for the time being) I plan on entering with 3 minis, closing out 1 mini at TP1 of 10-15 ticks, another at TP2 of 20-25 ticks, and leave one runner at breakeven. But if/when I pass the accounts, I will scale down dramatically to only 9 micros, and close out in sets of 3x micros.

Another goal that I need to make priority is to backtest with a ratio of at least 10:1, for every live session I trade/practice, perform at least 10 units of MR practice (albeit at faster speeds of 5-15x). MR will hopefully help me to spot when price is actually reversing or net, etc. Getting in my MR is something I struggle with following through on unfortunately, but IMO the only way that I can actually become consistently profitable.

Ideally, I can get to the point where I'm only taking 1-3 high quality setups per session/day.

Monday (4/8/24) did not trade, I am on a weird sleep schedule unfortunately and slept through the morning session. I do not like trading lunch or afternoon session as the speed is too slow for me at the moment.

Tuesday (4/9/24) I had my charts open in the background while I was doing other things on my computer. I will periodically glance at the charts to see if price is near any levels of significance.

Today I took 2 trades today on my challenge account.

1st trade I was anticipating a break to the upside, price hit TP1 and then from there reversed and stopped me out for a small loss.

2nd trade was basically waiting for the big move down that had went against my initial position. It was such a large drop it had entered an S/R zone I had noticed (marked as the gray rectangle/box). I was patiently waiting for the huge move down to finish & lose steam. The 5 minute candle formed an indecision candle inside my SR zone, and then I entered a renko chart after price had broken to the upside outside the recent accumulation. I did press my luck, and instead of taking my usual TP1 & TP2, I moved all 3 of my take profits near the psych number 18300 which was also near prior day POC.

The 2nd trade today was a stroke of dumb luck, but I felt fairly confident enough about it that I actually queued up the same trade on a 2nd challenge account. But I was more conservative and with that acct and took profits much earlier ($1100).

The other account I made $2100, but was a bit greedy. I actually added to the position on a pullback, putting all my potential profits at risk. This acct was already up $1k last month trading (and had taken a few weeks break from being out of town). I only added because I was very close to hitting the $3k challenge amount.

Today's profits was definitely an outlier, usually I only make between $0-$300. Often the position will not run like this, nor do I usually push out my TP's to act as runners, but price had moved in my favor quite rapidly, and I just moved my stop to BE.

NQ has been in a range the last few days.

Price is currently at the top of the range, so looking to ride it down, but it's just a 50/50 coin flip if it will work or not...

Right now, price is holding below currently forming poc + 50% fib retracement.

For this trade i'll just enter with small position of 3 micros, since I'll have a very wide stop outside current daily high (which coincides with prior daily high that was rejected quite strongly twice.

For now, I'll use a TP at 138% fib

There is also prior day naked/vpoc at 18263.50, curious to see if it will get hit today or not...

Well the fib retracements were invalidated pretty quickly, old habits die hard I guess, I need to stop using those haha. There was a time I had decent success with them on 15 minute chart. I need to stay focused on volume profile.

Anyway, here's a better screenshot that includes the day prior.

I marked up the SR area showing top range that I'm seeing, but it's been hit 4 times now, perhaps it won't hold for much longer.

Looking like I'll get stopped out soon... I moved my TP to prior day VAH.

holy guacamole, I need to remember to check for news... haha, well got stopped out of that one.