Nearly nine months into this journal, the metric I'm most satisfied with is max drawdown: just under 7.5%, with 60%+ account growth on my perps/futures account - it’s not flashy but steady honest work - me, against myself, earning the right to scale size.
Prior to May, drawdown stood at just 3.9%, before I began building larger swing positions.
Across nearly 200 trades since sept, the focus has remained the same - cut losses quickly, refine execution and prioritise risk management over win rate.
The most effective adjustment has been initiating a trade with a pilot position and only adding size once a trade begins proving itself, this gives me a better feel for the rhythm of a market - I’ve been working extremely hard on narrowing the variance of trade execution and efficiency.
The key lesson has been that profitability is driven less by being right frequently and more by managing losses well, I’m currently hovering at a 35% win rate due to cutting trades early only to step into the same idea again upon increased probability (timing issue)
It’s a continuous work in progress, but encouraging progress nonetheless. More importantly I understand the pathway to achieve higher levels… all in the process.
Looking forward to what Q2(June) and Q3 bring, I suspect there will be some decent volatility ahead.
FRIDAY CLOSING LOSS RULE
My trading policy is to liquidate any trade that shows a loss on a Friday for two reasons
1. Enjoy a weekend without sweating a loser
2. Friday losses often get worse the following week
Rules rule
Let me expand on no 10: "Focus Only On A+ Setups"
This lesson probably made me more money than learning any new indicator, scanner or entry technique.
When I review my trading statistics, one thing becomes very obvious:
Most of my losses come from B and C setups.
Not because I intentionally decide to trade low-quality setups. Nobody wakes up in the morning and says: "Today I will take a bad trade."
What usually happens is different.
I become a little overconfident.
I want to make money quickly.
I want more action.
Or I simply get tired of waiting.
Then I take a trade that looks "good enough."
Later, when I review it objectively, it turns out to be a B or C setup.
And that's where many losses come from.
I see the exact same thing when I work with traders in one-on-one mentoring. Most traders don't have one very clearly defined setup that they have studied hundreds of times. Instead, they take a little bit of everything.
A breakout here.
A pullback there.
A random news stock.
A stock that looks cheap.
A stock that somebody mentioned on social media.
The result is usually the same: too many mediocre trades and not enough great trades.
The irony is that most traders think they need more opportunities.
In reality, they need fewer opportunities and higher standards.
For me, an A+ setup is usually very obvious.
I want a tight consolidation with narrow price bars. I want strong relative strength. I want huge volume entering the stock. I want a fast-moving stock with an ADR above 5%. I want a hot theme that institutions are actively buying. And I want a market uptrend behind me.
Most importantly, I want a setup that allows me to use a very tight stop loss.
When all these factors come together, the probabilities improve dramatically.
What took me years to understand is that great setups look different from mediocre setups.
You can train your eyes to see the difference.
That's why studying charts is so important. I spent years looking at successful setups, failed setups and historical winners. Over time your pattern recognition improves and you begin to recognize quality much faster.
Many traders ignore this process.
Instead of waiting for one exceptional setup, they take ten average setups.
The problem is that average setups create average results.
And average results often lead to frustration.
Then comes revenge trading.
Then comes forcing trades.
Then comes even more losses.
The cycle repeats itself.
One of the hardest skills in trading is patience.
Not patience to sit through drawdowns.
Patience to do absolutely nothing until a truly great opportunity appears.
Most traders would improve their results dramatically if they simply cut their B and C setups in half.
Less trading.
Better trading.
Higher standards.
Because in my experience, the biggest winners rarely come from random trades.
They usually come from the setups that look almost too obvious to ignore.
$BTC.D, the majority indeed didn't survive this.
Been updating and following this chart regularly since last year and it has played out pretty much like I anticipated.
After the bottom on BTC.D last year, I was expecting a smooth move up to set the final bear trap on altcoins before unwinding to the downside.
During the 10/10 flush we got a very aggressive wick that filled the 0.75 fib instead of fully sweeping the highs.
Looking at how BTC.D has behaved over the last few months and where ETH/BTC is sitting now, I'm inclined to believe that 10/10 ended up leaving a worse impact on altcoins than a clean sweep of the highs would have.
That said, there's still no clean breakdown on BTC.D yet but the weekly structure is undeniably weakening. A confirmed breakdown from here would send it crashing and finally trigger the long awaited altcoin party.
June is a pivotal month for crypto in my view.
Continued weakness in BTC.D = prolonged bear for the whole space. Strength here = crypto becomes hot again, fast.
Watch this chart closely. Everything keys off of it.
@Stefan_B_Trades Been following you for years now.
You’re one of the best trading educator one can expect on X.
Only blind or unworthy people would say otherwise.
Keep it up Stefan, the ones who knows, knows 💪
Trading expansions is the simplest play in this market. And almost nobody trades it properly.
I've been running the exact same model on Gold and NQ for the past 5 years with more than 90% hit rate.
Here's a Full breakdown 🧵👇
1/7
Here are 3 exercises that will completely change the way you view the charts.
The same ones that completely changed mine.
After running them daily, you stop seeing candles.
You start seeing a manipulation screen.
Where. When. And why.
Let’s break them down 👇
🔴LIVE in 30 minutes
Fresh ATHs - Monday Continuation?
New week, new opportunity. I'm hunting continuation longs on indices this morning. Real-time analysis, trade setups, and live executions.
Live on YouTube @ 9AM ET ↓
https://t.co/f9ewoAGAqf
#TECHCHARTSMEMBERS I've incorporated a new labelling to the charts that complete their analyzed patterns.
Last Full Day can serve as a tighter stop-loss for those that find the Chart Pattern Negation Level as a too wide stop-loss level.
A pattern fails only if price breaches the chart pattern negation level.
After a breakout confirmation price can correct and remain above the Last Full Day and it will still be categorized as Type 2
Any price action (hard re-test) that is deeper than the low of the Last Full Day but remains above the pattern negation level will be categorized as Type 3.
Last Full Day is the full bodied candle below the pattern boundary before the breakout confirmation.
Hot narratives attracting liquidity and giving clean setups with working levels right now.
In descending order based on the quality of the setups.
AI: $FET, $WLD, $NEAR, $TAO, $VIRTUAL
Compute power enabling AI: $RENDER, $AKT, $GRASS, $EIGEN
Privacy — $ZEC, $XMR, $DASH
RWA — $ONDO, $INJ, $HBAR
Stablecoin tokens — $XPL, $SKY, $ENA
These are the sectors where price is actually respecting structure. Some reasonable liquidity is there worth trading.
I'm repeating it. You will not miss a text-book setup like this if your routine is weekly and daily review of 1000+ charts without any bias.
Cover the ticker, focus on your sweet spot pattern.
As I always say, select 1-3 patterns of your choice and look for those. Do not spend more than few seconds on a price chart.
A patter that you know, will pop up in the first few seconds.
We have captured this directional move on the daily scale price chart.
@DichVerpis64869@CRInvestor Because you on the contrary, have been a professional trader for +30 years, well know among your pair, who provide a lot of value on your X account.
And who know more than everybody else than an isolate result of a setup doesn’t matter.
Nothing like a troll, of course 😘