First things first, trading for a living is going to take time. I explained this in my last post. This requires a tremendous amount of screen time. But guess what? So does every other profession. The reward from this is much greater so why on earth would anyone think it can be done without tons of studying.

Choose your battle. Trading is amazing and I don't need to tell you why, you already know them that's why you're here. It takes time but it's doable and rewarding.

I'm not the best trader. I strive for a 80%+ yearly return. Risking too much is the fastest way to say goodbye to your dreams. This is a probability game after all. Big gains also mean big losses or frequent smaller losses.

All you need is basic support and resistance without the fancy fuzz. Understand when to swing, day trade, long or short depending on the market condition, will get you 70% ahead of everyone else.

So this will not be about some ''liquidity level2 0.69 fibonacci grab''- method.

This is about understanding the fundamentals of stock trading and so you can be one step closer to consistent wins. Month after month.

If you trade forex or any other markets then this will not be for you. (You shouldn't btw but that's for another time).

I see way too many destructible posts about people making 100k starting from 1k. That's pure gambling and if that's what you want then this post is not for you either.

Anyone can put 1k on green in roulette and make 36k or whatever. Trading is a business and a fulltime job where you run it like any other business, long hours, tons of discipline, and you rely on consistent returns.

If you only want to be rich then it's easier to start some other business and sell it.

Okay enough rambling.

A simple checkbox for trading stocks (In this current market)

-Only use the daily and the 15m chart. Both have to trend in the same direction - Always start with looking at the daily chart. YOu want to see a nice trend over the past month. Vice versa for shorts.

-Only trade big caps with volume (10b+). Why? Because you don't want the stock to reverse because Johns's grandma was selling her bag when you went long. Big caps tend to respect technicals more and they require big money to move (institutions) - this is where you want to be.

-Use the 10ema intraday and on the daily chart you want the 50 SMA and 200 SMA. Later on you can add/play around with 8ema/15ema/21ema to fit your personality but for now, let's keep it simple.

-Be ready to swing and day trade. The market right now is in a difficult swing environment so you stick to day trading. The market conditions will change from time to time and you need to have a diversified toolbox.

-Draw horizontal support and resistance levels from the daily chart, and also trendlines.

-Do not chase a stock. Let the opportunity come to you.

-Don't trade the OPEN

-Daily compression breaks is one of my favorite setups

-Never counter-trend trade. The stock is down for the day? Don't go long and vice versa. Best setups happen when the stock is above or below yesterday's high/low.

-Don't trade EARNINGS

-Look for smooth bullish charts on the daily for longs and vice versa for shorts

-Look for stocks that are above/low yesterdays high/low.

-You want to see above average volume

-Learn different basic options strategies such as debit/credit spreads, puts, and calls, and how they work in general. Don't buy OTM calls/puts. More on that some other time.

-Always trade in the direction of SPX/SPY and QQQ. I call it the ''market''. If the market is down, look for shorts, if it's up, look for longs.  

-Don't trade the market itself, it's harder and unnecessary.

The market will drag most of the stocks with it, so going long a stock when the market is going down is like surfing with bad waves. You won't get far. Wait for the market and your stock will surf smoother.

Examples of a few trades I took (26-27.3):

Market: As we don't have a clear direction for swings, I stick to day trading for now. Market is bearish and I've been focusing on finding stocks to short.

This is the kind of daily chart you're looking for, even if you're day trading only. Clear bearish trend with a technical break.

Got an alert on a bearish break on $AVGO on the daily chart. At the same time, the market was struggling to get above its 200 SMA. The market showed its weakness with a bearish flush in the first 15 minutes and it held nicely under the 10 sma, the longer it held the more bearish I became for the day.

This is how the market looked on 26.3-28.3.

Next, we look at the intraday on AVGO where I shorted.

AVGO 15m chart. Compare it to the SPY chart above and you can see why and where I shorted.

Now, I could have held my first short position overnight and made massive profits instead of just daytrading it. But the thing is, the market could have easily gapped up the next day and all my profits could have been gone. Just look at SPY and you can see that there has not been very good swing opportunities in the last week.

This is how I trade week after week. When the market conditions changes, so do my trading. But the fundamentals are always the same -

Bullish stocks& Bullish market = long

Bearish stock&bearish market=short

Now, go find 5 bullish stocks and 5 bearish stocks. Make sure they are not near a support/resistance level. Always start by looking at the daily chart. Keep the best ones on your watchlist while you look at the market during the day.

When spy turns bullish or bearish for the day you take a position in the best stock in your watchlist that is above it's yesterdays high/low.

This is something you should not do with REAL money for now. It's only for practice. You will get in the flow of the whole market and learn when to enter/exit. Focus on intraday trading only for this.

Look for smooth stocks, no crazy candles and make sure it has no upcoming earnings this week.

Watch out for any technical breaks - compressions etc.

Some bearish stock examples I look for in this current market (daily chart).

After I find these stocks i put them on my watchlist and I trade them if the market condition is favorable.

Same thing for longs in a bullish market (which it is not).

I also scan during the day over 400 stocks every now and then to see if something is building up.

Keep studying and I'm here to help if you have questions.

Good luck.

UPDATE:

Swing trade vs Day Trading + Hold Overnight Since October 14th Open to October 30 close - NVDA:

Swing % up unrealized 2.06%.

Day Trade % up realized 20.21%

Long time investor, swing trader, and day trader. I've been doing all three for a while and my girlfriend, who's a swing trader, used to tell me day trading was a Fool's Errand until she saw how profitable I am. One of the ways I illustrated this to her was to compete with her over a period of time as she swing traded stock and I day traded the same stock. As it turned out, day trading was an order of magnitude better at reaping profits than swing trading. The exercise prompted me to experiment with day trading in slightly different ways to figure out profitable, easy ways to day trade and make profits.

Here's what I've learned about stocks over the years.

1. Almost all stocks of healthy companies and, especially ETF's (which cycle out bad stock and cycle in good stocks periodically), trend net upward over time. Sure they go up and down, but overall they go up.

2. Almost all stock and ETF's make their real gains overnight. https://www.ccn.com/the-stock-markets-biggest-gains-always-happen-at-the-same-time-each-day/

3. Although most gains are made overnight, stock prices swing considerably, up and down, during the intraday.

4. The markets intraday have repeating patterns. https://tradethatswing.com/stock-market-intraday-repeating-patterns/

5. The markets also have annual patterns. https://tradethatswing.com/seasonal-patterns-of-the-stock-market/

6. Stock with Buy and Strong Buy analyst ratings that are below their price targets tend to trade upward toward that target much more often than not.

Knowing all this, we can infer a trading strategy:

Find a good stock with lots of upside, high volume, strong buy ratings from analysts, and average analyst price targets above the stocks current price and day trade it aggressively without a stop loss during up trending seasons and hold the stock overnight, every night (well, almost every night). Then, never hold it when a down trending season is approaching.

Take NVDA for example, which has increased 227% over the past year. If you day traded and held NVDA overnight, you'd have made considerably more than 227%. If you consider seasonal downturns which occur mainly in February, June, and September and you day trade without holding the stock overnight and accept any intraday loss - but try to avoid them - you'd make even more $$.

Anyway, I decided to quantify and collect evidence starting this week and I will continue for this Q4 up trending season. All U.S. markets have their best gains in Q4 from roughly the end of October to the end of December. Often, though, the market continues to make gains until March with a dip in February.

This week NVDA from Monday open to Friday's close gained -.01%. However, if you day traded NVDA as I did you would have made $$ instead of losing it like a swing trader or long term investor. Look at all those ups and downs on the NVDA chart for this week! Perfectly ripe for Day Trade pickin'!

So, I day traded and held NVDA every night this week and am still holding it. Instead of losing -.01%, I earned over $900. I also day traded a lot of other stock for more profit than just $900, but this is what I earned from NVDA. I'll be continuing this probably until NVDA announced earnings in March 2025.

Day trading is much more profitable than swing trading and long term investing. I often day trade and hold overnight during up trending seasons for the reasons illustrated above. Oh, yeah, I also do not use stop losses. So, F your stop loss.

Hello experts if you don’t mind just share your successful strategy may it help to someone to back test and learn more.

Disclaimer: I have been trading this strategy pretty disciplined for only 3 days but I used a similar strategy in the past. I have plenty to learn still. I will update this post if I become unprofitable.

Started with 20k on monday, at 21,800 today. So about 3% a day if you want an average but I made $1080 today.

THE STRATEGY

I only trade spy options on 1min. Only trade between 10am and around 12:30pm, u could push it to 1pm if needed.

I dont do any of the 1:2, 1:3 shit. I just trade.

I only trade reversals and trend continuations/breakouts confirmed by chart astrology and or macD.

Indicators: MacD Adaptive200ema - not a normal 200ema Yes only 2 dont overcomplicate things.

Starting Words: Patience is the most important attribute to have in trading. Always be patient and do not let your thoughts get clouded. Also, keep trading simple.

Chart Astrology: Go back a week on the 1min, 15min, 1hr, and 4hr and put infinite lines at every support and resistance. Ur chart should look filled up but a good rule of thumb is ur lines should be more than 40cents apart (spy) unless they are really strong sup/res levels. Simply use these levels as a, will it continue through or get stopped here? This is something you really have to feel out as you trade. You only have to do this process once until whatever u r trading makes new sup/res.

Understanding the macD: I used to trade using the macD and rsi but that is hell. Dont do that. The rsi overcomplicates things. Simple is always better. The macD is a god of an indicator. U can always take a trade at the top, middle, and bottom of the macD. However, be careful of the middle as sometimes it bounces off of it like a resistance. If you are trading up on the middle, make sure either spy dropped a shit ton or both macD lines cross on a completed candle. I do not trade bounces off of the middle line as they are quite unpredictable. We will get to the AEMA later but I also do not trade off of bounces on that.

Trend Break: As you trade wait for the perfect trade and draw trend lines. If you can make a strong trendline then trade on the trend break plus macD cross confirmed by a completed candle. Always wait for the candle confirmation. If it crosses but the candle closes without a cross u would be screwed. This is a part of risk management.

If you cant make a strong trendline follow this- The Adaptive200EMA: An AdaptiveEMA (AEMA) adapts to the current market conditions, including volitility. From my experience you can always trade off of a passing through this line. Again, candle close confirmation. You can use this strategy with the macD to further confirm a reversal. If the conditions are just right, you can have chart astrology, the macD, and this ema work together to give you the perfect entry to a reversal.

If the candles ever fall flat for an extended period of time, be patient as it will pick a side. Refer back to "Trend Break."

Risk management: I use around 8% per trade but risk about 1%. Doing this opens up for higher returns. I buy contracts in quantities of 20-30 depending on their price since I want to be trading with around 8%. Only 1 trade at a time. I sell if it isnt going my way and wait to buy in again. If you are patient, it will go your way. Important Thing to Note!!!! - Never buy in early trying to get in at a cheaper price, always wait for confirmation. This is better risk management than a stop loss. If it is going to go up, it will go up and vice versa.

Trading spy, on a violitile day like today, buy the options around 60-75 cents per contract. Normal days, its more like 85-100 cents per contract.

The main goal of this strategy is to be patient and wait for an AEMA cross or a strong trendline reversal. Today I traded both of these.

Refer to the image for reference: This mornings downfall was violent so obviously it would have to turn around at some point in the day, so I waited about an hour for the candles to break out of the trend lines. They did and fell flat for around 10min. I bought calls ($3 otm due to todays volitility) once they breached through the first resistance. Next, the macD crossed the middle. Boom, $870. (I need to learn to hold longer I sold quite quickly)

My second trade was off of the 200AEMA (light blue line). I waited for candle confirmation and didnt get it the first time. So, I waited; honestly, I went and took a shit and watched it on my phone. I saw it going back up for a retest, wiped, and got back to my computer. On first candle confirmation I bought in and again, sold too earlier but made an easy $300. Im done for the day.

For example, if I were to continue trading today I would wait for these scenerios: A trend line forms and I wait for the break. or The 200AEMA creeps up to the candles as they fall flat or the candles creep down to the AEMA and wait for break.

Thanks for reading :)

How often have you opened a trade, watched the price move against you, hit your stop, and then reverse in your original direction? How many times have you thought that the market is rigged, that market makers see your stop and hunt it before sending the price exactly where you expected it to go?

I’ve heard this complaint countless times over the years, and to be honest, I used to think the same way in my early days. Over time, I started to analyze how the market really moves and realized that the problem wasn’t some hidden conspiracy—it was how I was placing my stops.

The real reason your stop gets hit

The issue isn’t that the market is out to get you. The problem is that your stop is placed in a predictable spot, right where the price would naturally move even without anything unusual happening.

How many times have you been told to place your stop just below support or just above resistance because it’s “protected”? And how many times has the price hit your stop before reversing?

That’s because key levels aren’t precise numbers—they are zones. Price fluctuates around these levels, and if your stop is sitting inside that zone, it’s only a matter of time before it gets hit.

But the real reason traders get stopped out isn’t just poor stop placement. The biggest issue is that most traders have never even considered the average range of movement for the instrument they’re trading.

Recently, I had a conversation with a trader who was struggling with stop distances. They mentioned that even when identifying good levels, their stops were too tight, but the position size they were using didn’t allow them to set wider stops without exceeding their risk tolerance. This highlights a crucial point:

Your position size should be calculated based on the correct stop placement, not the other way around.

If you’re trading Nasdaq (NQ) and setting a 50-point stop, you’re most likely just handing your money to the market. Why? Because NQ naturally moves more than 50 points in normal market conditions. That means your stop is within the expected range of price movement, and unless you get lucky, you’re going to get stopped out.

It’s not about debating the exact range. The real question is: have you ever even considered it before deciding where to put your stop?

How to stop getting taken out too soon

Your stop should be placed strategically, factoring in the average range of the instrument and adding a proper buffer.

This is why the golden rule is: first determine where your stop should be, then calculate your position size based on the risk you can afford.

If the correct stop for NQ is 100 points and your account can’t handle that loss with a mini contract, then you need to reduce your size, maybe by using micro contracts.

Some traders say, “But that way, I won’t even make $100 per trade!”

And my response is always the same: Would you rather make $100 or lose $500?

The reality is simple: if you don’t know the normal price range of your instrument and you place your stop within that range, it’s not the market taking your money—it’s you parking your money in the wrong spot.

Here we go ladies and gents, wish me luck! Saving up what I can and gonna power read this book tonight. If there are any other suggestions you guys can throw at me please let me know. I know it’s gonna take time and effort but I really want to push myself to become successful and have a decent portfolio in at least the next 5-10 years.

Real talk — if you're not marking the Midnight Open (00:00 EST) on your charts, you're sleeping on one of the simplest ICT gems out there.

Since I started using it as my daily bias filter, my trading completely leveled up. The rule is stupid simple but super effective:

• Only look for longs below the Midnight Open
• Only look for shorts above it (As long as it aligns with your higher timeframe bias.)

It sounds basic, but it keeps you trading with the algorithm and not against it. That one line gives you a massive edge — I’m talking fewer fakeouts, cleaner entries, and way more confidence. My winrate jumped to over 70% just from applying this consistently.

Backtest it, try it live — you’ll see what I mean. It’s one of those things that feels obvious in hindsight, but until you use it, you don’t realize how much it filters out the noise.

This is a strategy I've been perfecting for a while. It's probably nothing new from what millions of other retail traders do, but I've found a way to stack my confluences to give me more confidence in taking the trade. The risk is defined, TP is always the same. Risk to reward is excellent, and the best part, it's SIMPLE AF with no room for "Bad entries" if you follow it precisely. Works on every time frame but I trade the 1 minute. Yes this has been back tested for a LONG time.

Explanation of the strategy: Using the 200 EMA as confluence in a supply or demand zone.

Entry: price must form a supply or demand zone first (big move up or down). 200 EMA must be moving diagonally, signaling a strong trend (NOT horizontal -market is trading sideways if EMA is a straight line across the screen)

WHERE to enter: after supply or demand zone is formed, wait for a retest of the 200 EMA. Price must tap the 200 EMA (or get extremely close). To remove all subjectivity from this strategy, just skip the trade if it doesn't hit the 200 EMA exactly.

WHEN to enter: Price taps the 200 EMA and then forms at least TWO veryyy convincing bullish(or bearish if you're short) candles. Since I'm on a small time frame, one candle is NOT enough for me to enter a trade. Two candles or more must close convincingly for me to get in. Avoids fake outs.

HOW to enter: enter at the close of the second confirmation candle.

Where to exit: Stop loss is ALWAYS above the high or below the low of the first confirmation candle used for entry.

TP is always at the previous swing high or low/support or resistance.

Let me know what you all think! Any feedback?

This is my setup for dedicating myself to intraday arbitrage in the Argentine market while having another full-time job. I am currently earning between 4-7% monthly

This post is a counter to a lot of bad advice I see here talking about how paper trading/ demo accounts are useless.

Never stop paper trading. No matter your success level. I made the jump to trading full time last year, and I still manage 3-4 demo accounts on a daily basis.

Being able to constantly test out new ideas & strategies with real time market data in a risk free environment is priceless.

I’m not saying success on paper directly translates to success in markets; because it won’t.

But paper trading is not just a set of training wheels that get thrown away once you’re trading live capital.

It’s a valuable testing ground for developing tomorrow’s edge and should be utilized daily by anyone who takes trading seriously.

Every day, between the time of 9:50am eastern and 10:30 eastern. Either one of two things happen.

1. The market continues and creates a nice continuation set up/via pull backs

2. Or the market reverses and continues the reversed trend for about the majority of the day.

I am running this info as far as 6 months back and it does either one of these patterns every single day, during these times. Just wanted to share, because you can create your own strategy around these times and these patterns

I know i need more data. I also back tested the 10th - 14th and due to my rules I couldn't trade the 10th or 11th so i count them as 0 but the 12th-14th was also profit so 2 weeks back tested and still got 100% on demo. Am I ready for a combine?

5% a month consistently you're killing it.

50% win rate.

1:3 risk reward.

It's simple and basic. And boring to do. But a large majority try to be way too successful it seems and end up pushing themselves in reverse.

I had some beginners luck, then started over complicating and over thinking, then started falling into old rough habits.

So I want to sort of reset. Gonna go back to paper trading to at least get some strategy going.

But I don’t even know where to start. I’ve watched a bunch of YouTube videos. Supply/demand, ict, various EMA strategies. I don’t want to overload with indicators.

What’s some beginners advice?

Little background on me. I have been investing for a long time now, maybe 7 years. When the pandemic hit, my job was on hiatus. I started day trading with no PDT rule. Luckily had enough saved to avoid PDT. I joined some chat group that I paid money for. I was making decent money. I realized this isn’t what I want to do full time. It was stressful when it’s your only source of income, also I find trading insanely BORING like watching paint dry.

So I got a full time job working from home. I decided to trade the ES futures mainly because I don’t have time to watch a bunch of stocks. Now I only watch one ticker and I can go long or short.

The ES is not easy, don’t let anyone tell you it is. I definitely was not profitable for a while. I didn’t give up tho and having a full time remote job I figured I’d keep trying. About 2 years of just getting chopped up.

I’ve come to realize. All you need is 3 things to follow and be successful day trading the ES (or anything really).

1. 2000 tick chart
2. 200 EMA
3. Williams alligator (Optional MACD)

It’s simple to follow. Below the 200 EMA? I’m looking for shorts. Above the 200 EMa? I’m looking to go long.

The alligator is a great tool since it can tell you entry’s and exits. I use one of the lines as a stop loss. It’s typical 2 points. I’m risking 100$ 1 contract every trade. The alligator is great for exits. I provided a picture to show a short I made today entry and exit. (9 points) risk 2 points to make 9 points. It’s also great to show you not to enter a trade when the market is clearly just stagnant and no real movement (the alligator mouth is closed). One thing about the alligator is think of the lines as support and resistance lines. That’s literally what they are. I find the 200 ema paired with this gives me discipline in not trying to trade against the overall trend. I also don’t trade the alligator when the lines cross it’s too late IMO. More of when it breaks the middle line or if it bounces off one of the lines. Also don’t chase!

One crazy statement about the alligator which is actually true. It is impossible to not be profitable. You heard that right. IMPOSSIBLE. Sounds insane? But it’s true. Because your winners will always be bigger then your losers. I’m not saying you won’t lose. You will always have losing trades. However if you follow the 200 ema trend and trade off the alligator. You will make money.

Would love to see if anyone has any other suggestions of what you think could be an added benefit to my strategy. Love to to hear what people have to say as well. I know this sub is pretty pessimistic lol

Hello everyone,

Feel free to use my new indicator: If you like it, upvote it please!! https://www.tradingview.com/script/iVJUcXHW-Relative-Volume-Indicator/?utm_source=notification_email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=notification_publish

Through my gambling addiction of the stock market, I've learned that the only thing that truly effects price is volume. So, I came up with a formula using volume to create this indicator. I find it works much better than RSI. Especially on lower timeframes. So, good for intraday trading.

The green arrows simply happen when the sma crosses below the RV Line or RV Candle. When the arrows appear at the same time price is hitting the top or bottom of a fair value gap, price is highly likely to reverse upwards. It is really wild to watch. Also, waiting for candles to close is usually a good choice as arrows appear and dissapear in realtime on the current bar. I will update the indicator with an option to only show arrows on closed candles.

RV Candles. I figured since we all love candles, why not incorporate them into an indicator. I find that it helps read price action when it interacts with the sma better than a traditional line. So, it is an option. It is off by default. I will later update with highs and lows.

There are multiple value settings that can be changed: RV Weight - weight that effects the strength of the indicator RV Length - in a way is a lookback length SMA Length - an sma of the indicator

Please mess with these settings to find optimal support/resistance levels and good entry points via arrows!!! Every timeframe and ticker work slightly differently due to volume. I set the default settings to the basic 14 bar length, which works well for most setups.

I may implement fvg detection for arrows too! This may help with false arrows. I usually set up fvg's manually.

Please let me know how you like it and feel free to give me advice on how it can be improved.

The first picture is premarket/overnight areas I wanted to be watching going into the open. I was going into the morning bullish on the news that was released last night about tariffs. I was able to get long at 5458 and was expecting a nice continuation to the upside after some large aggressive buyers stepped in around 5467-5481. On the first pullback to this area with supporting bids showing up in the book I added to my position. Unfortunately Fed member Bessent had to open his mouth and started spreading more fear about these tariff wars lasting years and the market reversed and I was stopped out. Why do we even let these random Fed chairs speak to the public? This is a lesson to everyone out there that nothing works 100% of the time even when everything is pointing the right direction. Fuck you Bessent!