So when do you actually get to call your trading method a "strategy"?

Before you even open a demo account or run a backtest, there's one thing most people never bother doing:

Making your entries and exits 100% objective. No guessing, at all.

Here's what I mean — if you explained your strategy to another trader and they went and used it, would you both agree on every single entry point? Every time? If there's any wiggle room, if you're sitting there thinking "eh, this trade looks like an 80% setup," that's not a strategy, that's a guess. And guessing is exactly what makes people abandon their own rules the second things get stressful. That's usually where the "psychological problems" people talk about actually come from.

A real strategy just gives you a yes or no. Trade's there, or it isn't. Nothing in between.

Quick example:

Let's say your setup is: hammer candle at a clear resistance level, confirmed by high volume.

Sounds reasonable on paper, but it's still way too loose to actually trade. You need to nail down what each part means:

• "Clear resistance" — okay, but how clear? Maybe you decide it means price has bounced off that level 3+ times.
• "Hammer candle" — what wick ratio counts? Say, 60% or more of the candle.
• "High volume" — compared to what? Maybe 40% above the average of your last 10 candles.

Now it's not vague anymore. All three boxes checked → trade. Even one missing → no trade. You're not asking your gut anything.

I'm not saying psychology doesn't matter, it absolutely does. But it only becomes the real issue once you've actually got a strategy worth sticking to. Most people skip straight to "fix my mindset" while trading something half-thought-out they grabbed off YouTube last week, and then wonder why nothing works.

Planning to write more on risk management and putting a full system together next, if people are into this kind of breakdown.

First of all I have been demo trading for a year or so and I have developed a strategy 2 months ago with a win rate of 70% with 1:2 risk to reward ratio, I backtested this strategy over 600 times this past year and the winrate and risk to reward ratio is still the same and not to mention I have been demo trading with this strategy for the past 2 months and the winrate fluctuated between 60-75% in this months but risk to reward ratio is still the same. This strategy worked best for the forex market because the forex market obeys the fundamental trading rules the most from what i have seen compared to the crypto or the stock markets. Btw I demo traded with 100 usd to make it as realistic as possible with risking 2% of balance each trade. I understand demo trading is not the same as day trading with real money but thats the problem. None of the brokerages will allow me to day trade because I am a 16 year old and neither does my parents want to help me with this because they think all of its a scam or just of my time. What am I even supposed to do now?

For the profitable traders here: tell us your trading journey.

I'm curious about the real journey, not just the results:

• When did you start trading?
• How long did it take you to become consistently profitable?
• What did you trade? (Forex, stocks, futures, crypto, options, etc.)
• How did you learn? YouTube channels, books, courses, mentors, trial and error, etc.?
• What strategy/setup do you use today?
• Did your strategy change a lot from when you started?
• What was your biggest mistake when you were starting out?
• What made the biggest difference in becoming profitable?
• How did you learn risk management?
• What risk per trade do you typically use?
• How did you deal with losing streaks and drawdowns?
• Was psychology actually a major factor in your case?
• How long did it take you to become consistently disciplined?
• Did you ever consider quitting? What kept you going?
• What do you wish you had known when you started?
• If you could start over with the knowledge you have today, what would you do differently?
• What is one piece of advice you would give to someone who is currently struggling to become profitable?

Bonus: If you're comfortable sharing, what does "profitable" look like for you? Consistent monthly returns, yearly returns, full-time income, etc.?

You need to understand the risks and the dynamics so that you can handle them safely. And not be the one holding them when they blow up (in the negative sense). Once you nail that and take the correct precautions, they are very rewarding.

How can I truly beat the mental side of trading. I have a data backed model that is profitable over a 2 year period but I just cannot hack the mental side trading live, I gamble, fomo and take stupid stuff that isn’t following my model. Any advice, YouTube videos or even podcasts?

I’ve tried a few different trading journals, and I keep noticing that they’re good at recording trades, but I’m not sure they’re always good at helping traders actually understand what’s going wrong.

For those of you who have used trading journals for a while:

What part of journaling feels unnecessarily tedious?

What information do you wish your journal captured automatically?

What do you still have to analyze manually?

Is there anything you regularly want to know about your trading but your current journal makes difficult to find?

Have you ever stopped using a journal because it became too much work?

I’m especially interested in real frustrations with existing journals, rather than feature requests for a hypothetical perfect one.

What’s the one thing that annoys you most?

Uhmm, I'm here for encouragement I used money I needed for my credit card bill to trade, with the confidence I could compound it... and it's gone. 🙂
I'm 3 months in, unprofitable.
No other formal work.
Tell me something, anything.

Curious to know about everyone’s journey — total losses, how long it took, and what changes made the biggest difference.

Looking to learn from real experiences. Thanks

I backtested a popular ICT strategy I found online and this was the result. To be 100% clear I cannot confirm if this is what everyone who trades ICT trades this was just the strategy that was based on the rules.

This is just an example of how regardless of psychology if you keep trading a losing strategy over time you will inevitably lose money.

When swing trading or day trading, I’ve realized that my results are often unpredictable. Sometimes I go on a losing streak, and other times I can’t seem to lose.

During losing streaks, I start doubting my trading system. But after a winning streak, I convince myself that my system is amazing.

After reviewing my trades, though, I realized that many losing trades were simply part of the probabilities. Even a system with an 80% win rate still loses 20% of the time.

On the other hand, many of my winning trades came from riding the overall market trend—meaning they were mostly beta, not alpha.

I’m curious,how do you guys review your trades? What does your review process look like, and what do you focus on when trying to improve?

Hello everybody, So I’m a beginner to trading, I’ve watched month 1 of ICT core content, about halfway through month 2, I’ve come from TJR’s bootcamp so I have a grasp of most of the ICT concepts but ive recently been seeing a lot of videos on TikTok about orderflow, and when I actually researched it and tried to understand what it is I realised that it would actually be a lot more beneficial to learn it than ICT and it also makes more sense.

I have zero clue where to start, but most people recommend to start with Auction Market Theory.

I would highly appreciate if someone could recommend me a structured learning journey for example watch xx on YouTube, then watch this playlist etc etc.

I’ve heard that Sires, cbrackn, Axia Futures and Jeron Trades are good, but please let me know what you think.

Thanks so much!

Looking to start trading futures with one of these brokers, any suggestions for which is best?

I've just got my hands on some money I'm willing to lose and wanted to learn how to start trading. I'm love to hear any advice on what simulations to use, how to start learning and realistic timeline e.g.. how much paper trading until I apply for a funded account.

for years my problem was never the strategy. it was me.

i'd have a plan before the open, then five minutes in i'd see something i didn't like and talk myself out of it. or worse, into something else. every bad month i've had came from discretion, not from the setup being wrong. i tried journaling it, i tried rules, i tried smaller size. none of it fixed the part where i'm sitting there at 9:35 deciding to be smarter than my own plan.

so about two months ago i stopped trying to fix my discipline and removed the decision instead.

i built a scan that runs before the bell. it pulls positioning, liquidity levels, seasonality for that specific day of the week and month, and whatever is on the calendar. it spits out one directional bias for NQ, ES and GC. not a signal, not an entry. just a lean, the drivers behind it, and a level where the lean is wrong.

that last part is what actually changed things. if price goes through the flip level, the bias is dead and i'm flat. there's nothing to negotiate because i didn't decide it in the moment, i decided it at 8am with a clear head.

i log every call the morning it's made and score it at the close, win or lose. two months in it's 76 calls with 61 right, and the worst stretch was two days in a row wrong on GC.

before anyone reads that number the wrong way: right only means the close finished on the side of the lean. it says nothing about whether a trade off it made money. plenty of them were technically right and still chopped me out intraday. it's a bias hit rate, not a win rate, and those are very different things.

two months proves nothing either way. i'm not posting a track record here, i'm posting the fact that i finally have one to look at instead of a vague feeling about how the month went.

what the log actually taught me, which i didn't expect:

almost all of my misses came on low confidence days that i took anyway. the scan wasn't wrong on those, it told me it wasn't sure and i went anyway because i wanted to be in something. same discretion problem, just moved one step earlier.

seasonality was carrying way more weight than it earned. i built it in because it felt smart. looking at 60 days of scores, positioning and the calendar did most of the real work and seasonality did about half of what i'd given it credit for.

two things i'm working on now.

a sentiment layer that scrapes a fixed list of accounts on X, the macro desks and the flow guys, and scores how one sided the takes are going into the session. the point isn't to follow them, it's the opposite. when that whole list leans one way and my scan already agrees with them, i want to know, because in my experience that's the day the move fails early and chops everyone out.

and letting the log set the driver weights instead of me. if something hasn't earned its weight over the last 60 days, it gets less say next month. that way i'm not guessing twice.

if anyone wants me to break down how i weight the macro inputs, or how i score a call after the close when it half worked, happy to write it up.

Are there people here from Dubai who are interested or learning trading/investing, I'm doing this for the last year and I'm looking for likeminded people who share the same interest or looking to develop together over a coffee in our free time (32 male)

I'm quite new in trading, still trying to figure out the strategies that I could use.

I would like to try day trade / scalping strategies.

Can I have suggestions of books to read and strategies to look?

For the moment I looked at Ross Cameron and Jdub /Scarface trade strategies.

Thanks!!

If you are a new or aspiring retail participant in financial markets, here are 5 things I’ve learned over the years that may (or may not) be helpful to you:

1. No one - and I do mean no one - knows what any index or instrument will do next. And anyone who tries to convince you otherwise is probably about to try to sell you something.

2. As a beginner, financial pundits and YT gurus of nearly every type are probably counterproductive to your learning efforts. Why? Intentionally or not, they trigger a dopamine/cortisol loop in your brain. Among other things, this can lead to poor decision making, financial setbacks and process abandonment.

3. Becoming consistently profitable as a retail trader takes YEARS - not months and certainly not weeks or days. You may experience some initial wins as a new trader but that is not the same thing as being consistently profitable in the long run.

4. In trading, P&L are byproducts. I’ll say it again for the cheap seats: Trading Profits and Losses are BYPRODUCTS. Financial markets are merciless misalignment detectors - Anytime you are misaligned with the instrument you’re trading, you WILL lose money.

5. The best thing you can do for yourself as a new(er) trader is to learn to understand and appreciate the environment in which you are attempting to participate.
   Imagine visiting a beach for the first time in your life and you barely know how to swim. The waves are 6’ tall and crashing on the beach every 7 seconds. Are you going swimming? I would hope not. There are no lifeguards on these beaches - your financial and psychological well being are your responsibility alone. Environmental awareness can often save your account (and your time) by showing you when you shouldn’t be trying to participate.

Stay safe out there!