Phase of Price is always the first filter.
Reversals always form from a key Level [Univ.Model]
1. Fair Value Gap
2. Old High or Low
Reversals have characteristic signatures:
1. V-Shape
2. Gaps Created
3. Shallow retracement away from point of reversal
Losses can be avoided by employing these filters.
Once you realize time is all we have..
Things start to become very clear.
I hope it doesn’t take you long to realize this…
Unfortunately for me, I learned it very early in life. I lost both my parents to terminal cancer. If I had taken my trading more seriously, maybe I could have afforded better care for my father. Just one more month.. one more day… one more hour… would be worth any price tag.
Your journey as a trader has a BIGGER purpose.
Every time you click that button.. you have the ability to buy time. More flexibility to spend that time with loved ones. More money to afford proper insurance, better options for a healthier lifestyle, etc.
You have a duty to them.
If you are on this journey.. treat it with the seriousness it deserves.
I guarantee if you do.. you’ll turn into an unrecognizable savage when it comes to pursuing your goals.
all I track after a trade:
was the bias right?
was the delivery as expected?
was the entry in the right context?
three questions, that's the whole review process
when trading finally clicks, you’ll realize you’ve built a lifelong skillset
not just for trading, but for investing as well
a craft you can keep refining across different markets and conditions
every adjustment and small iteration compounds over time
I hate the argument that profitable traders are able to be patient and not trade every day because they now have money.
Ummm no, that’s how you become profitable in the first place. By not forcing yourself to trade every candle you see.
Trading doesn’t pay you based on time spent at your desk, like other jobs.
It pays you based on the quality of your decisions.
Who’s the better trader in this scenario:
1. Trader who sits out for 3-6 months because they don’t see any reason to put on risk.
2. Trader who can’t wait patiently and trades every single session blowing up numerous accounts.
Who is outperforming by actually doing nothing?
trading is one of the most miserable career choices you can make.
it’s also one of the best.
because trading gives you no guarantees.
you can spend 10 years in the game and still end up with less than you started with.
or make life changing money in what looks like a single month.... when in reality it took 5 years of pain to get there.
that’s the nature of it.
> constant pressure
> constant uncertainty
> constant exposure to yourself
some people collapse under that.
some build a level of resilience most careers will never force out of you.
if you are wired for self-reflection and systems thinking, trading can become one of the most transformative things you ever do.
not just because of the money.
because it refines you.
so yes, it’s brutal.
but the upside is almost unmatched.
financially, psychologically, existentially.
and if you cannot learn without someone holding your hand, you either build the ability to educate yourself
or you choose a different path.
because long-term trading and dependence on external opinions do not coexist.
that is the cost...
and that is also the gift.
in trading,
you can work hard and still get nothing in return
because simply putting time in is not enough
your effort needs to be directed to the right places
hours of studying scattered concepts gets you nowhere,
but hours refining your own system gets you far
days in the market trading random setups gets you nowhere,
but days executing your defined plan gets you far
weeks of ignoring your own faults gets you nowhere,
but weeks of correcting your mistakes gets you far
months of trading without review gets you nowhere,
but months of consistent journaling gets you far
the time spent is the same,
while the outcome is completely different
one only makes you feel like progress should follow,
the other demands it
so consider how you spend the hours, days, weeks, and months
are you creating progress or only working to an end?
because your trading does not care solely about time spent,
it responds to the actual direction and intent of your effort
remember that
That is the brutal truth about trading, and that is why I don't wonder why only 1% succeed in this field....
Extraordinary dreams require extraordinary work ethic...⏳ 🧘♂️
There’s this belief that the more trades you take, the more money you make. This is one of the biggest trading myths. The more you trade, the greater the likelihood you’re taking poor trades that don’t fit your model, there’s also the psychological stress that comes with lots of trading volume.
Focus on positioning. You want to spend most days managing positions, not executing new ones
before every trade, I ask two questions:
is the context clear and high probability?
if this trade loses, would I take it again?
if either answer is no, there’s no trade
More people can go on a diet and lose weight than can learn a trading strategy and become profitable.
More people can go to medical school and become a doctor than can learn a trading strategy and become profitable.
More people can read a book on a subject and know more about said subject than can learn a trading strategy and become profitable.
What similarities do all of these comparatives have, and why do we see such a huge percentages of unprofitable traders?
The answer lies within a false dichotomy of linear expectancy of observed results.
If one reduces caloric intake, they will lose weight as a linear function of that caloric intake deficit.
If one progresses through a year of medical school, they are 25% through their base qualification to practice medicine.
Each book read on a subject imparts specific, explicit knowledge on that subject. You can observe a linear progression of knowledge acquisition.
How does trading differ?
Trading requires you to learn several technical & fundamental confluences, adhere to them with perfect discipline, all whilst dynamically managing a finite equity curve.
This process takes thousands of hours with almost no linearly correlated return.
This is referred to as your building edge or alpha in the markets.
If you do all of these things, profitable trading thereafter demands that when perfectly executing this edge, you actively accept losing money, sometimes for extended periods (drawdowns), all while accepting this too is a part of your edge.
There is no linear association of progress in this situation. You essentially must blindly trust that capital weight and time will exponentially return for you.
Our brains don’t like this. We break our rules.
We stray from our edge in an attempt to falsely emulate some sense of linearity of expectancy; this makes our primordial brains happy.
We revenge trade to end up green on the day, because surely the amount of work we have put in means we MUST generate a return on capital each day/week/month.
Our brains cannot fathom our edge would ever see multiple days, or even weeks, of drawdown, despite this being an absolute certainty of probabilities within any defined edge in the market.
We over leverage after a series of losers in a futile attempt to rationalize this linear expectancy.
So yes. Trading, paradoxically, is much harder than most professions.
The issue is not learning a profitable system.
The issue lies within convincing ourselves that our system truly IS profitable despite the myriad of short term signals that convince us of the contrary.
Trading is a fundamental contradiction of our prescribed notion of progress.
But then again, if we were to truly evaluate the other comparatives I gave you, you would see that trading really isn’t any different than anything else in life we falsely associate linearity with.
It is objectively much easier to lose 10 pounds when severely obese, than it is to shed 10 pounds at a normal BMI. In fact it’s probably a multiplicity of efforts greater to lose weight as you begin shedding pure excess fat.
One just attributes the immense dopamine response of the initial weight loss with a positive linear expectancy for the rest of the journey. Think newbie gains in the gym….
You get the point I don’t need to convince you that a first year medical student has anywhere near 25% of the knowledge as the graduated doctor…
So perhaps the issue isn’t that we don’t perceive trading towards profitability as linearly associated, but that we falsely attribute this quality to most other things in our life.
This simple understanding should empower you to reframe your current perspective & situation with trading.
You can do this. You might not believe it possible to the same extent as other goals you have but I promise you can do it.
Trading really is like anything you’ve ever accomplished.
The greatest athletes have trained so hard they perform instinctively.
Put the reps into mastering and refining your model to a point where you can react instinctively and risk professionally
Trading is one of the hardest skills to learn in the world
There’s a reason why even the top traders still have losing weeks, months or even years
It’s an incredibly hard skill to master
But it also provides more benefits than any other job - complete location freedom, time freedom and you don’t have any boss, clients or customers that you have to answer
It’s just you and the charts
It’s one of the hardest skills to master, but also the best skill you can have
Burn the midnight oil…
Edit the draft again…
Practice the slides one more time…
Create the follow up script for that one off scenario…
There’s no shortcut.
You can take longer to do it.
But it still needs to get done.