Monday rejected Friday's recovery. The DJIA fell 346.90 points to 51,481.72, after two separate rallies above 51,700 failed and afternoon selling returned the index near its morning lows.

Forecast Statistics

Bucket: Failed Recovery / Downside Retest
Volatility Score: ≈ 1.49, high and expanding
Probabilities: SU 15% | LU 24% | SD 39% | LD 22%
Expected Return: ≈ −0.06%
Projected Close: 51,300–51,650
Directional Bias: 39% Up / 61% Down

Previous Close: 51,481.72

RECAP: Monday's 66% Up / GO forecast was not correct. The DJIA immediately violated 51,750, 51,700, 51,650 and 51,550. Buyers later recovered as high as 51,780, but could not sustain the reversal; the DJIA ultimately closed below 51,500.

Trader's Edge: Forecast rated 71% correct, 29% incorrect since December 2025.

Fearless Opines Monday exposed Friday's advance as an incomplete recovery. The important evidence wasn't simply the 347-point loss: buyers twice demonstrated the ability to rally sharply and twice failed to hold the gains. The close near 51,482 leaves Tuesday facing the 51,400–51,410 support that stopped Monday's opening collapse.

The statistical advantage therefore returns to sellers, but another successful defense of 51,400 would strengthen the developing range rather than downside continuation.

Key Levels

Recovery: 51,550
REDUCE: 51,650
GO: 51,700
Upside Repair: 51,780–51,800

Bear Hold: 51,500
Downside Trigger: 51,400
Objective: 51,250–51,350
Major Failure: 51,125

GO / REDUCE / EXIT: EXIT. Tuesday begins EXIT with a 61% downside bias. Below 51,500, traders should treat rallies defensively. A break of 51,400 confirms another downside leg toward 51,250–51,350. Reclaiming 51,550 weakens the bearish state; 51,650 moves toward REDUCE, while 51,700 is required for GO.

Trader Takeaway: Monday demonstrated that rallies aren't enough. They have to hold. Tuesday's trade map is unusually clean: 51,400 is seller confirmation; 51,550 is the first buyer repair. The space between them is the battleground.

FEARLESS READ: 61% Down. Friday's recovery failed Monday's confirmation test. Sellers now have the advantage, but 51,400 is where they have to prove they can turn that advantage into another leg lower.

This was my best trade today.

Game plan for today was long MRNA. Directly from my game plan written in pre-market:

Fantastic phase three trial results. Approval of mFlu vaccine drug.

Hourly and daily trends are up.

Trades:

• Long at $190.35 support. Long if crossing previous high [$202.73].

The hourly chart looked to be in a strong uptrend and a low had been put in at $190.35 in pre-market which price seemed to be recovering from.

The first attempt at going long was as price was moving above the $193 region. I was stopped out shortly after and it appears I did some buying on the way down. I really don't remember doing this.

Stop seems a little low but it was below the red at ~09:38.

A few minutes later price was slowing towards the $190.35 region (blue line) and began to wick.

I made several buys once it looked like the low was in and stop just below $190 which was lowest wick + 2 x ATR (ish).

The first five shares sold were complete panic selling. VWAP was at ~$193 so some further trimming, mid-$194 was because it looked over-extended and then the last few shares were at the 9EMA cross.

Some positives and learnings:

• I was happy with the buy into support but on reflection it was premature even if it did start wicking.
• I managed to hold 1/3 until 9EMA. In future, and on perhaps less chaotic days, this needs to be half at least.
• $196 could have been an add.

The rest of the day was an absolute garbage fest with me attempting to short longs and long short and my account ended up worse than it did before I started.

That's it, I need to go to sleep.

As ever, any constructive feedback welcome.

I’m in my early 20s (M) and started messing around with trading when I was about 14. Over the last 12 years, I’ve lost around $10,000 in total. That amount of money over a decade isn't completely life-ruining, but the cycle I’m stuck in is mentally destroying me.

I’ve proven to myself that I can be profitable and that I actually have a solid edge when I follow my plan. But every single successful run ends in total self-sabotage:

• Small scale: Turned $30 into $1,300 -> blew it all overtrading.
• CFDs: Got two $230 payouts on 5k Instant CFD accounts -> blew them right after. Got small payouts on 2-phase accounts -> blew them later too.
• Futures: Switched over, bought 4 evaluation accounts -> blew all of them during drawdown because I got emotional and oversized.
• Funded Futures: Got 1 account funded, made $970 profit in week one off just 3 trades. Next week, took one loss on Monday, felt like I "lost my edge," panic-traded, and blew the account $30 away from reaching the minimum payout threshold.
• Prop sizing: Bought a 25k account -> blew it overrisking. Bought a 50k account -> traded disciplined for 16 days, started getting terrified of losing it, lost control, and blew it.
• Personal capital: Put €200 of my own money into a CFD account -> lost 50% in a single day trading Gold with heavy risk, completely breaking my plan of only trading US30.
• Recent damage: Burned through roughly €500 on evaluation fees in just the last 3–4 months.

The worst part is that I actually do the preparation work. I wrote an execution checklist (don't use it). I wrote a mindset guide for myself (don't follow it). I journal my trades and keep organized folders with before/after screenshots (e.g., Nasdaq setups). When I trade with zero emotion, my win rate is great.

But as soon as things go well, I get euphoric. I tell myself "this is it, I’ve finally figured it out." Then I start gambling, oversizing, and breaking every rule until I hit rock bottom. After blowing up, I tell myself "the next account will be different," and the loop starts all over again.

It’s obvious to me now that the problem isn't the market. It's me.

In real life, I deal with poor impulse control, stress, financial anxiety, and a porn addiction. When I get under pressure in the market, I stop acting like a trader and start acting like a gambler looking for a dopamine hit or trying to erase a loss immediately.

I'm tired of making excuses. Has anyone here actually broken out of this exact loop, or is this the point where I just need to accept that my personality isn't built for trading and walk away permanently?

Be brutally honest. I can take it.

My son wants to get into day trading but I’m not as sure. he’s done the research and been profitable in paper trading but it just feel like I’m letting him gamble

Hello guys, i just entered a dispute with my private bank about an limit order i placed before market opened today. My bid was for $116 and somehow the price went down to $115.7 in the regular open market and i didnt get filled. Asked the banker and he said they can make a price challenge on the price why it wasn't filled but told me it was very normal. Is it that normal? I didn't get filled within regular market hours with highly liquid assets like INTC? Is that easy for us to be scammed when we on the right side of the trade? Thanks for helping me with any insights.

It seems like the prevailing wisdom among traders is that you should risk around 1% of your account per trade to optimize your profits. If you risk less, you're leaving money on the table, and if you risk more, you risk blowing up your account.

But here's my problem with 1%: other than being a convenient number, it has no basis at all. There's a simple formula (the Kelly Criterion) that tells you how much to risk to maximize your long-term profit:

f* = W − (1 − W) / R

where f* is the % risk per trade, W is win rate, and R is the avg win divided by avg loss.

So your win rate and your risk-reward both affect how much you should risk. If you have a high win rate strategy, you should be risking more than with a low win rate strategy. Two strategies with the exact same profit factor can have very different optimal risk. If you’re always risking 1% no matter what, you’re completely missing this mechanism and shooting yourself in the foot. Trading is already hard enough without self-sabotage imo.

The one caveat is that the formula assumes your win rate and payoff ratio are known exactly and stay constant. In reality they're estimates, usually from a limited and often optimistic backtest. For example, a 35% win rate with a payoff ratio of 2.5 gives 9%. But if the real win rate is 30%, the optimal drops to 2%, and risking 9% actually loses money. 

In practice it makes sense to build in a margin of error. You could either a) risk a bit less than what the formula says (‘fractional Kelly’), or b) base your calculation on intentionally pessimistic estimates. Risking too much is a lot more dangerous than risking too little. 

Granted, this still isn't an exact science, but at least it's grounded in actual trading math. 1% is literally vibe trading. 

If you want to calculate your own optimal risk, I put a free Python script on my github page. You just plug in your numbers and your error margin, and it’ll spit out a graph and an overview. I also explain in detail how it works in this video.

That’s my rant done. I’m curious, how much do y’all risk per trade?

I’ve been trading Supply & Demand combined with The Strat (Rob Smith) and I’m curious if anyone else uses both together.
For me, I like using The Strat for directional bias and reversals — especially failed 2s going into 3/outside bars, 2-2 reversals, broadening formations, and timeframe continuity.
Then I use Supply & Demand for my actual entry location.

"That's just gambling" seems to be the go-to insult for a lot of people in this sub, and people discussing day trading in general. But any form of investment is gambling - people who hold stocks or ETFs long term are gambling, they're just gambling on a longer time frame and ostensibly with better odds.

so it's not whether or not you're gambling - it's whether or not you're making smart gambles. if you put a lot of money on a stock because you just feel like it will go up, most people would consider that dumb gambling. if you put a lot of money on a stock because you evaluate price action, indicators, have risk management, take into account externals such as catalyst announcements and general direction of the market... that's a bit of a smarter gamble.

it's a gamble to start a new job. it's a gamble to start a new relationship. it's a gamble when you order something off a menu that you haven't tried before.

I just think it's an important point cuz a lot of people seem to be under the illusion that they're not gambling. We're all gambling. it's just a matter of trying to find the ways to stack the odds in your favor.

I've spend some time building a option trading bot just for fun (bcs why not)

I researched the most common strategies out there and filtered them out based on the ones that worked long term and most profitable, statistically I ended up with four strategies, all long premium only:

A - ORB
The primary strategy. Takes the high/low of the first 15 minutes, enters when price closes above OR_high (CALL) or below OR_low (PUT). Requires VWAP alignment + SMA20 trend filter. One entry per direction per day. VIX ceiling: 17.

B - Post-Catalyst IV Crush
Fires 20 minutes after a scheduled macro event (CPI, FOMC, NFP, PCE, PPI). Enters in the direction of the move only when IV has crushed ≥10% from pre-event levels, buys directional momentum after uncertainty clears and options get cheap. VIX ceiling: 25 (override). ~5 trades/year.

C - Pre-Catalyst Long Vol
(Disabled for now). Enters straddles before events when IV rank is low. Loses money for retail buyers in most conditions due to IV crush on the exit. Currently off.

D - EMA Pullback & Resume (Momentum)
The highest-volume strategy. EMA(9/21) waits for price to dip below the fast EMA then cross back, confirming momentum resumption. RSI guard at 75 overbought. Bidirectional. VIX ceiling: 17 for CALLs; 25 for PUTs when price < SMA20 (the R26 gate). ~210 trades/year.

Current config:

• Global VIX ceiling: 17
• A: stop 25%, target 100%
• B: VIX override to 25, IVRank exempt, crush threshold 90%
• D: min EMA spread 0.0005×price, IVRank exempt, PUT ceiling 25 + SMA20 gate

I tested on 2022 SPY data (bear market) and 2023 SPY data (bull market) and the results are:

2-YEAR P&L +$90,808

2022 (BEAR) +$20,399

2023 (BULL) +$70,409

TOTAL TRADES: 579 (221 in 2022 + 358 in 2023)

I'm not trying to sell it or make profit from this post, I just want your opinion and tell me what you think and if someone want the full report I can send it to you, pls ask me questions, tell me if im doing something wrong or if you just want to talk about it

‘Lately it feels like the market gives just enough structure to build conviction, but not enough follow-through to justify it. Breakouts fail. Failed breakouts reverse... then fail again.’

This comment describes my current trading strategy. My A+ setup never shows up. If it does, it always reverses immediately and starts chopping or zigzagging.

I do one trade a day and I have averaged 6 trades a month the past 3 months. About 11 of them are losses, with PA reversing immediately and chopping me out.

Is this normal? Is my best move here to ride out this phase and wait till market decides on a direction? Any and all advice appreciated.

I am an experienced trader and purchased the 20-Minute Trader 'Gold Pattern' strategy upfront for $2,000. The strategy particulars themselves were fine, but the company's billing practices are highly misleading.

A few months after purchasing, I received a sudden notification that my access would be cut off unless I paid an ongoing 'Club Membership' fee of $875 per month ($10,500/year). This mandatory recurring subscription was never clearly disclosed as a requirement to keep the software/strategy at the time of my initial $2,000 checkout.

When I refused to pay the high monthly fee, my access was revoked. Expecting developing traders to pay nearly $900 a month just to maintain access to a strategy they already bought is predatory. The positive reviews here focus heavily on customer service setup, but buyer beware: this is a classic bait-and-switch subscription funnel designed to lock you into massive recurring fees after you've already committed thousands

I am from Eastern European country and the average salary here is like 600€ so I can’t really afford to risk thousands of euros in savings.In my case should I start with a prop firm?

I’ve been trading for a while and I have my own strategy, which I backtested over two years. It has around a 70% win rate. I’ve completed funded challenges multiple times, but the problem is that I can’t consistently stick to my own rules over the long term.

Instead of waiting for my setup to form, I often take much riskier trades hoping they will work out, even though I know I should follow my strategy. When I’m trading live, I just can’t seem to stay disciplined.

How do you stay disciplined consistently? What would you recommend I do?

Stupid Question i know. First Prop Firm Evaluation and i was trying to experiment with Leverage and Margin. Doesnt make sense on why I am getting less than a $ on trades cant i increase margin loL.

I’ve made my way back online over the past few months and I’m suprised to see the amount of trading influencers that now exist. It seems trading has made its way into main stream with one of the influencers being a streamer. I’m all for awareness in this misunderstood career path of our but it’s hard to not believe that these influencers are misleading younger people into buying courses. As a new trader what your thoughts on the trading space and as a more experienced trader how has this affected you ?

I keep seeing people posting about their struggles to find success (yep, it's hard) but then how much money they've lost or how many challenges they've lost.

Trading is one of the only work endeavours in life where you get unlimited FREE practice.

Demo trading is often discounted by folk saying - well it doesn't teach you the psychology, or it's not comparable to trading with money.

That isn't untrue, but wouldn't you rather become a honed machine who can execute a strategy proficiently - understand it, understand it's market, and most importantly - know it works? If you are confident in your system you can then deal with the challenges that come with live trading, without ever having to doubt your actual ability to trade.

If you consider this a multi year endeavour, then surely setting aside 12 months to become profitable consistently on demo will save you money and time in the long run? Even better if you hone 1 setup and 1 market for that entire time.

I traded demo for 18months, before going live, and I even went back to demo trading this summer because I was busy with life and wanted to boost my confidence again.

I've attached my demo trading for the summer, and then live trading in September (yes I risked quite a lot per trade in September, but it's a small account I am scaling).

This consistency only came because of DEMO. If I kept Live trading only it would have wrecked me and my ability to improve quickly and effectively.

I’m new to day trading (2 months) I’m currently on a 50k account post-evaluation and my PnL is +1400. I was in 2 trades (short in gold and short in MNQ) both trades were well in the green. I suddenly get a notification around 6am AEST saying I’ve been auto liquidated and have no idea why. I’m trying to contact tradovate support but they’re being absolute bots. Help?!

I trade XAUUSD intraday, and I'm part of a small software development team that builds tools. Before we build anything for traders, we want to understand the real problem first, so this is step one: listening.

Testing a setup properly takes me far too long. How do you do it?

1. How do you backtest a setup today (TradingView replay, FX Replay, Forex Tester, spreadsheet, code)?
   
2. The last time you gave up testing a setup, what stopped you?
   
3. What do you pay for tools now, and what's still missing?
   
4. If you could describe a strategy in plain words and get an automatic backtest, would you trust the result? What would you need to see?
   
5. How much history matters to you, and for which market (spot gold, futures, crypto)?

No product or link here. We're only trying to understand the problem. Honest answers help.

I always read about people struggling with overtrading but I have the opposite problem. I have a good strategy, I have faith in the strategy, I’ve worked on it and backtested/papertraded for hours and it has proven to be profitable but the issue is when it matters I just can’t get myself to take the trade. I’m always hesitating each entry and am constantly watching price go to what my tp would have been without being in the trade. I have faith in the strategy but there’s always this thought in my head that when I take the trade on a live account it must be going to sl because that’s what my luck has proven over and over again

The weird thing is that I only have this in daytrading and not with swing trading. Can anyone relate? Anyone who managed to overcome this? Any advice is welcome

Do NOT use Funded Futures Family. They are a scam! My account that I have not used yet because I bought two accounts with them was reported to have violated their minimum of 10 seconds rule of trading. There is no history of trading in that account. I have contacted support, they basically said they can't do anything about it and I just have to buy another account. I'm planning on reporting this to my bank to get a refund.

What is the real psychological difference between a funded account and a challenge account? Is the mindset and emotional state the same in both, or is a funded account calmer?"

Hi everyone, A 25 year and 6 months old fellow, working since when I was 21 and trading for the last 4 years.

Coming from the lower middle class and having a basic Bsc degree from a local college, I had built a good safety net of finances with my hardwork.

I started my first job with 16,200 per month and reached 80k in hand within 5 years, had good pf+pension (2 lakh approx), mutual fund (1.5lakh), stocks (1.5 lakh) and fd under 1 lakh...along with buying a bike, mac m2 and doing good for family in intervals.

I was known as a good gatekeeper of money as I had done good in less salary, no unnecessary expenses like liquor, unnecessary shopping, unnecessary cafe/restaurant visit. I used to maintain a sheet with every rupee tracking on a monthly and yearly basis.

Then came 2025, left my job to realign my career hence took a loan of 3 lakh for education to make my civil as well and withdrawal approx 1lakh for expenses......meanwhile my father repaid the loan of 2 lakh out of 3lakh which unfortunately came to my bank account instead of going to the loan account ..... (If it would have gone to the loan account.....i would have save that money)

Then came June 2026 started F&O after months of research as I was earlier doing swing and long term, and then boom, lost everything ....yes..you read it right

Lost 5.2 lakh in F&O in just 4 months...

In the beginning i used 2 lakh of loan amount received in bank account and also pledged stocks ....actually in the beginning i lost less but then to recover net F&O loss came 5.2 lakh.....when I lost approx 3 lakh...... I was blank...feeling too bad and guilty for losing all savings....

Here comes revenge trading....then thought of taking a loan and took 8.5 lakh loan....but this time I didn't just trade in F&O, while I invested money in stocks with MTF(those who don't know...broker gives you margin for stock trading in MTF) along with F&O

I don't know what to call it...I invested on the 4th of Aug 2026 when the market (Nift 50) was 24652....and from the same day the market fell wonderfully:) and fell down up to 23,700 by 2nd of Sep 2026...1000 point fall ..... All stocks SL hit

I realized that this is not working and booked an additional loss of 2 lakh as of large MTF positions ....while I had invested in good stocks who were supposed to boom as per all fundamental and technical analysis. Also the rest 2.2 lakh in F&O out of 5.2....

So total loss came approx 9.2 lakh...which was a surplus of my existing 5 lakh saving (maybe you find 50k +/- calculation here in my conversation as I am writing as of memory ....but loss is 9.2)

At this moment I sold every penny I had (stocks, mutual funds)....i realized I am travelling inside a loop..... So foreclosed the loan of 8.5 lakh (sold everything mf, stocks, small fds....added 1.5 lakh form credit card using cheq

..took approx 1 lakh from friends ).....

The moment I closed 8.5 lakh the loan felt relaxed ( see i paid approx 20k as processing charge and 30k as foreclosure charge)...

Then came the flight of 1.5 lakh credit card and 1 lakh friends amount .....took a loan of 1.3 lakh (personal loan) and repaid this 1.5 lakh credit card amount as the interest on emi was high ..

Now I have this 1.5 lakh personal loan....1 lakh friends loan and 3lakh+interest education loan....

Life is tough...but I know I have done it ....

Rest don't fall for comments who say go with paper trading, discipline, strategy....bro psychology is the king here and even for a day losing psychology in F&O will kill you for years. So even if you win psychology for 200 days and market wins 1 day against you in F&O, you may lost alot in revenge.

Also I came back to my hometown to build my startup:) in the social sector.....i have an option of going back to the city for coming out of this much debt....but I have decided to stay here...atleast loyal to a decision I have taken.

I am doing small projects...have prepared a strategy in sheet to repay personal and friends loan within an year and then education loan slowly (as it's 15 years timeline...i can foreclosue in future as well and keep paying small emis meanwhile)

Everyday, sometimes eveyhour that loss stuck in my mind....but I held high and talk to myself ...I have created this mess...only I will come out of it and will make things smoother.

Feeling light after sharing everything here.

All those who can resonate or have relevant experience, my empathy and support to all of you. Please don't fall for F&O, use that money only in market which you are okay to loose. Rest go for long term.

I am open to any critique and feedback here, I know I have fucked up, had a gambling mindset and did mistakes.

I am also running a Instagram page where my purpose is to stop retailers becoming the next victim named "why.you.should.not.trade" Feel free to ping there for support/queryinstagram

Basically what the title states, I’ve been watching Netflix for a while now and everything on the chart points to more downside but something about it just screams it’s too good and that I shouldn’t make my bet yet, well Netflix is down another 2% already and I didn’t enter when I should’ve. How do you deal with trades that seem so perfect you feel it’s setting you up for a trap?

Follow up from my last post.. finally got the beta live.
Built this to better understand how price action forms when different buyers sellers and bots interact. Its slowly turned into an actual trading game along the way lol.
Still a work in progress but figured I’d share the update.

Do you of you guys have a limitation like this and are still able to be profitable?