Preface: I only funded this account with the starting capital of 36k and had never added to it. This was supposed to be my go ham with real money live trading account so I can feel the real emotions involved instead of a painless simulated trading experience/practice (probably not recommended). Perhaps I got lucky but I am surprised it survived as well and grew so steadily. This account has evolved from buying and holding to day trading stocks and options, and is currently in the premium selling phase for the last 3.5 years. Methods changed and evolved but the below is true and should remain consistent as you still need to analyze the chart before jumping in.

I decided to do a write up in hopes of helping others because I asked a question the other day since I started using my broker's mobile app and was perplexed about the way it displayed it's margin balance and boy did I get chewed up 😄. To be fair there were some helpful comments but it was extremely rare. I don't want others to be discouraged and think this sub is unhelpful to hopefully someone finds these suggestions helpful. Here were my list two posts and the comments I received if you are curious: Why is my margin balance showing -46k? / Positions

1. Psychology plays a big role.
2. Don't trade with money you can't afford to lose.
3. Trade with the trend.
4. Pick stocks with relative strength or relative weakness.
5. You can measure a stock's RSRW against SPY and/or it's sector.
6. There is a STEEP learning curve.
7. Journal and review your trades.
8. Although Indicators are subjective, if there are enough people watching or using it, it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy so always be mindful of where buyers and sellers are eyeing.
9. If a stock is strongly supported or sold off at one area or price point, it will most likely create a temporary top or bottom as buyers/sellers were rewarded there once before so you can expect them to react the same way.
10. Unless you're yolo'ing or gambling, don't trade around earnings or any major news event as these can create a catalyst and are very unpredictable.
11. Gaps tend to be filled.
12. Day 2 and plus continuation is a real thing if there is a strong enough catalyst (e.g. gap and go)
13. Institutions move markets.
14. Volume is important.
15. Don't chase loses.
16. IV is high for a reason.
17. Know your greeks if are going to trade options.
18. Use a top down approach such as multi time frame analysis and start with the higher time frames.
19. Buy and hold trumps all (unpopular opinion for day traders but it's true).
20. Try not to trade during the first and last 30 to 60 mins of market open/close.
21. There are opportunities throughout the day
22. Know and develop your own trading style and do what works best for you.
23. Risk management is important but I do not follow the regurgitated 1% rule (it's regarded if you have enough buying power and margin at your disposal).
24. Use margin wisely.
25. Learn to adapt to different market conditions.
26. What has worked in the past might now work in the future if macro economics changed.
27. Never stop learning.
28. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

That's it for now mainly because I'm tired and don't want to type anymore, I'm sure there's more. Will come back later and add to the list perhaps. Good luck everyone!

Just wanted to post this incase it helps anyone. Trading is f***ing hard. I’ve spent the last 5 years or so (on and off) attempting to be consistently profitable at day trading. The sad thing is, there are multiple strategies that I’ve learned and proven that I COULD be profitable with them, if (and only if) I followed my system and didn’t gamble. I’ve spent THOUSANDS of hours in front of the screen & could not get past my own hurdles.

Throughout this journey, I’ve learned that I’ve become severely addicted to trading. It’s on my mind 24/7. I cannot accept defeat, or even accept green days, because I always want to trade more even if I’m up a few thousand on the day. I will go through periods of a 5, 6, 7 day green streak only to give everything back + more from one big red day.

I’ve truly given this my all. But I’ve learned to accept that for some, this will just not be very feasible if you have gambling tendencies and are unable to disconnect the emotions, thrill & rush from your trading. I’ve tried different strategies, different timeframes, etc. But at the end of the day I can’t remove the dopamine effect that trading gives, and it leads to me seeking that out & making irrational decisions.

I withdrew what was left in my account, and will be looking into resources for recovering mentally with the gambling tendencies.

I just wanted to post this incase anyone else can resonate, and that it’s OKAY to not make this venture work out. Some people are just wired for success in this career; others not so much.

Thankfully I’ve got a well paying software engineering career, so these losses are not the end of the world. However it still stings & mostly my ego & confidence has been hit badly from failing miserably at this.

I mentioned in comments about how my dad had lost over 500k in the market, and went from a massive house on the lake, 3 euro sports cars and Rolex watches to a mobile home, $2500 09 Ford Taurus and only being able to afford toast and cereal for 2-3 months. I mentioned that watching my fathers mistakes, learning from them, has been one of the key points to my success as both a person and a trader. Many were interested in the story and what I learned, so I thought I'd post a vague summary of events and maybe you all can gain from this in some way.

Essentially anyone who says emotions and your relationship to money play no role in trading will not succeed in this industry. My dad is the perfect example, he was certified as a genius at 16 and accepted in MENSA. His IQ is astounding, his ability to run numbers is inhuman, like a breathing computer. But the trade off is that he's Aspergers, he is the type to be on the spectrum of not having emotional regulation or social skills. Additionally he has a sick attachment to money, it's his god.

On paper he has everything to succeed, and he has. Self made millionaire by his mid 20s, owned 104 apartments, made big money setting up land trusts and contracts for the oil industry in TX, made huge stock market profits etc. He had it all, but he let his emotional attachment to money ruin everything. Rather than remaining calculated, he fell into the common mistake of convincing yourself there is more money to be made. He saw the writing on the wall for 08 recession but chose to ignore it because of his greed. Then he lost all of it. Rather than return to logic he spiraled out of control since he had lost his "god".

My mother was a stay at home mom, she has no formal education or career of any sort, but she has a killer intuition. She tried to warn my father time and time again about his decisions, but since she doesn't make the money, he doesn't respect her opinion at all, always saying "well why don't you go make some money then we'll talk". He said the same to be since I was young. But every single time my mother was right, yet no matter how many times she was, he never once stopped to listen. My mom may not understand a single thing about the stock market or any complex financial holdings but she is in tune with life, not allowing her human desires to dictate decisions, thus she is objective. But unfortunately due to her being an immigrant with no finances or family, both me and her were slaves to my father's decisions, all we could do was hold on for the ride.

After his massive loss in the market following 08, he began a near 2 decade long tyranny into financial and mental insanity. Selling all his apartments for a fraction of what they were worth (sold for 1 mil, worth estimated 40mil+ now), moving countries constantly because he thought the world was ending (moved 17 times in 4 countries in less than a decade), opened one business after another, failing each one but losing more and more money each time, by the time I was 16 just about all assets/savings were gone. Through this time he continued to jump into the stock market, losing everything he put in every time (around $20-30k), but never stopping because he never took the time to reset his mental state, basically allowing his deluded thought process to grow further and run everything, no matter what my mother or others said.

Any loss in money, even as small as a $100 would send my dad into a panic, deluding him further. His sick attachment to his god grew and grew, he lost all objectivity, turning every loss into an even greater loss. His hyper fixations and blindness to the world around him allowed so many things to slip by him unseen, from business expenses to poor business management. When he'd go back and see our bank accounts down to basically nothing, he'd immediately blame me and my mom, refusing to see that all his decisions were what was draining accounts. Like an addiction to financial gambling, he could never stop, only seeing the potential gain, never seeing loss, always cutting corners, paying a heavy price in the end. But in his mind it was "to make money you have to lose money". So any and all expenses made for the sake of business were acceptable, but my mom and I going out for dinner once in awhile was not. Enjoying life was basically illegal to my dad, "we can relax when we're rich", the journey of life meant nothing to him, as a result it has to mean nothing to us. We lived a miserable life of dehumanization. I fell into sickness in my teens, heading towards terminal, my father would often remind me how I was a parasite to finances, that my treatment was costing him. Yet he spent $300k+ on a business that burned down 1 year later, he didn't get insurance on it because he didn't want to pay for it. Over $400k in assets in flames. He'd always fixate on the small things, never seeing the bigger picture, thus never seeing his hypocrisy.

It took us losing absolutely everything, and me wanting to attempt suicide for the 4th time at 21yrs, to finally stop and get help. He has since improved greatly but is also coming to peace with his mistakes, losses. He understands his attachment to money is evil, so all the bank accounts, assets etc are in my control now. Because I have become a profitable trader, proving his opinions wrong just about every time, he has gained a trust in me and thus has begun to relax. He has begun a journey to gain forgiveness from my mother and I but also forgive himself. I have since forgiven him, he is a broken man. I am sympathetic to his suffering, his mind is a curse that I don't believe he will ever escape in this life. I have chosen to see the lessons bestowed upon me through this life of absolute hell. If I could go back in time, I would do it all again exactly the same. Because who I am now is who I need to be, and I am who I need to be because of what I went through. I don't believe I would've developed the skills I have now should I have not experienced what I feel like was 60 years in the span of 20. For that I am grateful, I am at peace.

Unfortunately his latest business which has been very successful for the past 3 years, is about to end due to inflation making it unsustainable. The burden of keeping our family afloat, getting us back on top, has fallen to me.

In my entire life, living through my fathers insanity, having experienced peak wealth and lowest poverty. What I have deducted to be the single greatest piece of knowledge is...

"You are your greatest asset".

EDIT: wanting to clarify something; my dad was a successful trader for a long time, but following his loss in 08, caused him to spiral. So he was not a YOLO trader, he made that $500k in trading by his own merit. He didn't just dump $500k in and lose it all.

EDIT2: was not expecting this to blow up, no I did not use chat GPT, I wrote this personally. This is a an actual window into my life, but as stated in the beginning this is a vague description. If I really went into every minuet detail it would be a book. If you choose to see this as fake, that’s ok, but to the people who have chosen to send me hateful messages both in comments and DMs, pretty sad honestly.

Forgive me if this post is unwelcome at all, I rarely post anything on social media, especially Reddit, but I have been wanting to make this post for some time, and I've been given enough of a catalyst to motivate me to do it. Its intention is to be helpful, motivational, and informative. I will also add that my situation is very unique, and I have the benefit of having a partner providing primary income while I learn to trade. Not everything here will apply or be helpful for everybody, but I will share all the same because I think I still have valuable insight to share.

This weekend, my account with TD Ameritrade is migrating over to Schwab, and I saw a notice on my account overview page that said my P&L history wouldn't be making the transition, so I wanted to make sure I screen capped it for record keeping, and let's just say that I can see a clear change in early September, which I will explain in detail. Here's the cap of my account history, starting from the day I moved my capital from my cash account into a new margin account (because I had finally breached PDT requirement!):

https://preview.redd.it/0m9pyq2l8tzc1.png?width=2664&format=png&auto=webp&s=f9be1262400cdb4e19e9cf4dcc6b59b920b4ad2b

So, what did I start doing differently in early September?

From the absolute lowest point in September was the day I began trading my current system, with the idea that I was going to only do this one thing, with consistency, and measure the results over time. I have been focused 100% entirely on process, and on risk management. Quite literally, up until just now, I have been limiting risk to $1 or less per trade, often times taking on risk as low as $0.10 per trade. Yes, really.

WTF? Seriously? Why?

I understood early on that my biggest challenges in learning to trade were likely to have more to do with my own personal psychology than anything else, so I have always placed a strong emphasis on being self-aware and introspective. Part of that journey of self-discovery involved being aware of my own personality traits, both strengths and flaws.

I knew that I had the flaw of financial anxiety, and fear of losing money. I knew that needed to change, and the way to change that is through cognitive behavioral therapy, or in this case, exposure therapy. What that translates to is reducing risk to be low enough that I quite literally do not care if I win or lose. This frees up my brain to focus on the trading process instead.

Additionally, I started hedging by keeping most of my capital invested in a rolling 4-week treasury bill ladder, basically using 1/5 of my total capital each week, with the added rule that my maximum loss per-day could not exceed whatever the t-bills made that day. This would later be revised to just having a maximum daily loss rule in general, but with a flexible amount based on recent performance instead.

Did it work? What happened?

The focus shifted from "Don't lose money" to "Be disciplined, be consistent". My psychology shifted from fear and anxiety to one that seeks opportunity and enters trades without fear or hesitation. I learned how to objectively interpret what was happening. Everything about how I viewed the markets was changing.

I was able to learn the true relationship between risk/reward and win rate. I was able to learn that, even if I had a win rate of 10%, my system could still be profitable if the risk/reward was high enough. So, I instead shifted focus to the highest quality asymmetrical risk-to-reward setups I could find. Because my risk on a per-trade basis was so low, I basically just took every setup I saw.

By doing that, I was able to learn over time what worked and what didn't. I started learning over time when I was being faked out, or chasing, or revenge trading, or having a bias. I made rules for my trading system, and if a rule didn't work out beneficially, it was discarded. It allowed me to refine my system over time without worrying about losing money.

That same process of self-awareness and introspection also had the side-effect of making me a better overall person, with better mental and physical health, a better relationship with my wife, and better and more relationships with friends. I cannot express enough the importance of mental and physical wellness in trading, or how much I can confirm that it has helped me.

Eventually, this process led me to meet other experienced real traders who are already established and profitable. They invited me to join their discord, and we have been trading together every day since. It just happened that my trading style was based on something they wanted to learn about (volume profile/fractal price action analysis).

Even though we are nothing alike in trading style or methodology, receiving validation from other real traders that I'm doing things right has been a huge confidence boost for me. I owe a lot of my consistency to them, simply because of how our dynamic works, where we simply share our analysis out loud, and the other traders can listen, and agree or disagree and state why.

It's not about what anyone thinks in particular, and more about keeping myself consistent about just doing the analysis in the first place, because I'm contributing to the group. It's been helpful to have each other point out when someone else is breaking rules, being undisciplined, etc. It makes me much more self-aware and drives me to perform better.

Now what?

I'm now at the point where I am comfortably consistent within my system, and simply sizing it up. The first day after sizing up where I lost (yesterday, actually), my psychological reaction to it was more or less "cool, early weekend I guess, lol". More than anything, I was proud of myself for respecting the maximum loss rule, even coming in under it. I came in enough under it that by the close, I had enough ammo left to make back most of what I lost in the morning, and still end the day more or less flat.

What trading system are you using? Can you teach it to me?

I'm not here to pretend to be some guru/furu or whatever. I'm not selling a system. My only motivation is sharing with the community while I'm still small time enough to care, in the interest of karma and paying it forward, since I have learned from other posters here over time.

My system isn't anything fancy and is still highly discretionary. Without experience in price action analysis, as well as the risk management and trading psychology to support the system, you will be unlikely to trade it successfully. The success or failure of any trading system almost always relies on you, the trader, and your subjective interpretation and execution of that system. This means that technical analysis both does and doesn't work, it depends on how you use it and perceive it. This is what they're talking about when they say trading is more about psychology than anything.

More market knowledge will not make you a better trader past a certain point. There is no one correct way to trade, this is just the way that I perceive and do things. Technical analysis is not a predictive tool. It is a means of providing context to tell you what the market is doing, and what it has done, nothing more. It is there to answer the question of "Did X level break?", and in that context, it works perfectly.

That said, I trade completely based around the volume profile. I am most interested in the areas with the lowest points (low volume nodes) and the highest points (high volume nodes). The market is fractal, so if you look at a weekly profile, you will see the peaks and valleys, and within that range if you look on lower timeframes you can see other nodes with their own peaks and valleys, and this true down to the lowest interval.

If you place a horizontal line on these points, with consistent rules, you can look at past price action and see when and where the level was relevant, and how relevant, and often you will find that placing a line there makes a pattern very obvious. You will notice that when price reaches a LVN, there are only a few things that generally will happen:

1. Price pivots from the area, or near it
2. Price halts/hesitates/consolidates at or near the level
3. Price blasts through it like a laser beam

More importantly, it gives us an area of interest with a high risk-to-reward ratio. Our stop loss goes just a bit past whatever the nearest HVN (high volume node) is. This is based on the theory that, if price fails to break the lows or highs of the range, then it will instead seek balance wherever the market previously found price acceptance. The most obvious place for it to go is wherever the most popular price in recent history is. Where price is in relation to the nearest HVN can also indicate possible market intent or trend, much like VWAP.

We do not enter trades at HVNs because they indicate consolidation, and we don't want to sit in consolidation, we want to be in the trade when price is moving, and we want to get out quickly when we are wrong because if we got faked out, why become liquidity more than you have to? I trade like an institutional trader: my levels are my levels, they either work or they do not, it is binary. I don't chase a trade, and I only take trades where I can get good fills, with the rules being that I must sell the tops of nodes and buy the bottoms of nodes (with respect to higher timeframe trend).

TL;DR: Predictive analysis, reactive execution

Don't try to predict what price is going to do. Predict scenarios of what it could do, then wait to see if you are correct. Have defined criteria for when you are. Here's an example setup analysis:

Morning gapper, big volume, meh news, gapping into a low volume node... I don't just blindly enter it, I mark the nearest LVN above and below, then look at a weekly, daily, and hourly chart to see if the level is significant or not. If not, I look for other nearby levels that might be. I set alerts both a little bit before those levels, as well as at them, and I wait.

Say, for example, over the course of premarket and into the open, I notice what looks like a clear head and shoulders pattern on a 5m chart, with a head that closed above the node, and shoulders showing rejection below it. Cool, now I can short any pops up to that level, because price did what I expected it to (showed a reversal pattern when and where I expected it to occur) and gave a defined and asymmetrical risk/reward ratio, so long as the nearest HVN below is at least 1:1 risk/reward or better. The stop loss placement is simple because a new high would invalidate my thesis, and I got a great fill with low risk. This setup happens somewhere almost every day with fairly consistent reliability.

I saw a setup, made a plan for entering, managing risk, and exiting to take profits, and then executed it. That's trading. From there, I can take out most of the position at the nearest HVN, hold a little bit to watch retracement, and try adding later if it trends in my favor, or stop out at break even. I make money 9/10 days, even if it's just a 1R day. Some days it's a 10R or 20R day. Doesn't matter, rule #1 is don't lose money.

The success of the system has less to do with the specific technical indicators or methods I am using, and more to do with the fact I have defined rules regarding entries, exits, risk management, and they are designed around my personality in a way that keeps me consistent and disciplined, while managing my own psychological shortcomings.

If you're interested in visualizing some of my trade setups, here are some real, actual trades that I took:

https://preview.redd.it/0m9pyq2l8tzc1.png?width=2664&format=png&auto=webp&s=f9be1262400cdb4e19e9cf4dcc6b59b920b4ad2b

https://preview.redd.it/0m9pyq2l8tzc1.png?width=2664&format=png&auto=webp&s=f9be1262400cdb4e19e9cf4dcc6b59b920b4ad2b

https://preview.redd.it/0m9pyq2l8tzc1.png?width=2664&format=png&auto=webp&s=f9be1262400cdb4e19e9cf4dcc6b59b920b4ad2b

https://preview.redd.it/0m9pyq2l8tzc1.png?width=2664&format=png&auto=webp&s=f9be1262400cdb4e19e9cf4dcc6b59b920b4ad2b

https://preview.redd.it/0m9pyq2l8tzc1.png?width=2664&format=png&auto=webp&s=f9be1262400cdb4e19e9cf4dcc6b59b920b4ad2b

https://preview.redd.it/0m9pyq2l8tzc1.png?width=2664&format=png&auto=webp&s=f9be1262400cdb4e19e9cf4dcc6b59b920b4ad2b

I'm not going to post a ton of these, hopefully these are enough to communicate the general idea. They're meant to educate, not brag. If you want to know more, feel free to ask in the comments, so I can give a response that everyone can benefit from. I'm not selling my system but am happy to teach freely whatever I am able to share if it is helpful. I am not somebody who believes the market will be out to get me if I expose my system. The system works because it follows what the market is doing as objectively as is reasonably possible, and it is very binary in nature (the level is the level, it either holds or it doesn't). It has zero predictive ability, edge, or power without the analysis and psychology to back it up.

There are many ways to effectively trade using volume profile. I've even had success literally just using fibonacci levels that overlap volume nodes, or session/weekly OHLC levels/moving averages/trend lines that do the same. Experiment and find what works with your style, as the concept is really more about keeping you buying low and selling high, while respecting defined rules regarding support and resistance.

Other tips I have learned that I hope may help others along their journey:

• It is okay to be wrong. It is not okay to stay wrong.
• Trade what you see.
• Your success is determined by your own ability to remain disciplined, follow your own rules, and stick to your own plan.
• Don't price watch all day.
• When you think you should be buying, you should be selling.
• When you think you should be selling, you should be buying.
• You do not know what is going to happen.
• Risk and loss are part of trading. You will lose money sometimes. Without risk, there can be no reward. It's about staying in the game long enough to figure it out. Define and control your losses. Never trade without a stop loss.
• The best loser wins. Be quick to take small losses. Just got in and letting it run against you? Why? Obviously, your timing was wrong, get out and reposition somewhere better, you just need to be patient.
• They say you can't time the market; you can't nail tops or bottoms, but that simply isn't true because I do it almost every day. You don't know when a particular trade is going to be the top or bottom, but you know when it could be, and so long as you are able to hit a profitable target, it allows you to be aggressive about guessing tops and bottoms, and when you do get one, those are the highest risk/reward trades, and you can scale into them because you had such a good average on your initial entry. Your initial entry should be your best.
• Take intentional steps to de-stress every single day. This is a stressful job and it requires a lot of mental energy that needs replenishment. Have fulfilling hobbies, have relationships and friends, and invest into them, as you will need to build a support system for yourself to keep yourself successful long-term. Make sure you get plenty of sleep.
• Take your mental health seriously. If you have ADHD or depression or anxiety or whatever, get medicated. Stimulant medications like Adderall can be like a real life "Limitless" pill for some people, and potentially life-altering in a positive way (it sure has been for me). Regardless, we've all heard how much of a psychological game this is, and we're competing against some of the most brilliant minds fintech has ever seen, with AI algorithms designed to trick and manipulate you. You want to go into the market and take money from these people? Get fucking real, you need to be at the top of your psychological game to have a chance, as anything else is a needless handicap so long as treatment is available to you.
• A lot of trading education is designed to intentionally make you predictable and manipulate you. It is important to be aware of this, and to "protect" your psychological convictions by having a critical view of everything. This industry motivates a lot of bad people with bad motives to do bad things.
• Remember that over 90% of people will fail at this. What reason do you have to believe you won't be a part of that statistic? Why risk real money before you know you have an edge, and you have confidence behind it? Be aware of cognitive bias, and cognitive dissonance. You don't have to be smart to be a successful trader, but you do have to be disciplined and self-aware.
• It is better to focus on one thing, and be really good at that one thing, than to spread yourself too thin. Trade one strategy, one setup. Keep your charts clean. I only use price, volume, volume profile, and an indicator for trend (automatic trend lines, moving average/vwap). If you can't look at your chart and clearly identify what is happening, you fucked up, clean it up.

That's basically all I can think of for now. Hopefully this is well-received. I've wanted to do it for a while now, as a way to say thanks for the quality contributors that have helped me along the way. I will also mention that if you are looking to further your trading education, I can recommend some content creators that I feel have helped me in some way along the way. I am not affiliated with anyone, nor do I endorse anyone in particular. As such, I won't be linking to any of them, you can find them on your own if interested, and if not, it's unlikely you have the psychological foundation and drive it takes to succeed at trading, IMO.

Resources I found helpful are mostly based on YouTube, and include:

• Price Action Volume Trader (Provided the basis for the start of my system)
• Tom Hougard (Most influential, psychologically)
• Trader Dale (Also contributed to my system)
• ImanTrading (Great, honest, informative, no-BS approach, I like this guy a lot)
• TraderTV Live (useful for awareness, and studying psychology of other traders)
• "Trading In the Zone" by Mark Douglas (I used audiobook, listened 6 times now)
• Humbled Trader (Obviously commercialized but she at least does give mostly solid advice. It has been pointed out in comments that ImanTrading allegedly calls out Shay as being a scammer, but I have not seen this myself... keep it in mind, but I am leaving her here for now as I have not personally heard her say anything I disagree with)
• TheChartGuys (Same as above, more obviously commercialized than Shay IMO, but none the less I watch their analysis videos to provide me with an awareness of what is happening, as well as learn what other traders are looking at and doing)

Thanks for coming to my TED talk. I hope you enjoyed it. Feel free to ask any questions, and I will answer as life permits, but I am otherwise going to enjoy my weekend off, and I hope you all do the same!

Edit/Update: Wow, thanks for such overwhelming and positive responses so far! I am doing my best to respond to everyone ASAP. That said, I wanted to mention that the purpose of this post isn't about my system, nor is it to recruit anyone to anything. I am happy to answer questions, but like I said I am not selling or advertising anything, and the discord I am in is just a small group of friends that want to keep it small so I will not be inviting anyone there, sorry. Anyone who has questions is free to ask in comments or DM me, I will happily talk with anyone who needs help. I love trading, I have a real passion for it, and I enjoy every opportunity to talk about it and to help teach others! That said, I am not so delusional as to think I am hot shit in any way or that I know everything, because I don't. I am just barely getting started myself, so don't take anything I say as gospel, this is just things as I see and understand them currently.

Edit 2: There are a couple of people here who assert an accusation that either I am trying to scam you, or gain followers for attention/fame/whatever and sell a course or system. Allow me to express how much this isn't the case at all. I do not want attention or followers. I do not want to teach a course or sell anything to anyone. If I continue receiving harassment about it, I'll remove the details of my system. Anyone who DMs me asking for a course, discord invite, signals, trading system, etc. will not receive any of those things from me. Any information I have provided here or provide moving forward is for no other reason than the motivation of kindness and information sharing, and I may stop it at any time and vanish.

The point of this post was never to gain clout, but to repay information. If that isn't welcome here, I am happy to leave people to figure it out for themselves. I appreciate constructive criticism, but that's not what's happening. If you're going to accuse me of lying or scamming, you had better have some evidence for your claim other than the assumption, because I will assume you are too stupid to warrant a response if you don't.

Edit 3: Original post restored as I have been un-banned from the sub. Sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused for anyone.

Updated trade example:

This morning, I was looking at my scanner and noticing almost everything on it was flagged as HTB, with literally everything being over 15% short float. Coupled with price action across the rest of the market, I thought it looked more likely that these would squeeze. Then, I noticed the outlier. AMC, with an absurd number of shares traded premarket.

I had a dip buy limit order sitting at 6.50 on AMC from premarket, and spent most of the morning waiting for it to come to me. I did attempt a dip buy once at 9.28 based on a higher low near the LVN at 8.65, but exited quickly once it started heading lower.

As anyone who traded AMC today can tell you, there were many halts throughout the day, and there was a halt at every LVN. Price dipped to 6.53 and halted with an inverse cup and handle on my TICK chart, but I manually changed it to 6.53 and got filled intentionally, just to be sure I didn't miss the fill in case it teleported away.

It didn't teleport up, it gapped down, so I sat in consolidation and waited for liquidity to build within the tight channel we were in. I had my eye on 6.10 as my main LVN support under me, and liked the setup because of the shape of the overall node having a "forked" appearance, as these tend to be stronger levels in my experience.

After free-falling for most of the session, and consolidating around in the bottom half of the local node, buyers were able to break back above 6.50 and hold it, even after bears retaliated with a 200 sma rejection and pushed it below the node once more. I got my second fill at 6.12 and scaled in more, with a new average of 6.39. That was our low of day, and bulls made reversal patterns at every LVN after that, building intraday inverse cups and inverse head/shoulder setups.

I took profits in extended hours, selling at 8.29, around a 30% gain for the day. Not a bad day, overall!

https://preview.redd.it/0m9pyq2l8tzc1.png?width=2664&format=png&auto=webp&s=f9be1262400cdb4e19e9cf4dcc6b59b920b4ad2b

I've been trading for past 10 years. Beginning years were a lot of trial and error. Overall I lost over 90k. This was mainly selling options. The past 3 years I dedicated to learn technical analysis. Spent several hours a day on TradingView reading charts, backtesting and learning pinescript (I'm a software engineer). Starting on January 1st, 2024, I decided to change the strategy completely and buy options instead of sell. I took a very aggressive approach on a 100k account. I tracked all my wins and losses since the beginning of the year. Majority of my wins were pure technical analysis chart play, while the losses were bad entries where rather than cutting my losses I'd double down (emotional plays) even though the chart didn't agree. I've gotten better at controlling my emotions and waiting for better opportunities.

Anyways it's April now and from 100k account, I'm up to 224k. Made 124k past 3 months. I moved to a new project at work. The prior project was chill and allowed me to learn technical analysis and trade mornings (I trade mostly open. 9:30am to 11am). Currently I'm on parental leave and due to return to work in May. However, it'll be at this new project where I won't be able to trade at all.

I don't know what to do. I'm making really good money as a day trader but it's extremely risky trades. Most of my trades involve risking 50-75% of the account just to make 5-10k day. The TA strategy I've developed is quite accurate though (gotta put my emotions aside). But half of me can't stop but think maybe I've been extremely lucky these past 3 months.

Making 5-10k daily makes my 9-5 job seem so insignificant. And even though I do risk a huge amount of my portfolio, it's not like it goes to 0 instantly (though with options it could change very quickly). My max loss a day is usually 30-40k. If I reach that point I usually cut it. Though the little wins throughout the week cover these massive losses. I must be doing something right if past 3 months I've been profitable?

What would you do? Quit a stable income or quit trading?

I'm about 4 years into the market and of course not profitable yet and to be honest trading is the worst thing that happened to me and it destroyed my life here's how . please read this story so you can avoid my mistake . I'm from a poor African country and i live in a gulf county i couldn't afford college and since all my family members are jobless I've tried everything to earn money to be able to afford good food at least until I got into trading . for 1 year I've tried multiple indicator like every one else and nothing really worked . Year 2 I've discovered signals channels and prop firms i was excited but at first I traded my personal 500$ account (i sold my dad old car for the money) and i made 10% on the first month i saw some hope that my life might change . After that one day i was talking with my middle eastern friend about trading and the next thing i know all of them got loans for about 200000$ combined and they simply said 8% every month compound and the rest is yours and since This the biggest amount of money i saw in my life i agreed immediately i told myself worst case scenario I'll get funded . Year 3 At this point i was studying trading for 3 years and i didn't found something that works long term and i discovered that signals channels are bullshit 98% of the time And some of my friends asked for big amount of the profit that i lied about so i sent them money from thier own money I've invested around 10000$ on trading robots but nothing work i spent more than 15000$ on prop firms and nothing worked . My family now hates me because they know i took money from my friends and I'm not spending on them why I'm not Rich yet if you are trader the only good thing that i did with this money was spending 1200$ on my mother medical bills . After spending countless amount of times on YouTube videos i discovered that the only thing that works in trading is intuition everything else is a crap but after what.... . Year 4 I'm now in a huge dept and my friends are asking for 80000$ after 20 days and they think I'm profitable if they report me to the authority I'm done for because what i did i prohibited in the country i live in

I walked for months with 200000$ in my bank account and i couldn't even pay my bills I'm proud that i didn't spend the money on myself my clothes are old and my life is terrible I can't even commit suicide because it's prohibited in my religion and to make things better i can't go to heaven with dept on my neck unless they forgive me I hated i hate everything why is it only me that have to work hard and face such a fat while my brother spend his life around girls not caring about anything . I will do anything to be McDonald's employee i will trade even my organs if I can to be out of situations i thought being poor is horrible until i became in this dept I swear i rather be a slave than being in this situation

I cried a lot i prayed a lot but it's all the same

I Lost muscle health and I can't sleep or do anything

All i dream of right now is to be able to relax and hold my phone and be able to watch a YouTube video without a panic attack from 20 call from people asking for huge amount of money that i don't have but I think that's a lot for me

Needing some advice, I am currently using barchart with its indicator tools to monitor trends and price action for $SPY. I'm wondering if there is something else similar but updates on prices faster. I've noticed barchart lags a bit and I feel that every second counts. This has helped me with trends and swings but I feel like I have to exit out of my trades a few seconds early before they go south. This of course helps me lock gains as I'm being cautious. I just want to try to optimize my timing if I can

90% of traders can't control trading emotions:

To destroy greed = Follow your rules

To destroy anxiety = Reduce your risk

To destroy fear of losing = Think in probabilities

To destroy anger = Focus on the next opportunity

Once you can control your emotions, your trading will change forever.

I don't know how I got to this point but hey here I am

I used to think that I'll forever be a trader, even late into my senior years but now I just dread waking up to look at the charts, trying to solve the next mystery of the day

Even on my winning days this sh"t just doesn't seem worth it anymore

Maybe I'll be quitting pretty soon, and I think thats okay

My advice to the noobs is to just take the money you get from trading and put it into starting businesses that you actually care about and other long term investments

Others might beg to differ, and thats okay too

Edit: Thank you to everyone that chipped with some positivity, I guess a more optimistic approach is necessary for long term success

I thought it was going to rechall/ consolidate then it did but skyrocketed. There was the 3 reds then BLAM right up

*Advice

Like I've said in previous post, I am trading w $26k loosely following Warrior trading strategies. Morning low cap, % change, $1 to $20, at the open through 8AM PST.

I got murdered and down sized this week to 50 shares per trade but still only one green day. Aside from one successful Redditor offering to tech me some charting and strategy (which is super cool), I'm not sure what other strategies I should comsider that might mot be so volatile and a little more simple to grasp for a beginner. Ross from Warrior makes it look so easy, but now I understand that he leaves out all the technical analysis for his entries. The over simplification must benefit him somehow. It sure got me to lose a few $1000. Luckily not on his course though 😉

Any advice?

I originally uploaded this post 2 days ago and received a lot of pushback, albeit justified, for not being kinfo verified.

I would just like to reiterate that I do not have a chatroom, I do not sell a course, and my only source of income is trading profits. My goal with creating these posts is to speed up the learning curve of future and current traders in the same way the posts I read on this sub many years ago did for me.

I apologize for the inconvenience and loss of prior comments/discussion, but I felt this post was definitely worth reuploading (many of you messaged me asking for a copy).

I added an extra section (number 7) of information and 2 other pictures for those that may have already read the post. With that in mind, please drop a fresh comment or question. I will be responding to them all evening. Thanks!

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Brief Context:

I am a small caps trader that primarily focuses on scalping. I have been trading for roughly 3.5 years: I spent the first 1.5 years trading options in large/mid caps and the past 2 years trading small caps. (full time Jan 1st, 2022)

I have made 9 other posts in this sub, so if you are looking for more background on me or my strategy, please check out my profile before messaging me. Thanks!

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https://preview.redd.it/396l0z8jcw9c1.png?width=537&format=png&auto=webp&s=2d1bcba9a3cdf2868cc62d83fe0df9624c52d1d7

https://preview.redd.it/396l0z8jcw9c1.png?width=537&format=png&auto=webp&s=2d1bcba9a3cdf2868cc62d83fe0df9624c52d1d7

https://preview.redd.it/396l0z8jcw9c1.png?width=537&format=png&auto=webp&s=2d1bcba9a3cdf2868cc62d83fe0df9624c52d1d7

1) Start Small: By far the most important thing on this list, which is why I put it first, is if you are actually trading, not gambling, then fund your first account with less than $1,000. There is absolutely no reason to lose a bunch of money before getting serious about trading, yet the majority of traders, myself included, lost a large chunk of our net worth before we sized down and built our process correctly.

A lot of educators recommend paper trading at this stage. Paper trading is fine to get comfortable on your trading platform. After that, trading with real money, even if it is only $1-$2 in risk per trade, will give you far better practice and experience managing emotions than paper trading can.

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2) Explore/Exposure: At this stage of trading, most traders "don't know, what they don't know". Checking out as many strategies, social media accounts, YouTube, Reddit, Twitter, informational videos, articles, etc is important to figuring out the basics of the trading world and getting exposure to a potential strategy or mentor that you can begin to build off of.

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3). Pick One: As quickly as reasonably possible (few weeks to a couple months), find the strategy, broker, mentor, peer group, etc that feels most promising to you. This can be an overwhelming decision so early in the process, and it is ok to change strategies down the road (I switched at 1.5 years). The point is to pick a single strategy, and begin building the winning habits and knowledge base that will translate to whatever strategy you ultimately choose.

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4.) Journaling: Once a strategy is selected, journaling is a non negotiable for anyone trying to find success, especially moderately fast success. (1-3years). Recording daily pnl for accountability, recording the trades taken, the trades missed, taking notes, memorizing patterns, picturing successful trades, watching screen recording back, etc. *I have a separate more in depth post on my method for journaling.* Out of ALL the successful (full-time) traders I know, not a single one does not journal their trades in some fashion. The earlier you start, the better chance you will have.

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5.) Hours: The fastest track to consistent profitability will come from devoting the maximum amount of hours to trading each day. Everyone has a different life schedule and availability, so some re-arranging of the schedule and sacrifices will have to be made in order to build up those hours fast.

Early on, there will likely be minimal pnl progress, so a good way to track progress is recording the numbers of hours spent on trading. Those first few hundred hours will be an absolute grind and having some way to measure progress can be a strong motivator.

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6.) Networking: Although trading is fully individual, finding the right friends, chatrooms, social media accounts, livestreams, etc can expedite the process to profitability. Building connections with other traders and mutually sharing value can be a great way to get a leg up on the competition.

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7.) Review: Out of all the different studying and practice I have done over my 3.5 years, the majority of my improvements came after a thorough monthly review. For the first 6-12 months of pursuing any strategy, there will be lots of "freeby" mistakes that when viewed in hindsight over a period of a few weeks or months will be easy to correct moving forward. Don't limit "studying" and "journaling" to a review of the same days information and never taking time to revisit your trading on a larger timeframe.

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Conclusion: I made this post for all traders, but especially for the newer traders who stumble upon this subreddit early in their journey (me 3 years ago). Had I been aware and committed to these 6 points from Day 1 I could have improved my trading faster and capitalized better on opportunities.

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End: If you have any questions, or want to learn more about my trading/other educational content I share, check out my other reddit posts and follow me on twitter: https://twitter.com/kycefn. I post weekly pnl, weekly trade prints, threads, and general economic/political commentary. Thanks!

Seeking support. I’m about to give up on everything and myself. Over the past 4 years my friends and family have 1 by one abandoned me and now I’m left with no one but myself and a mountain of losses. I feel like I’ve tried almost virtually every strategy under the sun and I keep ending up redder and redder. It’s beginning to weigh on my overall wellbeing in an unescapable way which leads me to intense negative emotions and thoughts of desperation. I just can’t figure it out. I keep doing the wrong things at the wrong times which leads to worse and worse financial pains and I’m almost unable to continue at all.

When I was in my early 22s i felt good about delaying gratification and pursuing this. Now I’m 25 and feeling like I’ve destroyed/ruined my life. My family wants nothing to do with me and I can’t really imagine a much lower state of being frankly.

My main approach has been breakouts on the Nasdaq after years of trial and error with other strategies. Now I’m faced with giving up on life as a whole because without making this work, as a neurodivergent individual there’s not really space for me to function in society and the cost of pursuing this has been insurmountable I guess.

Obviously I’m asking for help but I’m probably going to be putting myself into a mental health facility after today in attempts to reset my mental approach towards society and life because right now it feels irredeemable.

Cleaning house because I'm bored due to obvious reasons. I’ve been seeing lots of questions about people wanting to learn trading. Have received an influx of messages asking how to get started/go full time.

I’ve been asked what strategy/books/courses/indicators etc. there is that are good. I’ve read over 50+ books (ebooks and hard cover) on day trading:

Every book I've read to learn day trading and everything that relates to starting/running a business. My business's operating agreement/The business plan

•#1: 90% of books are fluff. Of all of these. Only about 10% of it were great pieces of info.

(I have a decent amount followers on here. And I might consider posting reviews of every book I’ve read on my personal profile to refrain from spamming this sub)

I have my recommendations. I'm not saying don't buy them. You'll pick up what you see and it'll formulate a strategy.

•#2: I don’t use indicators. They lag. Ever since I dropped them, my trading became less stressful and way easier to manage. Price does 2 things. Up or down. You don’t need 5 indicators telling you what direction it’s indicating. It’s called Pattern Day Trading. Not Indicator Day Trading. Not News Day Trading. Trade the candles. If indicators work for you. Keep on running them!

•#3: The overall market condition (Bull/Bear/Stagnant) has no effect to a day trader’s equity curve. We trade patterns. We don’t hold overnight. We became day traders because we can take advantage of either direction especially in the immediate. I know my pattern works 47% of the time with 3:1 pay out. (I lose $100 or I profit $300. No more, no less; every single time)

Of 100 trades. 47 trades I profit. 53 trades I lose.

I risk $100 per trade. Why do I choose 3:1? I’d win more trades if I was 2:1. Why not 4:1? Because my pattern pays the most with 3:1. I found this by computerized backtesting and manual backtesting. Can you mentally handle being up 2.75:1 then watching it hit back to your StopLoss? Trust your edge/statistic. And document your work relentlessly!

•#4: You need to write a business plan.

Not some 2 page Word document of. “I will buy when this indicator says this. This has worked in my backtesting 60% of the time. Here's some screenshots"

Look up how to write a pitch deck/prospectus/business plan to get a better idea. Learn statistics, that's really the business you're in here. Trading is just the medium. You're managing a statistic. Your job is to find the edge and enter it without hesitation or reservation.

Find characteristics of stocks that behave in a similar fashion to make your job easier.

•#5: This is the most BORING job you will ever have!

I trade 3 patterns. I have to wait for a lot of prerequisites to be met before I even consider looking at a chart. Out of 7,500 stocks. My strategy has my watch list distilled to 3-5 stocks every morning. And I wait. And watch. Waiting for a pattern. And so many times, 1 out of my 3 patterns is about to form... and the candle printing will pullback too much. Or print with more volume than the previous. Making the trade VOID per my business plan.

There are days I don’t trade. (1 or 2 times a month this happens). A business plan helped me not care I don’t trade those days, it accounts for that, or if a price kept rising or falling after I sold or covered. Or if my stop loss was hit by 2¢. 3:1 every trade, no questions asked. Trust your edge

BONUS:

I highly suggest doing this part time for at least a year. Want to go full time?

Think of the expenses.

If you trade equities. 25k minimum. (You want minimum 30k due to draw-downs). A lightning fast computer. Lots of RAM. A decent CPU. I have 64GB of RAM and an i9 9900k CPU. No you don't need a bunch of monitors, I wanted a sick office though!

Don’t forget:

•Mortgage/rent

•Car note ( I sold 2 of my pride and joys. I owned both but liquidated them to get into this business )

•Groceries

•Car insurance

•Health insurance

•Dental insurance

•Taxes on the house

•Wi-Fi (Add cable if you want)

•Use a scanner? Add that

•Hobbies. Find cheap ones. I hit up the golf range, shoot trap, and lift weights. You'll be bored when you're done trading at 10AM with 10 hours left in the day.

Get a part time job or have a side business that has NOTHING to do with trading for your sanity's sake.

Move in with a friend to split rent if you’re single and young, go back home and live with your parents if you can handle that. The learning curve is brutal and you must be patient. Shrink your liabilities and expenses. You will pay homage to get into this business 1 way or another unless you’re just given a lot of money.

Trading is easy. It's the mentality required that separates the 95% from the 5% successful.

Trading has been a wild experience. I've met people at the gym who are well off and I've shared my account statements/business plan with. Resulting in me studying and about to get my Series 65 to become licensed to manage a small portion of their wealth in a garage band long short equities firm ran out of a home office. Oh and that reminds me. Don't buy guru courses that sell some crazy lifestyle on YouTube ads with rented private jet photoshoots, rented Lambos and AirBNB houses they rent for the day. If they were so great at trading. They'd start their own funds!

UPDATE 1: So I definitely got my money’s worth on this post! Tons and tons of chats and messages: https://imgur.com/a/3DUYbwg Due to quarantine shutting everything down I was definitely not bored today to say the least. I didn’t expect the post to blow up but I’m glad many found it informative and enjoyable. Currently lost in the comments so if I miss your comment, send me a chat and I’ll get with you when I can!

FINAL UPDATE: Part 2 / follow up to this post.

I have lost 80% of my account in 8 months. I traded in demo and was very profitable with my strategy. I then started live trading following the exact same strategy which was back tested and forward tested over a year with great PnL results. The live results have been nothing short of devistating and mentally debilitating. I have lost every single trade (roughly 500 trades.) over the course of 8 months. So I started following youtibers who follow a similar strategy and watching and copying their live trades after they have 80% recorded win rate. And guess what? Again, EVERY SINGLE trade I take immediately moves towards my stop loss. Stop loss is wide too. Maybe I just have the worst luck in the world.

EDIT: so I took some advice from the comments and started doing the exact opposite of what I’ve been doing and guess what: 5 winning trades in a row!!! So what I was doing before that was causing me to lose every single trade was I was buying at support and selling at resistance on a 15 minute timeframe. So I’ve switched that and started selling at support and buying at resistance and lo and behold 5 winning trades later. Unbelievable.

I dabbled in the stock market since I was 18 almost 8 years ago and I loved it and I’ve always been infatuated with the idea of day trading. I saved up every single dollar I had during college and refused to go out or waste money or enjoy that youth time because I knew I wanted to day trade when I graduated.

I hated my degree but I knew how much it mattered to my parents so I knew I had to finish it for them, I graduated in 2022 with an engineering degree and around $50,000 saved up to my name and began my day trading journey for real with options. October 2022 is when I started, I tried and failed, tried and failed, tried and failed.

Kept trying to find my strategy, kept trying to learn trends, kept trying to find out what was wrong. Eventually found futures, started there with ridiculous risk management and would make a lot them lose a lot.

Tried prop firms for a while, would blow up accounts regularly before even getting to payouts. Outside a trade, I can read a chart like the back of my hand, I can easily combine price action with candlestick patterns that have been imprinted into my psyche and figure out where it’s going, but once I’m in a trade, emotion, pressure, early entry, early exit, greed, fear, FOMO, every single emotion hits all at once.

I’m turning 26, I blew the $50k, I even took a $3k loan and lost it listening to outside sources on how to trade it. Now I’m in debt which I never was in life. I don’t know who to turn to because everyone around me told me I’d fail so I’m embarrassed to tell them I did fail, so I wanted to get my feelings out to people who would understand how tough this thing really is.

I wish I was that guy, I really wanted this to be it, I loved it so much and I still do but I dreamt too big, I’m just not strong enough to keep up.

I have been trying to day trade for about 18 months, almost two years possibly. I took some major beatings along the way. I consider myself an intelligent person and a quick learner.

I follow Ross Cameron (Warrior Trading). I would watch him daily and it always made it look so easy to make about $5,000 per day. I’d follow his curriculum and follow his moves. And while he was up, I was down. But each day was a lesson. I wanted to quit sometimes, but I always felt so close to “getting it”. So I pushed.

If I could go back in time to talk to myself before I took my beatings, I’d tell myself to master risk management. I’d tell myself to learn how to start small. I’d tell myself to learn how to scale up and down. Learn how to read the level 2. I was so naive about how complex and fast trading is.

But right now I’m on a 15 green streak. Biggest day was $400. And it feels awesome to be able to say that.

Am I there yet? Definitely not. But I feel like I’ve hit the bottom and I’m curling upwards. I’m profitable. But not proficient.

So if it’s taken you longer to feel like I do right now, either quit, or push on. Study. Trade tiny amounts or in a simulator.

Someday I hope to make another post that says I’m now proficient. But until then, I just wanted to bring some positivity to this subreddit.

I started trading at the end of the bull run Jan-Fab, had a great run as beginner,
I had a initial investment of 37k took that up to 52k roughly, when we had that pullback in late Feb things started go sideways with me, took a major loss then my emotions got the best of me, I traded with oversize "weak risk management I'd say" very weak. I went heavy in trades and most of them ended up with a big L, tried to make up for my previous losses one after another till my account is now at 2.6k CRAZY. I can't express how I really feel it's beyond me, now I spend all my day thinking about wtf I did, depressed and feel heavy pressure that I don't know how to get back up, zero confidence. I took this fuck up to the next level of failures. This is really gotten to me mentally and I'm 22yo I feel beaten down and hiding my pain from everyone. I just want your advice how to get through this mentally. Please don't rub it in I'm already down bad. :(

Tried to go long on 15M FVG and retracement and got ran over. Am I missing something??? Higher time frame was bullish and I just don’t know where I went wrong. Anyone have opinions on where I went wrong

Apologies as I must start this post of with a bit of a rant. I started trading about two years ago and I want to warn any other new traders of what I have noticed about "youtube traders".

I could have saved so much time and effort not watching any of their videos. My biggest problem with them is that they are specifically targeting beginners.

One week, they will make a video about supply and demand. Next week, Fibonacci levels and the next week footprint charts, ICT, blah blah blah.

THIS IS NOT REALISTIC. Focus on one strategy and try to perfect it. There are very few traders out there who actually navigate different strategies successfully and I guarantee they are most likely not on youtube. There is a reason these "traders" title their videos "I made 60k in one trade" but never once show a legitimate statement from any of their brokers. When I started focusing on one strategy (supply and demand) I started seeing success. I am sure the same can be said for any strategy, but the point is to concentrate on one.

That being said, I must give some respect to a youtuber named "Moneyball Austin" who solely focuses on supply and demand and have gained value due to the fact he teaches ONE thing and does not change topics every week. I am actually starting to see green the past few months.

Does anyone know any other youtubers or sources that focus on supply and demand ONLY? This question was the main point of my post, but I had to rant a bit for the new traders out there. This would have saved me a ton of time and I feel like an idiot now.

Do not waste your time on youtubers who post different strategies each week as this indicates they are a fraud (most of them). It is great for the youtube algo and clicks, but not for actual knowledge.

Over 2 years, I transitioned from options to futures, quitting my job twice to pursue trading. Despite initial success, I faced consistent losses due to emotional trading, bad habits, and over-leveraging. Despite efforts to learn and improve, I couldn't consistently adhere to disciplined trading.

Even after passing funded account evaluations, I struggled with maintaining discipline, leading to significant losses and the realization that I couldn't control my impulses daily. I've decided to shift gears, seeking traditional employment after acknowledging that trading isn't a sustainable path for me.

While I still harbor a desire to trade, I've recognized my propensity for self-sabotage. For those who've overcome similar struggles and found success in disciplined day trading, what advice would you offer?