Whenever I try to backtest any system, the results are very good for 2024, 2025, and 2026. But before 2023, the market conditions were completely different. It feels empty—price keeps reversing against you out of nowhere, leading to loss after loss.

What was happening back then? And is it possible for the current market conditions to behave like that again in the future?

I understand that the market has cycles and changing conditions, but that’s not exactly what I mean. Prices were at low levels and moved only a few pips. Why did that happen? no active institutions?, its making me to lose a confidence on my system for a long-term consistency

I often read this subreddit and notice that many of the same questions appear again and again.

How do I stop taking profits too early?

How do I stop holding losses for too long?

How do I find the perfect entry?

How do I stop breaking my own plan while I am in a trade?

Over time I realized that many of these problems come from the same place. It is the way we structure a trade and the expectations we attach to it from the start.

Most traders try to find one perfect entry point. They enter the position with the full size immediately, the price starts moving around the level, and psychology begins to take over.

The price moves slightly against them and doubt appears.

They think about closing at breakeven.

Or they hold the loss because they still believe the market will go where they expected.

At some point the original plan collapses while the trade is still open.

Eventually I started looking at entries differently. I stopped thinking about them as a single point.

If I have a trade idea, there are two things that matter to me. The area where I want to enter, and the level where my idea stops making sense. That level is the stop.

Instead of entering the entire position at once, I build the position gradually between those levels.

When I do this, the price can move around the zone without creating as much pressure. Sometimes it even helps to build a better average price. Sometimes these small movements allow partial profit taking.

I also noticed something about stop losses. The market often touches the most obvious stops almost exactly and then moves in the expected direction. Because of that, I sometimes place my stop slightly beyond the level where I originally wanted it. Just a little bit further.

People sometimes ask what happens if only one part of the position gets filled and the price immediately moves away.

If you look at charts honestly, that situation happens much less often than people think. Much more frequently the market spends some time in a range, collecting liquidity, before the actual move begins.

So the probability of building the position in a range is usually higher.

Even if only part of the position gets filled, that is still a completely acceptable outcome. Even a small position can produce a good result, and the remaining capital can always be used for another idea.

At the same time it is important to understand something simple.

Scaling into a position is not a magic button that turns a bad trade into a good one.

If the entry itself is poor, for example going long in the middle of an already extended move, the position will most likely still end in a stop. Simply because the idea behind the trade was weak.

That is why context always matters. Where the price is, how volatile the instrument is, and what kind of ranges it usually moves in.

This leads to another common mistake. Many traders misjudge volatility and the time required for a move to happen.

For example, if an asset usually moves two or three percent per hour, but your plan is to capture ten percent in thirty minutes, your expectations do not match reality.

Sometimes the market can accelerate. Liquidity can appear and a sharp move can happen. But it is very difficult to build a consistent strategy around rare events.

When expectations are unrealistic, another problem appears.

The price moves slowly, which is what markets often do. It moves around the entry area or slightly above it. At that point psychological pressure begins.

First it feels like the move should have happened faster. Then doubt appears. Eventually the trader closes the position near breakeven simply because they are tired of waiting.

There is also the opposite situation.

The original plan was to capture a move within a few hours. But nothing happens. Half a day passes, then a full day. Instead of closing the trade, the trader keeps holding the position hoping the move will still happen.

At that moment the original plan is already broken.

If the idea assumed that the move would happen within a few hours and it did not, the probability that it will suddenly appear a day or two later is usually much lower.

In that situation it can be reasonable to close the position at breakeven, a small profit, or a small loss. The original idea is simply no longer valid.

This is also part of discipline.

People often open short term trades and later turn them into medium term positions simply because they do not want to admit that the idea failed.

Another observation that became obvious over time is that markets rarely reverse in a single point.

More often the process looks different.

First there is a sharp move with increased volatility. For example a strong drop. At that moment many traders try to catch the bottom and open long positions directly inside the impulse.

Personally I try not to do that. When the move is still active you simply do not know where it will stop.

It is usually safer to wait until the impulse begins to lose strength. This can often be seen when the movement slows down, volatility decreases, and the price begins to round out with a small consolidation.

Those are the moments when I start thinking about building a position.

Short positions usually follow a similar pattern. First there is a strong upward move with high volatility, then the movement slows down, the range tightens, and only after that does it become clearer where it might make sense to start building a position.

In simple terms, I try not to catch falling knives and not to jump into an already accelerated market. Much more often I wait until the move exhausts itself and only then start working with the position.

There is another trap that I see traders fall into constantly.

It is the attempt to find a setup where none actually exists.

People open a chart and start actively searching for an idea. They add indicators, look for patterns, draw additional lines. But in reality good setups are usually obvious almost immediately.

If you open a chart and nothing stands out, there is probably nothing to do there.

It is much easier to mark the levels where a trade idea could make sense and set alerts. When the price reaches that area, you already have a plan and decisions become much calmer.

Another thing that helps psychologically is scaling out of a position.

But there is an important nuance here.

Sometimes people say that partial profit taking reduces mathematical expectancy because you reduce your potential profit during strong moves.

That would only be true if we knew exactly where the final target is and that the price will definitely reach it.

In reality nobody knows that.

The market might move halfway and reverse. It might reach the first target and then completely retrace. It might never reach the planned levels at all.

This is why partial exits work differently in practice.

They reduce the dispersion of outcomes. In other words they reduce the gap between extremely good and extremely bad results.

Sometimes you earn slightly less during rare large moves. But you secure profits more often during normal market behavior.

Over a long period of time this can make the overall results more stable for many strategies.

This leads to the most interesting part.

Approaches like this make trading boring.

And that is actually normal.

Most people come to the market looking for excitement. For many people crypto looks like a casino. They arrive with the idea that they will guess a move and quickly make a lot of money.

But casinos always make money from players.

The market often works in a similar way. Most people arrive, make several emotional bets, lose money, and leave.

At some point a choice appears.

You can keep treating the market like a gambling game and periodically bring new money to try again.

Or you can start treating trading as systematic work.

At that moment everything changes. Trading becomes calmer, slower, and much more predictable.

And it is usually in that environment where consistent results start to appear. 

I have two questions in the end.

For newer traders.

Which parts of this approach seem unclear or raise questions? If you are just starting, it is very possible that I skipped something that feels obvious to me but not obvious to someone earlier in the learning process.

And for more experienced traders.

Do you see parts of this approach that would work differently on other markets?

Most of the examples here come from crypto trading. Crypto markets have their own characteristics. They are highly volatile and they trade twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.

Other markets behave differently. Stocks, futures, or forex often have specific trading sessions. Some traders need to close positions before the end of the day to avoid overnight gaps. Volatility structures can also be very different.

Because of that, the exact mechanics might change from market to market even if the core ideas about risk, expectations, and discipline stay similar.

If you trade other markets and see places where this logic should be adjusted, it would be interesting to hear your perspective.

Trading is a long learning process, and sometimes a different market or a different style reveals things you would not notice in your own environment.

I see it everywhere that people come up with stuff like opening ranges, trade at a specific time, and don't trade in another. Use the gaps, a tool, or an indicator. Read this book or watch this guy. Are people really just not willing to look at the charts at all and just wanna predict where price is gonna reject from based on anything other than the chart itself? I'm not saying all concepts are wrong or useless, but you really only need to know the most basic 2 to tell the trend, so why do people are stubborn on finding shortcuts instead of just watching the chart and observing what it does and how it moves?

I was thinking about trading and a question came into my mind: How do we know that it is a breakout on support and resistance levels or liquidity sweep.

Hi! I'm a full time employee working from home and soon to go back to school to pursue a master's degree and I anticipate I have a pretty packed schedule ahead of me. With how expensive everything is, combined with my tuition fee and pet expense (I have a dog), I thought of getting another job but my schedule going to be pretty hectic when I get back to school; I assume this would be nearly impossible to manage. So I thought of giving a trading another try.

A background about my trading knowledge, I used to be part of Greg Secker's Learn to Trade program more than 5 years ago. I was bad at it! Mostly because I was desperate to earn quick cash and get rich as soon as I can. I have been coached by someone claiming to be a 'profitable trader'. Although, I think I get most of the concepts and tools but my trading psychology is just really bad so I always blow up my account. Now I want to give it another try (without spending cash on coaching programs) but I'm curious if that's a good decision and if it's worth my time. Right now, I'm not looking for some quick cash but a source of income I could actually grow with my skills at home.

I want to know your insights and I'd appreciate suggestions for someone trying to do trading again. I don't know anyone trading and I assume my family and friends who knew I blew up my trading experience would give me mostly negative feedback so I'm asking experienced traders instead. Tia!

So idk what im doing, i think my father got me into a ponzi scheme. I tried trading on my own. ill reference an image, did I already lose my money?

https://preview.redd.it/tflvq9fjactg1.jpg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5017e6c1be4bba848ff677a9c9c60818aa493beb

Over the last few weeks, I reduced my risk per trade from around - 2% to 0.5%, and honestly it changed a lot for me.

Drawdowns feel much easier to handle

Less urge to overtrade

Better decision-making under pressure

With current market volatility (USD strength, news spikes), this approach feels more sustainable.

I’ve also been discussing these ideas daily with a small group of traders to improve together.

I need some honest opinions from people who’ve actually done this.

I’ve been trading futures for a while and I’m just now starting to hit some consistency. Last month I made about $2,500 in payouts, and this month I’m on track for ~$10k if I stay disciplined.

Now I’m debating something that might be a bold move.

Part of me wants to take advantage of the momentum and go backpack around Asia for 2–3 months (Thailand, Vietnam, Bali, etc.), trade while I’m out there, and also start taking content creation more seriously by documenting everything.

The other part of me thinks this is exactly how people lose consistency — new environment, different routine, timezone issues, distractions, etc.

For context: I’ve got over $100k saved, but that’s strictly emergency money. I’m not trying to rely on that at all.

So I’m trying to think long-term instead of doing something impulsive.

If you’ve actually done this:

Did your trading performance drop when you started traveling?

How difficult are the timezone differences for futures? Is reliable internet/setup harder than it sounds?

Was balancing trading + content creation realistic or a distraction?

I’m not looking for hype — I want the real downsides too.

If you were in my position, would you go now, or stack a few more consistent months first?

I've been journaling consistently for a few months now and tracking things like P&L, win rate, hold duration, and performance by time of day. The hold duration one surprised me the most turns out my winners are almost always trades I hold under 2 hours.

Curious what others are tracking. Do you just log entries and review, or do you look at specific analytics? What's the one metric that changed how you trade?

I started recently and I only know the basics. This world has interested me for years, but I never dedicated much time to it. Now I have the time to study it and learn about it little by little.

I'd like to know if anyone could give me some advice, guide me a bit, or point me to a group where I can learn about and study the market.

If anyone could really help me a little, I would be very grateful, or at least explain some terms or things I don't understand.

For a long time I thought my problem in trading was consistency. Some days I followed my rules and other days I didn’t, so I kept telling myself I just needed more discipline. But after some time I noticed that my rules were not even clear from the start. Some days I would take trades I normally wouldn’t take and other days I would skip setups I had already taken before. My risk was not always the same either.

Looking back, it was not really inconsistency. It was the fact that I did not have a clear standard for how I was supposed to trade. Once I started defining things better like what I trade, when I trade, how much I risk and when I stop, everything started to feel less random. I am still working on it, but consistency now feels more like a result instead of something I am trying to force.

I am 18 years old, and I traded on Binance for the first time using my own money. I practiced for more than 2 weeks. I invested $100 and ended up losing it all.

I watched a video on YouTube about scalping during the New York session. I practiced it a few times on a demo account, and it worked. So I decided to use my $100 and tried it on Ethereum using the Exness app.

I placed a sell trade around 2057 (approximately), and the stop-out level was around 2068. I didn’t set a stop-loss; I only set a take-profit of $40 near 2052.

But then the price suddenly started going up and kept rising. It went up to around 2080. I lost my entire capital. That was my only money. What should I do now?

𝐌𝐲 𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞:

1.𝐃𝐨𝐞𝐬 𝐬𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐨𝐫 𝐧𝐨𝐭?

2.𝐈𝐟 𝐲𝐞𝐬, 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐈 𝐝𝐨 𝐢𝐭 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐲? (𝐥𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐠𝐞, 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐩-𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐬, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞-𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐟𝐢𝐭)

3.𝐈 𝐜𝐚𝐧’𝐭 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞 𝐥𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝐨𝐧 𝐄𝐱𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬—𝐢𝐭’𝐬 𝐟𝐢𝐱𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐭 𝟒𝟎𝟎𝐱. 𝐒𝐨 𝐈’𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐟 𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐁𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞. 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐝𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 it?

I really need advice.

In today’s crowded trading education space, it’s becoming harder to separate real value from clever marketing. Many courses promise quick profits and financial freedom but how often do they actually deliver long-term results? Before investing, traders often look at factors like mentorship quality, real market exposure, risk management training, and track records… but are these enough to truly judge a program? Or is there something deeper that determines whether a course can actually transform your trading journey? Have you ever tried or paid for a trading course or service share your experience?

As the title says..what was the best advice or what clicked for you related to youre trading career? What made you change the way you trade now. Books, friends, family, youtube channels, forums/topics etc. like to hear!

Hey guys, I'm an MQL5 dev and I'm kinda bored with my own strategies so I figured I'd offer to code some new ones for free. No catch, no hidden fees.

If you have a trading idea you want turned into an EA, or a custom indicator or script, just send me a clear explanation of the rules (entries, exits, SL, TP, filters, that kind of stuff). I'll code it for free.

Why free? I want to build my portfolio and see how other people think about trading. Plus it's fun.

A few things though: no martingale or grid or super risky stuff unless it's just for learning. And I won't build a full commercial product for free, this is for side projects and practice. I'll pick the most interesting or clearest strategies first.

If you have an idea, just comment or DM me with a short description. I'll pick a couple to work on this week. Cheers.

I want friends in my trading journey so that we could help each other and gain knowledge and experience of the markets faster and efficiently.

I will be grateful to those who are serious about it.

https://reddit.com/link/1sbj6ni/video/4v9rxhu5b0tg1/player

I asked chart sellers a simple question.

"How do you find stocks that match your chart pattern?"

Their answer?

"You search with a script."

So you're clicking through charts one by one with a mouse? They didn't even know what polling is. I was genuinely surprised they had no idea how to automatically find stocks that match a chart pattern.

So I asked again.

"Forget past charts. Write down what goes up and what goes down starting today. Prove your product actually works."

Hit them with facts and suddenly it's "Well, to prove that, there's a cost..."

Always dodging.

Then they come at you from alt accounts trying to set you up. The pattern is always the same. Scammers can never prove anything. They write walls of text, talk in circles, and tell you "there's something you don't know" as if trading is some kind of shamanism.

So here's my advice. If someone tries to sell you charts, always ask one thing.

"Prove it."

If they actually prove it three or more times and you can verify it yourself, then say "Let me try it myself. I need proof that it works for me too."

Of course, they will never get that far.

Now. If you ever look at a chart and think "wow, this is actually good," just use a free tool. I use SandClaw. As shown in the video, it copies any chart pattern and turns it into an automated strategy. It doesn't need to be 100% identical because it connects to brokers worldwide through plugins. Stocks, crypto, ETFs, futures, prediction markets. All covered. No deposits, no withdrawals, no fees. It runs entirely on your own PC with no server. Completely free. I'm only mentioning it because it's free.

Last time I posted here saying "you can't trade with charts alone," I got destroyed.

I asked anyone to prove me wrong with at least a year of evidence. Not a single person could.

Feel free to come at me again in the comments. But this time, bring proof.

I've been posting chart + macro analysis on my blog every single day for 5 years. That experience taught me one thing.

A chart that actually makes money? You wouldn't sell it for hundreds or thousands of dollars. You wouldn't even sell it for billions. Because it's worth more than that.

In an era where charts can be copied, a chart is just a reference point for buy and sell timing. Nothing more. It is not something you pay money for.

https://preview.redd.it/35f57wujv6tg1.png?width=3628&format=png&auto=webp&s=29fe1147d3fcf8da088574c863c35d6f42d0d301

Currently, I am working with GBPJPY 4H trend analysis, but I have doubts about interpreting structure in this context. There are three pullbacks that didn’t break their prior swing highs or swing lows by a candle close at all, but are considered as valid External BOS or CHoCH. In all these pullbacks, prices wick above/below a certain key level and bounce, creating the illusion of structure change. For instance, in one of them price wicks above a swing high, but the next leg closes below the prior swing low, implying some bearish structure change without a true candle close breach. In another example, price wicks below a swing low, and after that rally closes the price above the previous high, thereby concluding the pullback. And, finally, in the third pullback price also wicks below a key level and closes strongly bullish above the prior swing highs.

Why do you think that these movements can be qualified as external structure changes even though there was no proper candle close that breached swings? What order flow or volume characteristics should be observed for recognizing these shifts?

I need some help with my strategy.

So my strategy has these stats:

Win Ratio : 31.23%

Average R:R : 2.974

Expectancy : 0.241 (including assumed 14% trading costs and slippages, a question in itself 😅)

Max DD: 30.49 R

Stats on backtested 776 trades.

I have an algo programmed which takes these trades.

Three options I have to calculate position sizing:

1. According to max DD: 100/Max DD and further divided by two for safety which works out to 1.64%

2. According to Risk of Ruin (<0.3%) : 2.5%

3. According to Kelly’s criterion (divided by 4): 2.03%

Earlier I was risking 3% because the max DD was lower before. Currently I’m risking 2.5% on my running account balance.

My problems are:

1. I’m experiencing the Max DD currently and everything seems gloomy.

2. Even though the loss is not much in R terms, the loss is greater in $$. Meaning if I get a 20R trade, I will be probably be up by R a lot, but in $$ I will probably not even break even because of reduced $ risk per trade.

Should I just continue considering the sample size is good enough to have an edge?

Should I risk fixed % of initial capital or running capital balance?