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I have been trading on and off since about August 2021. I have previously traded options, but switched over to futures and became much more focused around November 2022. Switching has been the best decision I've made, things have progressively become much easier over the months as I no longer have to fight vega and theta and can focus on price. February was my best month so far, despite the fact that I found the markets to be incredibly choppy & difficult. March was a mixed bag, but this past week was stellar for me, so I have hope for April.
My strategy:
I got into ICT just after getting into futures. As I've read more I've uncovered that he steals a lot of concepts from others and re-brands them as his own. It was a good exercise in reading price action without indicators and learning how to take entries into a trend, so I make use of those ideas although I'm not a fan of his. I stumbled upon Jim Dalton's work a couple months ago and found that it fits very well with how I trade, so I refer constantly to the TPO chart and trade using value areas, POCs, and more generally following the auction.
I trade MNQ & NQ only. I found the price action on NQ to be consistently cleaner (to me) than ES, so I switched over in January.
My setup:
...and an additional overview window I like to refer to...
Very simple, which I like.
My goal:
The median Canadian income is about $60,000. This works out to roughly $1,150 a week, or $230 per trading day. $170USD. In my opinion, this is a very easy target. With 2 copy-traded "25k" Apex accounts, I can risk $150 per trade/25pts with 3 MNQ and aim for 1R. One good trade per day would net me $300USD which, for those keeping track, is $100k CAD/yr pre-tax. While risking 10% of my account per trade is a bit much, I did trade an eval this way through most of Feb & March and was able to maintain a nice smooth equity curve (before I went on tilt and blew it up, but that's a story for another day). During times when ATR is low, I could also trade 5MNQ with a 20pt/$200 bracket. I rarely go on tilt these days, but after what happened last time I realized I need a max daily loss, which I can set through Rithmic. So it would be $300, or -2R. Of course, I don't expect $50-100k a year. My near-term goal is to reach my first withdrawal and go from there. Ideally by June 1st.
Before I get to that point, I actually have to pass the evaluation. I used to scalp a few ticks with NQ when I was new and hold my losers 20+ points. I passed two evals in January, but you can imagine what happened next. So I spent February practising risk management using a standard R. This worked well, but it takes forever to pass an account. I noticed some traders with several funded accounts oversize during evals and size down once they get funded. I was going to go live with a 2k account and aim for 1% a day with 1MNQ, but figured I'd take a shot with oversizing first. This week I was able to accomplish the following:
25k Account #1: $1,198/$1,500 (including $100 or so from last Friday)
25k Account #2: $705/$1,500
As it turns out, if you can consistently make $100 a day with small size and minimal drawdown, you can make much more faster by sizing up. While I hate trading size this big, I will continue doing things this way and try to see if I can fund 1, 2, or even 5 accounts. From there, I will probably trade 2 at a time until I reach my first payout, at which point I'll consider it proof that I can manage risk well enough size up through copy-trading.
Some stats I like to keep in my back pocket while I trade...
- The current day breaks the previous day's low about 85-90% of the time
- This also goes applies between RTH sessions on NQ
- The low of the day tends to be set in the first hour of the session
- The low of the week tends to be set on Tuesday
- If price is accepted inside the previous day's value area, there is an 80% chance it will rotate to the opposite extreme
- I did a quick check, and NQ seems to close its first 4h RTH candle (9:30am-1:30pm) in the direction of the gap about 70% of the time. Buying the direction of the gap seem to be incredibly effective.
- This is more an observation, but ETH trends tends to be much smoother and go on much longer than RTH ones.
If anyone knows more stats, feel free to let me know. It seems impossible to find these online.
Thank you very much for this link, I spent a fair few hours last night combing through the stats. I might buy a trial and generate my own for NQ using more recent data.
I'm in a rush because I'm heading out for the night but I wanted to get this in before I go: Caught a nice scalp in pre-market and a long off the open. Really nice setup, reminds me of the January rally when you would often get a nice setup in pre-market which follows through at open. Didn't hold to target or I easily would have made much, much more. This is one of my last major problems: I get out too early, then watch my trades to run to target...
(For whatever reason I can't post images anymore, so I can't attach my R|Trader P/L screen)*
Looking for a retrace of that power hour leg up overnight to complete one or both of these accounts. Still hate oversizing. I haven't taken a loss since last Wednesday and I feel something bad is on the horizon. I'll probably size down to 5MNQ and use my usual $200/$200 bracket for these last trades as I'm so close to the finish line and don't feel the need to use a mini anymore. Hopefully by Friday (Thursday) I'll have both accounts funded
P.S. ID/NR4 (and NR7!) setup on NQ right now. Might get an exciting breakout tomorrow. The last time this set up back in January we got a nice flush off the open.
*Edit: Nevermind, it let me post my R|Trader screen as an attachment
Good Luck, hoping to hear the good news from you this Thursday! Don't feel rushed though, I blew several apex accounts or got set back because I was focused on the daily profit I needed to finish in 7 days. Trade the chart/market, not your expectations!
This session was a bit frustrating. Checked the chart every hour or yesterday evening waiting for the retrace, didn't come. Was up for a few minutes around 2am, still didn't come and was wondering if we'd just break out again. Was up for a few mins at 4am and saw it getting ready to break out of the range but wasn't going to chase. Of course I woke up at 6am and we had ran 100pts
So I started the day off a little annoyed. Decided to wait for the retrace of that leg. Took 3 hours, but got in around 8:55am (then promptly got out since it didn't look right). It dropped another 20pts or so and I tried again at 9:24am. Was starting to get confident that I was on side after a few minutes. 9:30 open we went up a bit then stuttered. No good, bailed for a few points profit. Lucky I did as it plunged from there. Usually I get a kick out of trading the news (I have a high hit rate) but today didn't feel right so I sat out. Of course, we went nowhere. I know my nervousness gets me out of good trades early, but it also seems to be getting me out of a lot of bad trades recently.
I feel like I'm pushing my luck after narrowly avoiding getting taken out twice today, so I called it for the morning. Once I saw the reaction to JOLTS I figured today will probably go into balance, maybe we'll break down into yesterday's range/value area a bit later on. I'll try again from 1-1:30pm looking for a short/mean reversion trade but I don't feel compelled to push it.
Account #1: No trades
Account #2: $1,270/$1,500 (+$77)
One of my old blown 25k accounts reset today so I'll probably start working on that if/when I pass the other two. Today feels like a bit of a failure but I have to remember that walking away green is a good thing. In the past I would probably kill an eval account within the first hour on a day like this...
@canadianpotato, you mentioned in earlier posts that if you won $300 a day you would make 100K pretax. Making money everyday in the market is nearly impossible and I would not count on it if I were you. If you do accomplish this you would be in rarified air and I would give you my money to manage. Putting this kind of pressure on yourself to make money everyday will almost certainly result in a blowup.
Yes, it's to manage expectations. $300 across 2 PA accounts is $150 per account. Across 3 it's $100. With 3 micros that's 15-25pts a day. I think that's very manageable and a nice way to remind myself that it doesn't take much to do well if you plan your trades and manage your risk. That's a high end target. $200 would be just fine, which brings it closer to 10pts a day. I don't think 10pts a day on NQ is too terribly difficult.
Regardless, I don't rely on trading to survive. But if I did, these are the numbers I'd have to hit, so I keep them in the back of my head as I try to evaluate if this is something I could ever do full-time. For the moment, my goal is passing evaluations and working towards payouts.
Good stuff man! I am currently in Eval with APEX right now 11 accounts total, I Like your sound technical approach to markets! Ill be keeping a eye on your journal.
I feel like I'm obligated to say something after disappearing for 4 months. @trendisyourfriend really sent me for a loop with that Investor/RT link. I have spent many, many hours pulling stats which I now base my trading around. I was genuinely surprised to learn that there were strong stats around the RTH high, low IB high and low, previous day's value area, previous day POC, etc. etc.
I added volume profile to my TPO charts and keep a volume profile for the last 30 days alongside them, which has been very helpful. It has helped watching price move from node to node, and watching LVN's act as support and resistance.
I had a lot of ups and downs. Definitely blew up a lot of evals (very tempting to yolo/oversize during the 90% off sale) + 1 funded 25k I got through playing earnings. I've learned a lot about risk management, and sized down a lot. My expectations are a lot lower than they were in the spring, and I use a set R/R for each trade. I use a set bracket based off harmonic rotations/zig zag, which has been great for keeping me from getting stopped out unnecessarily and having reasonable price targets. If a trade takes me out, it's usually because I was genuinely wrong. Right now I'm using a 25pt/1.5RR bracket. Auto-B/E once it hits +1R. I now use a max daily loss equal to 2 full losses, which helps save me from myself when I get emotional. I won't lie, I did get thrashed last Wed-Fri. On Friday I took off the max loss and killed an eval.
I realized that the trailing drawdown system is awful for my psychology. I can win $400, lose $400, and instead of being back where I started, I dug a deeper hole for myself. Started a static account today. It is really nice not having the drawdown chase me, even if it is very tight. I'm thinking of going live in a few months with 1 or 2 micros, but I want to pass an eval/be consistent for a month or two first, otherwise I'll be throwing away money.
Stats have been great for giving myself targets, but I was having a terrible time with entries based off candlesticks alone, especially when NQ would wick through the initial balance high/low and reverse. Those were driving me nuts. I got into FuturesTrader71, who I learned trades pretty much exactly as I do, right down to the stats sheet he offers through Convergent Trading, which almost perfectly mirrors the stats sheet I've compiled for myself over the months. I watched his trader bites daily for a few weeks, and it has helped a lot with understanding the market. I've been using Cumulative Delta since, as well as and footprint charts (figured why not) over the past month and WOW, they have been amazing for tracking the auction. Every time I feel I've "figured it out", I run into something new. Being able to see imbalances, absorption, and aggressive buyers/sellers are stepping in has just been great for finding entries/exits and tightening up my stop losses. I have already lost track of the number of times I've saved myself from shorting the bottom/buying the top by watching those two.
Not only that, but I've been picking tops and bottoms pretty accurately for the past week or so. For example, you can see price stagnate while selling comes in. It pushes up a little, but it's not going anywhere. So I think to myself: sellers are having a hard time taking it down, but price needs to move lower for buyers to be interested. Sure enough it'll move on down. Eventually delta will spike and it'll start printing 3:1 and 4:1 imbalances. There might be confluence (eg. it'll hit the 25% or 50% extension of the IB, which is usually as far as it goes before a pullback. Or it'll get near the IB low when I'm not expecting it to break. I'll go long and that'll end up being the bottom. Honestly it feels wrong, because you're not supposed to catch the falling knife. But it has been very accurate to the point where it feels like cheating.
After watching NQ for 6+ months, it's starting to feel a bit predictable. Hopefully that means I'm getting somewhere. I've been making a lot of very accurate calls recently, which is a great feeling. I feel like I've got it mostly "figured out", and now need to train my psychology and practice my strategy until it's perfect. I used to have big issues with risk management, but I've got a lot of that under control. I tend to cut my losers before they hit -1R, which has helped push up my R/R. Having a max daily loss has cut down revenge trading by a lot. My biggest issue right now is bailing out of my winners early, only to watch them run to target. I'm trying to force myself to hold on, and oftentimes it feels like the only thing that works is taking the trade, setting the bracket, and turning the screen off. But I think I will clear this hurdle over time as I have with others.
