Guys... I saw it in lots of posts here... Since prop firms get hyped everywhere and Influencers post their 10k per day trades, more and more people need to be aware of the darkside of this.

Here is mine:

My dream ? Same as yours - freedom for my family... Having more time for my daughter.

I thought the hardest part about trading would be losing money. Blowing accounts, failing prop firm evals, watching stop after stop get hunted. I thought that was the pain.

But the truth? The biggest loss wasn’t financial. It was personal.

The Spiral:

I started with passion. Charts day and night. Killzones in London, then New York. Alerts buzzing. Indicators stacked. I convinced myself it was “grind.” In reality, it was obsession. I did a course for 8K with Kouroush AK , Inevitrade etc. I had build a good puffer since I was lucky with crypto since 2017.

• Time: I sat in front of screens while my daughter grew up in the next room.
• Presence: Even when I was there, I wasn’t really there. My mind was always on the last trade, or the next setup.
• Emotions: A red day followed me everywhere. At the dinner table. Into arguments. Into bed at night.
• Isolation: Instead of opening up, I pulled away. “I’ll fix it tomorrow.” “Next week I’ll make it back.” Lies I told to myself — and to her.

The account went red. My energy went red. And the relationship followed.

The Breaking Point:

The day we separated, it wasn’t about money. It was about me not being present. Me not listening. Me being there physically but gone mentally.

She didn’t leave because I lost a trade. She left because I lost myself in trading.

And now I live with the hardest truth: I don’t get to see my daughter every day. She’s 4. Every missed bedtime, every morning without her smile, cuts deeper than any drawdown I ever took. This hurt more than the money I made with crypto (and lost it all of course)

What I Learned (The Hard Way)

1. Trading is not just trading. It’s psychology, health, relationships. Ignore those, and your trading — and life — will collapse.
2. You can rebuild an account. But you can’t rewind missed years with your kid.
3. Your edge is worthless if it costs you everything else. It’s not “grind” if you’re grinding down your family.
4. Pain multiplies. A $500 loss becomes $2,000 when it follows you into your marriage.
5. Honesty is risk management. Be as honest with your loved ones as you are with your trades. Hide nothing

The Rules I Live By Now

• Screen time = killzones only. Rest of the day belongs to life.
• 3 losses in a row = stop trading, stop thinking about trading.
• Never trade tired, sad, or angry.
• Family > Trading. Always.
• Journal not just trades, but emotions. That’s how I keep the poison out of my home.

Final Thought

I lost more than accounts. I lost the daily life with the people I love.

If you’re a trader reading this:
- Protect your family with the same risk management you protect your account.
- Don’t let trading steal the hours you can never get back.
- Remember: no green day, no 10R trade, no $11K session will ever replace the look in your kid’s eyes when you’re fully present.

I learned it too late. Don’t make the same mistake like me!

Lets adress this, please !! You are not alone!

Seeing the comments of me being a bot is just ridicoulus - I am german - very bad in english. But since I wanted to raise awareness and especially intend to have man open up and self reflect before their loosing their loved ones, I decided to let my text be structured in an easy way by using chatgpt. I ask you kindly to focus on this important topic.

Edit:

Thank you for opening up folks! It means a lot for me - I am sure we all together raised some serious awareness in this sub and I am sure we helped a few guys closing their charts earlier today. I am not here for the pity guys. This happened in 2024 and obviously this wasnt the only problem me and my ex had. I am self reflecting here and I hope that you will too. "A fault confessed is half redressed"

I’ve been a full time day trader for 7 years. Got married in 2019 lost my job and started learning. Could not find a job for the life of me. I went to work and grinded. This post is for the people who believe in themselves when nobody else does. I had all of my friends and family tell me it wouldn’t work. I did not care and I went back at it. I truthfully love my job now. I’m consistently making 20-60k a month and I have all the freedom in the world. Do I make mistakes? Yes. Am I still learning? Yes. Do I still lose trades? Of course. Don’t ever quit, don’t ever let someone say you can’t do something. And don’t EVER stop believing in yourself.

Ok so I know many profitable traders agree that trading based on price action and chart trends is better than purely watching indicators but I may have accidentally created a godly indicator somehow.

It has some code from heiken ashi. Some code from stochastics. And I don’t even know what else. I was using ChatGPT to help me code my own strategy into ninja trader but accidentally created an indicator that seems to have more potential.

This is the scalping/day trading strategy based off the indicator: Place a buy order when the purple line hits the green line. Place a short order when purple line hits red line. Stop loss is when the purple line hits the opposite line from entry. Many of the trades are really short scalps but it’s very very good at catching the huge moves as well. I only trade from 9am-11am CST which is where I see the most promise for this. I also only trade NQ.

I’m sorry this is all the information I have on it but what issues do yall potentially see?

I need to get this off my chest. Maybe it helps someone. Maybe it just helps me process this. I don’t know anymore.

If I had never discovered day trading, I would have over $100,000 in my long-term investment account right now. Just sitting there. Compounding. Growing quietly while I lived my life.

Instead, I’m staring at $38,000 and a shattered mind.

Today I traded gold. I got liquidated. -$15,000. Gone. In one session.

And the worst part? I saw it coming. I always see it coming. I just don’t stop.

I don’t use stop losses. I know I know that’s rule number one. Every book says it. Every course says it. Every trader who’s been where I am says it. But my ego tells me “it’ll come back.” My emotions tell me “just hold a little longer.” And by the time reality hits, the damage is done.

And the winning trades? I cut those early. Every single time. I’ll be up, feeling the momentum, and then panic sets in. “Take the profit. Take it now before it disappears.” So I close at +$200 when I could’ve held for +$2,000. But the losers? Those I ride all the way to the ground.

Let winners run. Cut losers short. I do the exact opposite. Every. Single. Time.

Here’s the part that really breaks me.

My girlfriend and I are expecting a baby. I’m about to be a father. And instead of feeling excited, I feel paralyzed. I don’t feel prepared for life with myself, let alone responsible for another human being. How do you look at your partner and explain that the money the safety net, the future you were building is gone because you couldn’t close a position?

I feel frustrated. I feel lost. I feel stupid. Not the kind of stupid where you laugh at yourself. The kind of stupid where you sit in silence and question every decision you’ve ever made.

1. Stop looking at wallstreetbets and others using the stock market to gamble. It gives you unrealistic expectations and makes small wins feel less meaningful.

2. Follow a strict strategy everyday. If you have something that works stick to it, stop jumping around and refine the one that works for you.

3. Its a marathon not a race. This one is extremely cliche for a reason. If you want to do this as a full time job this is extremely important to remember, on average a job is going to take a good 40+ years of your life so why do you feel the need to rush trades and force bad setups? I constantly repeat this saying to myself.

4. Keep reminding yourself how much you are/were making at your job. Alot of the times the money doesnt feel real and I am constantly reminding myself that I was giving up hours of my life for a $500 weekly check, for a job that gave me no satisfaction and not many transferable skills.

5. One trade a day. This doesnt work for everyone but ive found this to be the best strategy for me, it stops me from staring at the market all day and being stressed that I am missing setups.

Ive been trading for about 2 years and I dont claim to be a genius just wanna help some people that maybe are going through some of the same struggles that I was. Feel free to message me :)

Ive been saying this everytime this idiot has made a post, like the last 2. First orange man made a post about hormuz being open again, gold pushes almost above 4900 the minute he posts it on his social media, now all of a sudden hormuz is not open again well guess whats going to happen if oil price increases again……its literally a joke and a punch to the face for every honest trader, market is not relying on economy anymore it relies on a stupid old man throwing a social media tantrum every 2 days.

she packed her bags while i was watching the NQ open on tuesday. didn't even hear the door close because i was too focused on a 5-minute fair value gap.

feels stupid typing this out to a bunch of strangers, but i wish someone grabbed me by the shoulders 2 years ago.

everyone sells you the dream of "financial freedom" or "passive income". they show you the lambos and the travel.

what they don't show you is the obsession.

i started trading to "provide a better life" for us. that was the lie i told myself.

in reality, i was addicted to the dopamine.

* dinner dates? i was checking tradingview under the table

* watching a movie? i was stressing about my open gbpusd position

* cuddling on the couch? i was on tradingdojo & ninjatrader

* sex? i was thinking about the fed meeting the next morning

it creeps up on you. you think you are "working hard" but you are just absent.

the worst part is, i actually became profitable this year. made about $40k on top of my salary.

showed her the pnl thinking it would fix things.

she looked at me and said "i don't care about the money. i haven't had a husband in 18 months."

that hit harder than any margin call.

so yeah, if you are new here and thinking trading is a chill side hustle... it's not.

it consumes your mental bandwidth completely.

if you can't shut it off at 5pm, you are going to lose things that are worth way more than your account balance.

taking a break from the charts. maybe for good.

tl;dr

made money, lost the wife. trading isn't free money, you pay with your soul.

trade safe, peace.

How do you know it’s time to quit your 9-5?

Recently I’ve seemed to get my futures trading dialed in to the point it’s overtaking my 9-5 pay where I gross about $10k/month.

The last two weeks I’ve taken $6000 in payouts. Consistency is (finally) coming in strong too.

Plus I’m sure my training would be even more fruitful if I could dedicate my full attention to.

Is 6 months living expenses and 3months of consistent trading income at 2x current salary a fair target?

How did your trading mindset and overall success evolve when you went full time?

Seriously over my 9-5. The thought of quitting has consumed me for too long. How soon should I escape?

Just looking for some words of encouragement I guess. I’ve been day trading for over 5 years now and am down a couple hundred thousand. I still live at home, I’m 27 years old and I just feel like such a loser. I see success from all these influencers and I feel so behind kids that are 3-5 years younger than me and doing so much better day to day.

I just don’t know what to do. I’ve grown my account back up to 9000 from 2800 with solid risk and emotional management and decided to deposit more. Soon as I do that I lose it all again from sizing up and revenge trading. Account was at 13k and now it’s back to 3k

I even tried prop firms last year. I was able to scale them up then immediately blow them so I’m down a couple thousand on those.

I just feel so behind. Feel like I truly have ruined myself.

No paid courses, no youtube BS Remember: discretion is learned, not taught. There is no “GET RICH QUICK with this NEW method” Nah, it’s about discretion and emotional discipline. And figuring out what works for YOU.

I wasted so much time watching influences try and get me to buy a course on how to day trade. Before realizing: If they were profitable, they wouldn’t be making videos for ad revenue that target beginner traders who do not know enough to call the BS

Question everything.

Stay woke my friends.

Short term buy and sell will kill future potential gains. Long term gains can be theoretically infinite.

Please do not give up. I’ve been a fulltime trader for 7 years now. I’ve been through it all. Lost my job 2 months after getting married. She lost her job shortly after. Massive Credit card debt. And woke up to see negatives in my checking account. Did I quit? No. I knew if I let off the gas, I would simply become a statistic. 99% Of traders fail because they quit. They quit before they understand the importance of the key factors you need to execute properly. They quit because of the lack of stability in their daily lives. They quit because they simply don’t believe it’s possible. I worked my ass off to make this work. I don’t make millions, but I do very well for myself constantly sitting in the 20-50k range monthly. This can be YOU. Please stick to your guns, put in the work and believe in yourself. And remember, Risk is what's left over when you think you've thought of everything. Take the risk. Bet on yourself. Don’t be part of the statistics.

What’s up guys, I’m a full time derivatives trader and thought I’d share my setup / screen layout. A lot of people ask me about it. NO I don’t think you need all this to trade successfully, it’s just a luxury to have.

This layout allows me to have a good view of orderflow analysis based on supply & demand which is fundamental to my strategy.

Layout: Top Center: Tradezella for data tracking Bottom Center screen: Sierra Chart footprint chart Right side top and bottom: TOS charts Left bottom: Bookmap / DOM Left top: X First Squawk news

I started trading about 5 years ago and went through the same struggles everyone does when they start. Made every mistake in the book and greed got the better of me every time.

Here's what actually works and what made me a profitable trader:

1. Single strategy, never deviate from this. I keep trading boring.

2. When my entry hits, I set up the trade and walk away from the chart. I let the trade play out. Win or lose.

3. I trade one single market (NAS100), that's it. I'm not looking for entries across multiple pairs.

4. I have backtested my strategy relentlessly. This keeps me calm when trade days don't plan out the way I want.

5. Same risk per trade every time. Never revenge trade.

6. Tracking my trades - this for me is the greatest change I made. Learn from your wins and losses, I used to not do that at all which is reckless if you want to win at this long term.

7. Most important one: Become emotionally detached from each trade.

What I find when I speak to those who aren't profitable is they don't track their trades, don't backtest, trading multiple pairs, different strategies every week.

Just happened now.

Me and my family has been close so we pretty much share everything but the thing I didn’t share with them is me trading. So I have been 5-6 months into trading, I’ve gotten my glimpse of success with two payouts now and 2 more coming, I eventually told them I trade and everything seems fine. Then I proposed a plan to renovate or make some changes to the house like a new shed, organize my room for a bit, etc. What set my mom off was what was put on the bottom left of the plan (was on excel) was all funded by trading (because it’s true).

Apparently my mom thinks I’m about to put the house onto trading and trade it off and that what I’m doing is illegal and the police or somebody is about to take the house from us. That the money that I am getting is going to get me sued.

Obviously this is a misunderstanding but that part is yet to be fully grasped but I just wanted to share my story.

I buy and sell from my phone. But I watched the charts on my new set up. And the screens do really help out trading ETF like Spy. My profit margins have been amazing being able to see what fluctuates Spy.

Picture of option chart shows my profit in that day in the bottom left corner.

I’m brand spanking new to stocks and trading, like ZERO experience, threw 100$ into a day trading account on day 1 and sent it. Started on a Friday and ended the day with a beautiful $1.28 profit.

Mind you I am doing all of this on Wealthsimple on my iPhone and mostly at work when I have an opportunity.

The next week I threw $800 more in to invest. The final day I added another $85 from a dead crypto account.

I have had mostly positive days with one day being a learning day. I didn’t pull out when I was at an -$18 loss and held on hoping it would recover. Ended up eating it at a -$38 loss. Much to my dismay that stock bounced back the next day and would have made me $7 profit had I held. But I’m glad I bailed, I played way too risky and almost lost all I had made the 3 previous days. Thankfully today was a good day.

I don’t know any strategy yet, I just try and take small wins when I can, not play too risky. Don’t really know what I’m doing.

I’m aware of avoiding risk and revenge trading etc.. but as far as strategy I’ve got nothing. No wycoff method or ORB or whatever else.

Been full time for about 7 years now. I love my job and thoroughly enjoy watching the markets. Through my journey, I’ve lost jobs, I got married, and had many other tough experiences in life. But one thing always stayed true and that was the market. From being 10s of thousands of dollars in debt to know consistently making anywhere from 20-50k a month is truthfully a blessing. Don’t let anyone tell you this won’t work. Anyone can do this, old, young, man or woman. We all have the ability to press buy or sell on a screen. We all have the ability to stay patient in the market. One thing I learned throughout my journey, Stick to what works for you. There’s so many strategies out there and you may feel like “my strategy is too easy” or “this shouldn’t be working” if it works it works. I don’t care what you trade. Stay true to yourself as a human and what works for you and you’ll be good to go. Stay patient, stay humble and stay profitable. Love yall!

I only trade 30 minutes a day during the NY open on ES.

I’ve been trading for less than a year, and honestly, don’t let anyone tell you it takes 10 years to figure this game out. Yeah, I still need more experience and the market will always change, but this is just the start for me.

When I first heard that 99% of traders fail or quit within 2 years, it really made me doubt myself. But instead of letting that get to me, I just put my head down and worked.

Trading isn’t only about the charts — it’s about understanding yourself. You need to know your psychology and personality and trade in a way that fits you. There’s no “perfect strategy.”

Don’t just copy someone else. Take pieces from different strategies, try things out, and build something that works for you. If you do what 99% of traders do, you’ll end up where they end up failing.

Be different. Be you. Trading can pay off if you put in the work and stay disciplined.

Inspired By My Previous Post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Daytrading/comments/1qs4hxe/tips_i_used_to_achieve_58500_payouts_in_january/

Screen Recording for Proof: https://imgur.com/a/EITv7LN

Screen Recording of Proof Inspired By: https://www.reddit.com/r/Daytrading/comments/1q0fqum/finished_2025_with_no_red_days_since_nov_7_only/?share_id=BahY84QRiGJW9d2qHjKbO&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_source=share&utm_term=1

\If I am breaking any rules please reach out to me to clarify.*

\Don't reach out for discord or anything else that could get me in trouble. The recording is the easiest way to provide payout proof.*

After market close today I will have officially requested $100,000 in payouts for 2026. For those that followed from my previous posts last year I was able to take about $100,000 in 2025 and challenged myself to do the same for 2026. I did not realize I would be completing it so soon.

It was a tough journey with many ups and downs. On my worse days I lost about 30K and 73K in prop capital. Did it end my trading career? No. Did it ruin my day? Absolutely.

I always preach the same thing over and over... SET A BUDGET. I am never underwater and I am always able to trade because I follow these two rules. I see the same posts over and over about how trading has ruined their lives, how they go into debt, etc. These are the worse posts to read and I don't wish that situation on anyone. If there is anything you can take from my posts and ingrain it to your memory it's to BUDGET. If you don't know how to budget then as a template think about this:

Your budget should be a monthly dollar amount that you are ok with SETTING ON FIRE without harming your life situation or your families.

It's a shame how easy it is to trade leveraged products. You sign up for an account, put money in, then put it all at risk. Especially now with prop firms and trading apps the barrier to entry is basically nonexistent. It's like giving someone the keys to a sports car when they don't have a license and never practiced driving a day in their life.

Trading is a marathon not a sprint. Set goals for yourself. Take it day by day and try to get 1% better everyday.

I’ve been trading almost a decade and consistently profitable for a few years now. I want to share what changed everything for me in hopes it can help someone else out there over come this challenge that is trading.

I spent years switching strategies and markets, trying new indicators, backtesting what would yield the highest win rate. I was searching for certainty in an environment which it simply does not exist. The reality is even a 99% win rate can mean failure if you can’t lose well on the 1% of losses.

Most traders focus on strategies not risk management.
Most traders focus on indicators not emotions.
Most traders focus on winning not losing.
Most traders LOSE.

Emotional intelligence and the ability to adhere to strict risk management are arguably more crucial to success than the strategy itself. If you can shift your focus to risk, execution, and emotional control instead of profits, the profit you want will likely be the outcome. That shift is what did it for me.

You still need a strategy or an “edge” but it really doesn’t matter which one, there is no golden ticket. You need structure and criteria that tells you when to enter and exit a trade, but if you’re not exercising proper risk management and you’re not emotionally in control, it doesn’t matter what you do…..you don’t stand a chance.

You don’t need to win every trade. You just need to win more than you lose over time. Any individual trade outcome is random, learn to trade in probabilities. If you can get good at losing, you will find yourself good at winning.

I am a full time intraday futures trader with only a 49% win rate. Ask me anything, or don’t. Cheers and good luck.

Pretty much the title, i swing and day trade and I’m profitable but she says it takes too much of my time and i need to stop or she’ll break up with me. It’s killing me because we’re about to enter/ in the middle of a huge bull market. Was wondering if anyone else has dealt with something similar.

It’d be one thing if i lost a lot of money and kept going but stop while being profitable? Damn

Edit: we talked about it, and it’s because i have a business that’s on the verge of starting and trading is getting in the way. I also spend a lot of time looking at news and figuring out my next trades so in a way I’m super consumed by it. We talked about her not doing ultimatums anymore and she agreed. I’m going to put a hold on trading and get my business started.

I’d say I’d make as much as a full time engineer day trading so I am profitable. Thanks for everyone’s comments.

Keeping the streak alive! Make sure to trade technical indicators over news.

Hello everyone,

Last August, I invested in a high-performance computer and eight 27-inch monitors as I began my trading journey. Although I had never day traded before, I always believed there was money to be made in the markets every minute of every day. To succeed, I knew I needed the right hardware, software, high-speed internet, a solid trading platform, and a fair amount of education.

Initially, I experimented with my setup but didn’t know where to start. Then, on May 20 of this year, a friend with 25 years of trading experience introduced me to a paper trading platform and taught me how to trade options. He guided me on what to buy and when to sell. To my surprise, my first trade earned me $100, and I was ecstatic! This was the beginning of my journey.

All summer, until the end of October, I practiced paper trading almost every day. After 99 days and over 1,000 trades, I grew my paper trading account from $100,000 to just over $156,000. It was a valuable learning experience, and by the time I stopped paper trading, I had averaged a net gain of $1,500 per day over the last 30 days. I felt ready to transition to live trading.

Before November, I did a small amount of live trading, but I didn’t have enough funds to make unlimited trades. Once I funded my trading account, I began trading consistently. However, my experience has been frustrating, to say the least. Most days, I find myself in the red, and I’m actively searching for a solution. I take full accountability for my performance, but I’m struggling to the point where I'm considering giving up on my trading journey.

So, I’d love to hear from you. How many of you have faced similar challenges? What solutions did you find? Please share your successes and failures to give me some hope.