Willow the Trader

Building automated futures trading systems with Claude Code. No CS degree. 25 yrs of hedge fund experience. Sharing what I learn.

[Willow the Trader @TechTradingUSA]

I spent nearly 25 years managing money at hedge funds.

The biggest lesson wasn't about finding the right trade.

It was learning that human discretion is the real risk.

Here's what I do differently now 🧵

[Willow the Trader @TechTradingUSA]

Day trading closes the book at 4:00 PM ET so you never lie awake worrying about a war, default, or tariff announcement breaking out before tomorrow's open.

[Willow the Trader @TechTradingUSA]

What The Pulse is and how to read it.
Join the community: https://t.co/s661nkb3kA

[Willow the Trader @TechTradingUSA]

⚡ The Pulse — 06/16/2026 08:33 ET
$GC 15min score shifted from -39.0 to 74.0 — biggest single-timeframe move on the board.
For informational purposes only.

[Willow the Trader @TechTradingUSA]

A strategy you can't follow is not a strategy.

Three filters for design:
— Easy to understand (explain in two sentences)
— Operationally manageable (not 14 hours of screen time)
— Psychologically sustainable (survives a drawdown)

Break any one and you'll abandon the system.

[Willow the Trader @TechTradingUSA]

⚡ The Pulse — 06/15/2026 08:33 ET
AAPL daily squeeze fires as tech leaders show three-timeframe green alignment while gold's 60min score slips from green to blue — futures lead the rotation.
For informational purposes only.

[Willow the Trader @TechTradingUSA]

TradingView strategies look profitable in backtest, then bleed live. The 5-rule refresh-proof stack:

— barstate.isconfirmed
— process_orders_on_close
— bar-close stops/TPs
— lookahead_off
— close-then-enter on reversals

Skip one and you're trading a different strategy.

[Willow the Trader @TechTradingUSA]

📊 The Pulse — End-of-Day Recap · 06/12/2026
How the board closed and what shifted through the session.
For informational purposes only.

[Willow the Trader @TechTradingUSA]

What The Pulse is and how to read it.
Join the community: https://t.co/s661nkb3kA

[Willow the Trader @TechTradingUSA]

⚡ The Pulse — 06/12/2026 08:33 ET
ES futures fired 4H squeeze with score jumping to 100 as both indices flip green intraday despite red daily reads — compression release begins.
For informational purposes only.

[Willow the Trader @TechTradingUSA]

@everythingfxx Simple check I keep coming back to: if your palms are sweating and your heart rate goes up when you enter a position, your size is too big. Fixing the size in advance takes that decision away from the version of me that's mid-trade and emotional.

[Willow the Trader @TechTradingUSA]

@pheonix_trader Every extra indicator I added was basically just fitting the strategy to noise — making it "work" on past data while quietly making it worse going forward. Strip it back to price, levels, and hard risk rules and suddenly there's less to hide behind.

[Willow the Trader @TechTradingUSA]

@L1vsun No strategy you set and forget. The real work is building a monitoring layer -- rolling metrics that tell you whether the edge is still there, not just whether the P&L looks okay this month.

[Willow the Trader @TechTradingUSA]

Strategy testers spit out 20+ metrics. Most are decoration.

Five tell you whether a strategy is real:
— Net Profit
— Win Rate
— Profit Factor (aim > 1.5)
— Max Drawdown
— Total Trades (sample size matters)

If those five look right, the strategy is worth running.

[Willow the Trader @TechTradingUSA]

⚡ The Pulse — 06/11/2026 08:33 ET
Gold's 15min score rocketed from -63 to +76 while weekly squeeze fires, creating wild cross-timeframe divergence as metals fragment.
For informational purposes only.

[Willow the Trader @TechTradingUSA]

Random timeframe picking gives conflicting signals. Pick a tier and stack it:

Ultra-short: 1m+3m entry, 5m confirm.
Short: 3m+5m entry, 10–15m confirm.
Mid-term: 15m+30m entry, 60m confirm.

A coherent stack gives clean MTF logic for your time horizon.

[Willow the Trader @TechTradingUSA]

📊 The Pulse — End-of-Day Recap · 06/10/2026
How the board closed and what shifted through the session.
For informational purposes only.

[Willow the Trader @TechTradingUSA]

What The Pulse is and how to read it.
Join the community: https://t.co/s661nkb3kA

[Willow the Trader @TechTradingUSA]

⚡ The Pulse — 06/10/2026 08:33 ET
Gold weekly squeeze fires as GC posts full red alignment across all five timeframes with -85 composite score - metals under pressure
For informational purposes only.

[Willow the Trader @TechTradingUSA]

Slippage is such a tricky one to get right. The only way I've found to actually measure it honestly is comparing the price at signal fire to the fill price from the broker -- and that requires a system that logs both reliably. Without that, you're basically guessing, and the guess almost always flatters the backtest.

[Willow the Trader @TechTradingUSA]

@ai_trade_pro That gap between backtest and live is brutal. On the equity curve, a drawdown is just a dip before the next leg up — you can see the whole thing at once. In real time you're standing inside it with no idea how deep it goes or when it ends.