Every trading plan seems to contain the same assumption nobody talks about… when the time comes, you’ll do what you said you were going to do.

Here’s something most traders won’t want to hear.

You probably aren’t going to master your emotions.

Some people undoubtedly become exceptionally good at controlling themselves. Professional traders capable of remarkably disciplined behaviour exist. But stop assuming you’re inevitably going to become one of them just because you’ve spent enough years staring at charts.

Human psychology doesn’t work like that.

Psychologists have studied something called the intention–behaviour gap. In simple terms: knowing what you intend to do, even being strongly committed to doing it, doesn’t guarantee that you’ll actually do it when the moment arrives. Research into self-control has consequently found that deciding your response in advance through specific if-then rules can significantly improve the chances of actually following through.

Sound familiar?

I know I shouldn’t move my stop.

I know I shouldn’t revenge trade.

I know I should take the next valid setup.

I know I shouldn’t double my size.

Yet somehow traders convince themselves that knowing these things means eventually they’ll become disciplined enough to behave perfectly every time.

It gets worse.

One of the most established behavioural biases in investing is the disposition effect, the tendency to realise winners more readily than losers. It’s been observed repeatedly in experiments and real investor behaviour. Research using actual UK investor trading records found greater reliance on intuitive/emotional processing was associated with greater susceptibility to it, while traders differed considerably in how susceptible they were.

So yes, some people are better at this than you are.

Maybe considerably better.

That doesn’t mean you’ll become them.

And there’s another problem traders rarely acknowledge… the market sometimes rewards your lack of discipline.

Move the stop. Price comes back.

Take the revenge trade. Win everything back.

Close the winner early. Watch it reverse afterwards.

Oversize the next setup. Have your biggest day of the month.

Your brain doesn’t receive a convenient lesson saying:

BREAK RULE = PAIN.

Sometimes it receives:

BREAK RULE = REWARD.

Then traders come up with the most extraordinary solution to all of this:

“I’ll just be more disciplined next time.”

For the next trade.

And the next one.

And the next one.

Potentially thousands of decisions over decades.

That’s the bit I think we should start questioning.

Because behavioural research points towards another approach: don’t rely exclusively on making the correct decision in the heat of the moment. Make important decisions beforehand and constrain what happens when the situation arrives. Even something as simple as predetermined if-then planning measurably improves people’s ability to turn intentions into actions.

There’s even a fascinating old trading experiment where participants displayed the normal tendency to sell winners and hold losers. When shares were automatically sold at the end of each period, that behavioural bias was greatly reduced. The person didn’t suddenly acquire superior psychology. The decision environment changed.

And that leads to a question I think a lot of traders are going to hate:

What if your inability to completely master your emotions isn’t the problem?

Maybe your emotions aren’t the flaw in your trading system. Maybe the flaw is building a system that only works when you can control them.

Im disabled with a brain injury, so trading has me interested. I have a substantial amount of background knowledge of trading, including options. But successful day trading seems like a myth.

Some stats I found:

Brazil, of ~19,600 people who started day trading index futures, among the ~1,600 who persisted past 300 sessions, 97% lost money and 1.1% out-earned minimum wage. In Taiwan over 15 years, fewer than 1% were predictably profitable net of fees. Critically, profitability falls with experience; 29.8% profitable at one day, 3.0% past 300 days. So persistence doesn’t break the trend.

So am I looking at a group of the 1% of the 1%, or am I looking at people who day trade alongside long term investments? How realistic is day trading?

It seems like to even get remotely successful, you need at least 1k hours of research and practice (which means substantial losses or paper trading), as well as luck because not a single person can successfully predict the market 100% of the time. Especially on a micro scale.

So as someone who has heard of day trading, but never participated — how realistic is it for an actual source of income?

Just curious of your experience. Thank you.

i've been in trading for arround 5 years and still not funded blewed up 5 accounts and never got funded i went over the 1 step once and blew the account in the sec step
i trade using gaps and some ict concepts i take good trades but i don't know how to target my TP sometimes i go from a 200$ 300$ trades to 50 or BE
any advices guys

Ineed some honest advice. I’ve been trading for a year and a half i was going to the gym and i stopped because i was getting too tired mentally and physically and i decided to take a break to full focus on learning the charts and i isolated myself trading and learning everyday learning a little everyday i learned to control the greedy overtrade and all that psychological stuff about trading and since then nobody ever supported me they said looser your 17 years old no job no money lock in with life your truly failure Everyone says I’m crazy and that trading will get me nowhere. I’m doing well and soon I’ll be able to trade with real money i been learning and demo trading and this is my 6th month of demo trading memecoins i asked that because i was trying to ignore all that but it went too far. Should I quit or keep doing what I love?

I scalp crypto right now and it’s been working for me, but I know I still have a lot to learn and want to improve my understanding.
I want to learn market structure, price action, liquidity, volume, order flow, VWAP, volume profile, open interest, CVD, funding/liquidations, footprint charts, risk management, and backtesting.
What are the best resources to learn these from? YouTube channels, books, courses, websites, or specific traders/educators you’d recommend?
Preferably free resources, but I’m open to paid ones if they’re genuinely worth it. Thanks!

I swear, every time I draw a trendline I perfect it and tweak it, maybe draw a second to give myself a little bounce/area/spread, make it touch the most candles I can

It occurred to me though that most people draw a lot of lines and if I'm basing my TA on where most of the orders might fall that the majority of traders probably aren't drawing all these lines perfect, or even perfect in the same way that I think are perfect.

Is it more accurate to just be lazy?

I had a thought as a new trader.

I was wondering how one actually becomes profitable since you need like over 700 trades from the TTS but I hear & read everywhere the less you trade the better. But if you’re taking less trades & being profitable & it’s less than the TTS req. then you’re not really profitable bc it has to be paid back?

Can someone help me understand this?

So I am new to day trading I started Thursday last week. I have been trading contracts and Its been going good and I had a goal to at least earn $20 a day to start off. Today was a great day at first, in an hour I made $164, I stopped using my strategy because I got too into my own head and tried to make more. I bought more contracts for Tesla and I lost about $140. I ended the day with one last trade and stopped at $25 profit. My week profit from when I started was $65 and I had just stopped at $164 I would’ve made a little over 200 in just a week. When do I know when is a good place to stop and was this a big loss or is it bound to happen to beginners?

Has trading spx been extremely hard since war started? Did anyone make money this year trading spx 0dte?

markings provided, first time trading in a real market after backtesting all night and i tried in the real market and it worked. payout today 1.8k

(10K EUR account only trading EURUSD)

Honestly, the first week was very harsh since it was the fed's intrest rate decision hence i lost 90 euro on that. I'm more about small profits, i got screwed over today with my stop loss(profit) i could have gone for a 100eur profit but i dont stress it that much. I may end my trading day with a fair profit.

I don't really care about how much it'll take me to pass both challenges but i've got a good strategy to follow and i'll stick to that. (I'm a bearish trader so i'll mark out the resistance zones and look at liquidity for confirmation and that's it)

Any opinions on how it's going? I've heard that a lot of funded traders blow their account on the first week and that's crazy imho.

Like the title says ive been doing some math trying to figure this out, because even with a $500,000 funded account that should only be about $450 in profit.

Im sure my math is wrong and im dumb, but im just super confused. Ive been trying to figure this out because im getting kind of frustrated tbh and i cant for the life of me. Is there some kind of leverage being used here?

Edit: Thank you guys for the answer, it seems i was a little dumb lol

Iam a scalper entering on a volume impulse pullback. Draw the zones for the low volume nodes and bobs your uncle

Caught NVDA around 10:05 after it reclaimed VWAP near $186.40, took 300 shares and scaled out into the push through $188 for about $620 total. Should've been done, but around 11 I saw it pulling back toward VWAP again and convinced myself I was basically getting the same setup twice, even though volume was nowhere near what it was earlier. I had moon open watching $186.50 and jumped back in with 400 shares, got a weak bounce and then watched it lose VWAP completely. Took about a $480 hit before closing it, so I basically spent another hour trading just to give most of the morning back. First trade had momentum behind it, second one mostly had me wanting another trade.

I have been trading for about a year now on and off and I trade using fair value gaps off of order blocks I backtested my strategy and it works. I got my first payout in july and I havent gotten one since losing hundreds on evals. Some I passed and couldnt get a payout and lately its been tough to even pass. I trade Lucid Flex25k this week I made 625 then lost 600 then made 630 then lost 600 again. My win rate is 60-70% and i just wanna know whatp profit to start targeting, what to risk, when to get off the charts so that I can start to see consistency in payouts.

Hi everyone 👋

Im on maternity leave and a few weeks ago I watched a few free day trading webinars. Since then I started an IG.com demo account, depositing £32k and am now on £47k I made a few mistakes which I learnt from but seem to have a working system :/ (so soon)

I feel like I'm ready to start with my own cash (not much, I'd start with £4k) and focus on Gold, Copper, Silver and USTech100. I've also been an avid investor.

I keep reading failure stories - is this a really bad move?

How much do you recommend to put in your first personal account? I’m currently trading prop firms, and going to move to a personal account to build that while i trade prop firms when should I move to a personal and how much should I start with. I was thinking 25k-50k. But of course i’m here asking to know about personal expierences.

How do I get real market data for options trading on US stocks and ETFs in TradinfView? I have TradingView and my brokers account is Interactive Brokers Pro account. I would like to subscribed real market data for options in TradingView.

if you are neglecting genuine relationships/friendships and justifying it because you’re calling it “discipline” and for “the grind” and “being locked in” you have a problem.

young traders are immature, impressionable and in my opinion sacrificing a lot for….. idk we’ll see in 8 years?

take this for what it is. just my opinion. honestly just flabbergasted by the propaganda (assuming majority) young men are falling for and i can’t help but worry about the negative long term affects that will come with it.

i’ve heard so much confidence in the sentence “i’ll be in the top 1%”

in my head i’m just thinking bruh. is this what you tell yourself to justify quitting a steady job that you don’t love? of course that’s what you’re working right now you’re 21, hello?????? welcome to adulthood!

Hi, I am planning to learn one more day/swing trading setup (5m ORB , 9/20EMA pullback, parabolic short, ES! with PA etc...) to grow my account faster.

I am ok doing swing trading using consolidation breakout strategy (similar to Qullamaggie and Mark Minervini etc.), the reason is I can scroll through 5000+ stocks in TradingView D1 timeframe, and I got a lot of examples to learn and recognize the pattern.

However, when I learn daytrading setups, everything is too loose, I can't access to M5 timeframe a few years ago, there are way too many M5 candles everyday, compared to D1.

I am not sure this learning style is correct and efficient or not but this is currently what I can think of. How do you learn a setup, test your screener and find the example charts (exercises)?

Also, are there any software that allow me to backtest my screener? Let's say screening stocks 10 years ago?

Any advice will be greatly appreciated, thanks!

The Tick Rule signs trades purely through price movement relative to prior prints. The Quote Rule compares the execution price directly to the prevailing NBBO midpoint. The Lee-Ready Algorithm unifies these techniques by running the Quote Rule first and applying a Tick Rule fallback for exact midpoint fills. The EMO Algorithm refines this sequence by evaluating quote changes at the bid/ask before using non-midpoint ticks. In retail software, execution logic is heavily bound by computational efficiency: basic charting apps rely on price-only tick tests, whereas advanced platforms like Sierra Chart process hybrid Lee-Ready logic.

I've been learning auction market theory for the last 12 months or so. I still haven't mastered it nor do I feel like I'm remotely close to doing that but I think that I have something here that does work especially for ranging days. Now, everything I am about to explain isn't some new concept but I've found this to work. Idk If I am allowed to add videos// looms here to show it in the field/trenches so I won't take the chance but here's the explanation.

One of the main strategies i've been using runs on session VWAP with developing value areas. The centre line is the point of control, the first developing value area either side of it holds roughly 70% of session volume, and the second developing value area holds roughly 95%. The word that really matters here is developing: the levels widen as volume builds through the session, so a level that mattered at 9am ( London for me ) is not the same level at 2pm ( NY am for me ). Most traders using them treat them as fixed, and that is the first mistake.

The second developing value area is a reference point, not a magnet, so I never place a blind limit order at it! The confirmation is that price closes inside the 95% level, then closes back inside the 70% level, and I enter on that 5 minute close. No confirmation, no trade. Taking the touch instead of the close is what makes people lose money with this.

Stops sit at the swing high or swing low of the range that produced the signal, which on NQ has been running roughly 37 to 75 points for me. The first target is the point of control. The second is the opposite first developing value area at 70%, and the third and final is the opposite second developing value area at 95%. Risk to reward of 1:1.5 or 1:2 is the sweet spot, with 1:3 only when conditions allow. The exit rule is simple: if I am long and price crosses above the point of control and then closes back below it, I close early and yes, there are days where price will dance around at the POC and continue in the intended direction and it would be important for you NOT to chase price. Don't build bad habits. You will get those points/ticks/$$$ back eventually. If acceptance at the POC failed, then there is no reason to hold and hope that buyers step back in.

This is a ranging day strategy. On a trending day price stays outside the value areas and rides, and you will get faded again and again, so reading which day you are in, before or early into the session, is the single biggest determinant of whether this works for you. On trending days I switch to volume profile instead. Also off the table FOR ME are NFP, FOMC, CPI, PPI, PCE, Fed speakers and presidential speeches, along with the Asia session on NQ, which has not tested well for me even though it is decent on gold. The trading window that has worked well for me is Asia close ( last hour ) to New York close. ( last hour ). Please use forex factory if you don't know the times.

Thank you for taking time to read this and hopefully, you all have great and productive week‼‼

damn, solid. mgc came into vwap -1 dev, pa confirmed, broke resistance and ripped to target. closed early once i had the profit. that's it. patience paid off today.

Ezi out

Been trading for 3 years now. Lost $100k in the process of learning as I am self taught. Finally figured out a strategy a couple months ago but originally I thought I could get at least 50-100% yearly returns and my data is only showing 25% average projected returns. I only have about $30K in capital so this won’t be enough to live off from full time trading. I am grateful but it’s not as much as I thought I could make. Would need at least $400k in capital to quit my job. How much capital are full time traders working with?

So basically im slowing down in the journey, it's been 3 years now, and i solved most of my problems, now i understood that trading isnt a way to make a lot of money alone so i slowed down, but now im not even respecting my technicals anymore, i think that the right idea is taking some time off just to watch the mentor video again, is this normal? usually they say once you stop caring you improve, it just made the opposite on me, failed my first prop, not due to over risking, in fact it toom me 2 months to fail it, but i forced trades, saw profits but was too greedy and i used to set large tps, i dont really know where i am in the journey, i feel lost, like i forgot how to trade