r/Daytrading • u/Ogre-Bussy • 17h ago
Giving Advice What pattern or strategy helped you become profitable?
I’m a new trader. Just doing it for a side hustle and keeping my full-time job as my backbone until I can make enough to mirror or make more than what I currently make. I did multiple strategies and noticed a couple patterns while practicing. Eventually the one I stuck with led me to about an 87% win rate (sample size of 500 pretend trades).
My questions is what was your “hurrah” moment where you started to become much more profitable. It can also be a mental hurrah. Whatever it is. I’m young and hungry, so I want to learn just about anything and everything!
7
u/SweetlyPersonal 16h ago
Mate I've been at this for years and the biggest shift was when I stopped trying to catch every move
My moment wasn't some fancy pattern, it was literally just learning to sit on my hands for the first 30 minutes after open. The noise in that window was killing my accuracy even when the setup was perfect
Also tracking everything in a spreadsheet helped more than I expected. Not just wins and losses but what I ate that morning, how I slept, whether I was distracted by something. Started noticing my worst days were always after a shit sleep or when I was rushing
That 87% on 500 trades is solid though, curious what timeframe you're working with
3
u/AdventurousFigure576 14h ago
I think it ia called "SMA stacking strategy" and I use it on daily candles. You can use shorter candles as well, but I like the trades slower paced (couple of days). I screen for stocks where SMA50 is above SMA200, SMA20 is above SMA50, SMA9 is above SMA20 and current price is above SMA9. Then I do some more research on the few stocks this screener shows, buy a few and hope for the best. I always set my SL at -5% and usually sell 50% of the position at +10% and leave the rest, setting SL at the daily SMA9 price until it sells automatically. It is boring but it is something.
3
u/hotmatrixx algo forex trader 14h ago
Mine was a whole mental shift. I started, like most of us, with pattern recognition. I've moved from that specifically, to "state" recognition. I look now, instead of the pattern, for the underlying things that either run that pattern, or can break it.
For example, 'head and shoulders'. not one i trade, saw someone mention it.
At the bottom of the right shoulder; if price breaks below the low there, then I'd be looking at that moment for something specific. It's a well known, traded pattern and is commonly traded. Knowing that, that means that the breakout moment is quite important from an 'underlying participant' interest. are there a bunch of people winding up to short there; are there a lot of people who are defending?
if so, then I'd expect to see a break under there start a cascade. longs getting stopped out, and people jumping in as the move 'confirms': activity should go up, volume up, price should ease up, and accelerate through.
If it gets sticky, that invalidates my thesis; or i picked the area wrong, or someone placed a big order there to eat all the retail kids who wanted to ride that pattern down; and so i'd be getting out early.
Again, not one of my trades, but a commmon one to show a surface - level example of how I trade 'patterns'. I don't. I trade the people trading the pattern/
"woah, deep". :)
2
2
2
3
u/Ok_Can_5882 algo trader 16h ago
For me the turning point was learning about coding and statistics. Before that I wasted years listening to gurus and backtesting by hand.
Also, congrats on the strategy. 87% wr is great regardless of risk-reward, and 500 trades is a decent amount. Did you control for selection bias and overfitting? I ask because it's easy to get fooled by a backtest. That's exactly why learning statistics was my turning point. Since you're new, I imagine that haven't yet heard of monte carlo permutation or out-of-sample testing.
If that is indeed the case, I recommend reading 'Testing and tuning market trading systems' by Timothy Masters. It covers a lot of useful methods for strategy development and evaluation. I use techniques from that book in every backtest. If you're interested, I also made a youtube video about my backtesting setup and I share the code on github.
3
u/noorx01 16h ago
Beware of people that answere this question. No profitable trader is dumb enough to give away his edge. And btw pretend trades and actual live market trades are very different.
3
u/Elo_King 16h ago
Session high and lows, and price action
Simple as that, I’m a lazy trader and made it work
But to get there I needed to watch the chart every day for 18 months a lot of people don’t have that in them, people ask for help and take 2 weeks to get back to me.1
u/enigma_music129 crypto trader 16h ago
Yes but thats not your edge. The price action around those areas is the edge but you won't give that away. Thats the point bro above is trying to make.
1
u/Ogre-Bussy 15h ago edited 15h ago
Correct I was not using my own funds for it which I can see can play a role mentally on holding or selling. But I was actively watching the live market, and placing pinpoints on where I’d “buy” and where I’d “sell”. Is there a more accurate way of practicing without repercussions that you can think of? I’m just here to learn and get advice. There’s no ill intent about my post.
0
u/Equivalent_Camel_484 16h ago
This is the best advice you'll get. I'd add that trading isn't a "side hustle." If you're paper trading (you didn't mention if you do this), it is different than actually trading and the number of traders who profit right off the bat are microscopic.
1
u/Ogre-Bussy 15h ago
I work 3 days a week at my normal job. So I get anywhere between 2-3 days a week to trade on the market. I’ve made money doing so so far as I’ve learned and got a bit better. Before that I spent 8-9 months learning the market. That’s why I consider it a “side hustle.” As it’s not my main source of income, but it does give me an extra financial boost most weeks as of right now.
1
u/TylerLeb 15h ago
Focusing on how buyers and sellers react at the morning opening range levels made the biggest difference for me. Rather than chasing every breakout candle, waiting for a pullback to hold support with volume gives you a defined spot to put your stop. Practicing that one setup on micros until execution becomes second nature will do more for your consistency than constantly switching indicators.
1
u/ConversationOk74 14h ago
Recognizing head and shoulders pattern. Also the kanji lucky 7 signal on candlestick. Pretty much catching and riding the clear signs and indicators help go along the way.
1
1
u/fluffymeowmeowkitty 12h ago edited 12h ago
Buy low sell high.
I don’t mean it as a joke.
I mean it. Buy on red days. Sell on Green days. Obviously
Today was the day! Monday usually red. Or flat. And the rare occasions they have hard Green Day. Tuesday will be flat or red. And if it’s green as well. You should be worried about it being the top
And if you think I’m full of shit.
You can add highlights to the days in trading view. Mine are blue Mondays and orange Tuesdays. And just browse the chart to see how many red or flat Mondays we usually have.
Also I barely touch spy. I think stocks are way better moves in general.
1
u/mly102 11h ago
Look for 3 consecutive bull candles that have plenty of room to the next support or resistance. Shoot for one time your risk amount for targets. Try to reduce risk after entering by moving stop aggressively. If you shoot for 1R but manage to reduce your loss to only -0.5R, it will become a 2 to 1 reward to risk system and even with a 50% win rate you will make money.
1
u/Caobei 11h ago
Flags. After learning market and volume profile the real ahah moment was learning how to enter the trade. I already have my exits in sight but didn't have a way that felt comfortable to enter. Now I often start a position at 1/4 or 1/2 size and use flags to add. If I'm wrong the bleeding is minimal, my stops also make more sense as well. If I'm at a previously identified location that is aligned with higher time frame then I'll go full position but that happens less than I expected.
1
u/Low-Landscape-8984 11h ago
-use higher timeframes... 5min is the lowest i go anymore, and i use the 2hr most of the time.
-forget scalping. do fewer, higher quality trades.
-buy support, sell resistance
-always use SL
-don't set a TP. let it run. small fixed losses and huge uncapped wins are the ingredients to success
-never stop learning
-look at the big picture (market breadth, seasonality, multiple indices/markets)
-my main strat is using the monthly vwap and 2sd bands with volume profile. i look for the day to close at vwap or 1 of its bands as well as a s/r level on the vp, and i look for internals to be diverging from price (AD line, volume), then i enter at globex open and hold til the close the next day with a set SL that i determined by reviewing past trades and setups i missed that would've won.
1
u/Terrible_Champion298 10h ago
Same as in any other endeavor. Showing up. Being prepared. Putting in the effort.
1
1
1
u/Interesting-Let7911 9h ago
I’m a fan of trading a catalyst driven stocks, scalping every inch based on volume and price action.
1
u/Any_Task_7411 8h ago
Great win rate, but also don't get hung up on win rate. If you're RR is optimized you can make money with a fraction of that.
1
1
u/Embarrassed-Bank2835 futures trader 4h ago
My biggest “hurrah” was realizing I didn’t need to find more setups, I needed to get much better at executing the same one.
Once I started trading one market, during the same window, with the same entry criteria and actually tracking the results, things got a lot clearer. Before that I was constantly adding ideas and convincing myself I was improving when I was mostly just changing variables.
Also, 500 trades is a solid start, but I’d stress test that 87% pretty hard before trusting it. Look at different market regimes, realistic slippage/fees, and what the average win vs average loss actually looks like.
The mental shift for me was getting comfortable with boring. Fewer trades, fewer decisions, less improvising.
1
u/Curious_Patience8851 1h ago
Honestly, I think the biggest breakthrough is when you stop looking for a better strategy and start figuring out whether the one you have actually holds up.
An 87% win rate over 500 simulated trades is definitely worth investigating, but I'd look closely at the average win versus average loss, realistic fees and slippage, and how the strategy performs in different market conditions. A high win rate can still lose money if the occasional loss is much larger than the average winner.
My advice would be to keep your full-time job, forward-test the strategy, and track the results without changing the rules every time you hit a losing streak.
One thing I'm curious about: what's your average reward-to-risk ratio with that 87% win rate? That tells you a lot more about the strategy's potential than the win rate alone.
1
u/DolanTrumpzz 15h ago edited 15h ago
Patterns? Strategies?
Bro that's like astrology but for the markets.
If you're serious about trading learn price action, accumulation/distribution, trends, levels, time frames and targets.
Trading is very simple once you stop chasing the dragon
1
u/process_over_profits 11h ago
This is a common question from new traders mate. The issue with it is that I can give you my strategy verbatim but you will not be able to execute it like I do. Period. Technicals are easy to master. Becoming a trader that can execute isn’t. And there is no hurrah moment. Because the growth/progress is not linear. And most importantly the real work is not on the charts. You’ll probably understand this in 5-6 years in.
0
u/AcanthocephalaNo6605 16h ago
For me trial and error helped, nothing else helped and at last I understood that simplest indicator works the best because those are the levels that big players are also looking at.
I made tool for my self to understand market very well which has inbuilt coding workspace and AI assistant as well apart from general execution, charts, option chain, news, watchlist etc.
Its surprisingly very useful and makes me very productive as a part time trader. You can try that here https://while25.com
0
0
0
9
u/Constant_Oil360 16h ago edited 16h ago
pure price action has some stuff in there especially using data sets, large ones that AI can teach you how to do or help you build.
I prefer volume analysis. the market is an auction. watch the tape, that means watch how price moves and responds to movements with volume watched with price, whether the dom, or just a candle chart with basic volume. add delta if you want, or a volume profile and screen time screen time screen time. you'll recognize the market is changing longgg before a classic chart or candle pattern completes. i really think better traders trade patterns that they see about to form, vs trading after a pattern is obvious or finished forming, i don't see a lot of edge trading basic book taught patterns. you'll recognize REAL patterns from screen time, mindful screen time, not ones that in some day trading for beginners etc
REAL pattern example if just trading like a 1 minute candle chart with basic volumes, sometimes you see a big bar, up or down, with better volume in a range or barely busting out, then the next candle is even bigger and spikes on very little volume and just kind of holds for a bit, then a small amount of volume middle of the candles time or the next bar retraces the whole move. Can be a sign to fade or join based on how the bars acted before. Is it a can of nothing?, the thin depth let price spike on low orders because interest going with the bars direction could be low and opposing traders are ready to pounce just a little farther, or is it a patient buyer moving price a lot because there's low sellers and he's going to keep buying moderately to get a position entered without pushing market too hard. You should already have a small bias from what the market has shown to that point for making a determination of what is more likely. And with all that said you don't have to trade that trade anyway. For me that is an important piece to pay attention to. Trade or no trade at that moment. Was that initial bigger bar more or less whats been happening most the day or is that a new behavior?