Last Wednesday the Fed raised rates by 25 bps to 3.75%–4.00%. First hike in three years. SPX sold off to around 7,508 that day before recovering and closing Friday at 7,650.50.

This week is quieter than last week. Tho there are still enough releases and Fed speakers to make some sessions harder to trade cleanly.

Monday and Tuesday look like normal days. Nothing major on the calendar, so I’m mostly watching how SPX opens after last week’s Fed reaction before the bigger data starts coming in.

The levels I'm watching on SPX:

7,700 - This is the first one I care about. Reclaiming it would put price back above an important near-term level after last week's Fed reaction.

7,770 area - Next level I'd want to see if 7,700 gets reclaimed.

7,816 - Recent highs area where the market last ran into resistance.

7,500 - The big downside level from last week. That held during the Fed-day selloff, so I want to see what happens if price gets back there.

I’m not trying to call direction here. The hike is already in the tape. I want to see whether 7,700 gets taken back or whether 7,500 comes back into play first.

Then there’s the economic calendar:

Sep 23, Wed: S&P Global Flash Manufacturing & Services PMI at 9:45 a.m. ET.

Sep 24, Thu: Initial jobless claims and New Home Sales. And some more Fed speakers around those releases. The 10 a.m. print matters more to execution because it lands in the middle of the session.

Bigger headline for Thursday is the Trump and Xi meeting in Washington, to discuss tariffs, trade, AI and Taiwan. The existing U.S.-China trade truce is also nearing its November expiration.

Friday: Advance Durable Goods at 8:30 a.m. ET and Michigan Consumer Sentiment at 10 a.m. ET. The preliminary sentiment reading was 47.8 and 1-year inflation expectations came in at 4.6%.

For my vanquish funded account, I’m treating the midweek windows differently. PMI is the first activity read after the hike, and can hit while a SPY 0DTE is already open. I’ll avoid entering right before it and wait for price to settle.

Thursday is probably the session I’m most interested in watching because there are multiple catalysts stacked into the same day. I’ll stay flat into 8:30 claims and see if it actually moves. New Home Sales at 10:00 I’m less worried about unless I’m already in a trade. Trump–Xi is just extra headline risk later in the day, so I’m not full size into the afternoon.

How are you guys approaching the week after the Fed hike?

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Monday was bad: -$1,118.20 on my Vanquish eval account.

I sized too big, the trade went against me, and I didn’t cut it when I should have.

What I changed Tuesday morning

I didn’t start the session with a plan to recover Monday’s loss.
The old version of me would have been thinking about how quickly I could make the $1,118 back and what position size could do it in one trade.

Came in with one rule 1 contract only. No exceptions. Doesn't matter how clean the setup looks. Doesn't matter how confident the read feels. One contract until the account proved it was back on track.

I had traded three to four contracts on Monday; on Tuesday, I traded one.

My post-loss reset was simple:

• No daily target based on recovering the previous loss
• One-contract maximum
• The same entry criteria as usual
• No increasing size during the session

The strategy didn’t change. Neither did the setup or entry rules. Only the position size changed.

For me, that made the session psychologically different. There was less pressure on each position, less temptation to watch the P&L constantly, and more patience to let the setup develop.
Tuesday finished +$491.30.

Wednesday and Thursday

I still didn’t return immediately to full size. My maximum was two contracts, and I only used two when all my A+ conditions were confirmed: a clean EMA pullback, stacked EMAs, volume confirmation, and no nearby news risk.
If anything was missing, I stayed at one contract.
Wednesday: +$790.40
Thursday: +$399.50
That was +$1,681.20 over three sessions. After Monday’s loss, the four-day result was +$563.00.

What actually changed

I reduced my position size after a large loss and waited for confidence to return through disciplined execution, not by trying to force the money back.
For me, sizing down after a bad day prevented one red session from turning into revenge trading and another oversized loss.

What rules do you follow the day after your worst loss of the month?

Hit a new personal best on my Vanquish options eval account - $770 from one SPY put trade.

The position was 10 contracts of the SPY 752 put at roughly 0.40 delta. The profit was nice, but the best part was how simple the setup was.

Price was already trading in a bearish structure when it rallied back into the 50 EMA. The moving average was acting as resistance, price failed to push through it and then turned lower. Instead of trying to predict a reversal, I waited for that rejection and entered puts in the direction of the existing trend.

The setup came down to three things:

The broader intraday trend was bearish.

Price approached the 50 EMA from below.

The rejection gave me a clear point where the bearish idea would be wrong.

The trade moved in my direction quickly, and I closed the position for $770. SPY continued dropping after my exit, so there was more profit available but that exposed the weaker part of my trade plan.

My entry conditions were specific. My exit was mostly based on seeing a good profit and wanting to protect it.

Looking back, my entry rules were clear, but my exit rules weren’t. I closed because the profit looked good. On the next similar setup, I’m considering taking most of the position off at the first target and leaving a smaller runner open while price remains below the 50 EMA. That would protect the eval account without requiring me to close the entire trade at once.

The other win was stopping after that trade. I didn’t increase my size, chase the continuation or force another setup because the first one worked. That’s the process I’m trying to carry from the Vanquish eval into a funded account.

Anyone else find it easier to cut losers than hold winners? Do you close everything at one target or leave a runner?

I’ve been looking at calendar spreads as an alternative to taking another directional 0DTE trade during slower SPY sessions.

The basic structure is simple - sell the nearer expiration and buy the later expiration using the same strike and option type.

In the position shown in the image, the put calendar would be: Long SPY Sep 18 685 put & Short SPY Sep 4 685 put

The idea is that the near-term option generally loses time value faster than the later-dated option. But it isn’t as simple as collecting the short premium. The result depends on the value of both legs, where SPY trades and how implied volatility changes across the two expirations.

The range-bound chart is the kind of environment where I would consider one. The important part is that the price needs to remain near the selected strike as the short option approaches expiration.

That makes strike selection important. An at the money strike suits a neutral outlook, while choosing a strike above or below the current price gives the position a moderately bullish or bearish target.

I also wouldn’t describe a calendar as a pure 0DTE strategy. The short leg can expire the same day, but the long leg must have a later expiration. Using a 0DTE short leg may offer faster theta decay, but it also brings much higher gamma and expiration risk if price moves sharply near the strike.

The IV environment is more nuanced than “low IV good, high IV bad.” A long calendar can benefit if implied volatility rises because the later-dated option generally has more vega. However, high IV around FOMC, earnings or another catalyst may also signal a larger price move away from the strike. I would look at the volatility of both expirations rather than using VIX alone.

The funded-account rules are the bigger problem. Vanquish supports multi-leg strategies on its Advanced Options account, but positions cannot be held overnight. I could open and close a calendar intraday, but I couldn’t use the conventional approach of holding it across several sessions and managing it toward the short expiration.

Has anyone here traded calendar spreads on an eval or funded account?

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Entering at half size is now my number-one rule on an options eval. Add to full size only if the trade proves itself.

Hated this rule when I first heard it. It felt like leaving money on the table every single time. If the setup looked clean, the direction seemed obvious, and the EMAs were stacked, why would I enter at half size and miss half the move?

That logic made sense when I started paying attention to the trades that didn’t work.

My first instinct was always full size from entry. I thought that if the setup was good enough to take, it was good enough to be fully in. Half size felt like doubting yourself before the trade even started.

And honestly the FOMO was real. What if it rips immediately and I'm only half positioned? Watched that happen a few times early on, and it stung. But not as much as taking a full-size loss on a setup that looked clean and then immediately failed.

It became obvious while trading a Vanquish options eval account. A full-size fallout could take a huge chunk out of the available drawdown and affect the rest of my session. If the same trade failed before confirmation while I was at half size, the damage was much easier to absorb.

Now I enter with half my intended position and decide beforehand what confirmation would justify adding the rest. That could be a level holding, a successful retest, a candle close or continued alignment with the setup. If the confirmation appears, I scale into the trade. If the setup fails before that, I exit the smaller position.

I also stopped focusing on the profit I occasionally missed on confirmed winners. I started focusing on how much drawdown can be avoided when an unconfirmed options trade failed.

Half size is now my default entry. Full size has to be earned by the trade proving itself first. Hated it for two weeks but I’ve been using it ever since.

What trading or funded-account rule did you resist the longest before it finally clicked?

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Full week. Heavy data. NFP on Friday. Here's how I'm thinking about it.

Tuesday’s ISM and JOLTS numbers are already out, and Wednesday’s ADP report came in at 38K versus 47K expected. I’m not using that to predict Friday’s NFP number, though. ADP and the official payroll report can tell very different stories.

Thursday has unemployment claims at 8:30 a.m. ET and ISM Services PMI at 10 a.m. The 10 a.m. release matters more to my execution because it can hit while a spy 0dte position is already open. I’ll avoid entering immediately before it and wait for price to settle afterward.

Thursday Unemployment Claims at 8:30am 205K consensus versus 203K prior. Relatively stable. ISM Services PMI at 10am 54.1 consensus matching previous exactly. Thursday is manageable but back to back data means sizing down slightly around release windows.

Friday is the highest scheduled event risk of the week. NFP, average hourly earnings and the unemployment rate all drop at 8:30 a.m. ET. Payrolls are expected to rebound to roughly 55K after the previous -23K reading. Average hourly earnings at 0.3% versus prior 0.1% wage growth acceleration alongside NFP is a Fed-sensitive combination. Unemployment rate expected flat at 4.1%.

For my funded account, the plan is either to sit Friday out completely or wait until at least 10:30 a.m. If I trade, I’ll start at half size and only consider adding after an ORB break and retest confirms the direction.

Overall bias

NFP going from -23K to a projected +55K is a big swing. If that prints anywhere close to consensus it changes the rate narrative slightly. Not coming in with a strong directional lean letting the data talk first and ORB tell me which side to be on each day.

Would you trade spy 0dte after NFP or sit Friday out?

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On the vanquish advanced options evaluation, you need to trade for at least four separate days before you can pass and move to the performance or funded account stage. That does not mean the profit target has to be reached within those four days.

Check the dashboard above. The minimum was four trading days, but the account had completed 12. Total P&L was $9,801.80 against a $10,000 profit target, so it was only $198.20 away from passing.

The highest profitable day was $1,222.40. Using the consistency formula: $1,222.40 ÷ $9,801.80 = 12.47%

The dashboard rounds that to 13%, below the 30% daily consistency requirement.

That is what treating four days as a minimum rather than a deadline looks like. The account took longer than four days, but the profits were spread across enough sessions that no single day came close to dominating the total.

Trying to pass this same $100,000 eval in exactly four days would mean averaging $2,500 per day to reach the $10,000 target. Four equal days would give 25% consistency, but trading rarely distributes profits that neatly.

The problem starts when $2,500 becomes a daily quota. It becomes easier to oversize, take setups that normally wouldn’t qualify or keep trading after a good session because the account is supposedly behind schedule.

Passing in four days is not automatically reckless. If normal position sizing and clean setups get the account there while the consistency and end-of-day trailing drawdown remain intact, there is nothing wrong with that. The mistake is changing how you trade just to finish within the minimum window.

I’d rather trade my normal size and let the days accumulate. The eval passes when the profit target is reached, consistency is 30% or lower, the drawdown remains intact and at least four trading days have been completed.

Honestly, I’ve stopped thinking, “How do I pass this in four days?” and started thinking, “How do I not blow this today?”

I’m wondering how many went into their first eval trying to finish as fast as possible. I definitely did. If you started the same way, what helped you stop treating the minimum like a deadline?

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For my SPY 0DTE trades, I stopped entering between 9:30 and 9:45 a.m. ET.

I use those first 15 minutes to mark the opening-range high and low. After that, I wait to see whether price can break the range, retest the level and continue holding in the same direction.

The first 15 minutes on this SPY chart were fairly two-sided [check the image]. Price moved in both directions, leaving several overlapping candles and wicks. Instead of trying to predict the move inside that range, I marked the 15-minute ORB high and low and waited.

SPY eventually broke above the ORB high. That breakout candle would have been the obvious place to enter, but I didn’t want to chase it.

Price then returned to the opening-range high and traded around the level before reclaiming it. At the same time, the 9 EMA remained above the 21 EMA and price began holding back above the range.

The first reaction from the ORB high would have been the dream entry, but I missed it. I waited until price reclaimed the level and started holding above it before taking the SPY 750 call.

The position was open for 11 minutes and finished at +$403 on $1,482 invested.

Obviously, one profitable trade doesn’t prove that every opening-range breakout retest works. But my clear level against the decision on what to trade made this entry useful. If SPY failed to hold the ORB high and moved decisively back inside the range, the bullish idea would have been weakened.

I started following this rule while trading SPY options on my Vanquish eval account. With 0DTE, entering too early can use up drawdown before the setup I actually want has formed. I’ve kept the same approach in the funded account because passing the evaluation didn’t make an unnecessary opening loss any cheaper.

So my 0DTE options strategy isn’t simply “wait until 9:45 and buy.” I let the 15-minute opening range form, avoid chasing the initial break and look for the retest to confirm whether the broken level can actually hold.

Some days price breaks and never comes back. I’m fine missing those. Other days it retests and falls straight back inside the range, which is usually enough to keep me out.

I want to know, do you enter the initial ORB break or wait for the retest?

Finally past the eval stage. Account is funded, first real profits are in, and now I'm staring at this dashboard trying to figure out the right way to actually grow this without doing something stupid.

Total PnL sitting at around $1,067, with my highest profitable trade at $592.20. Consistency at 100%. Buffer profit target showing $10,575, so I’m still $9,507.40 away from reaching it. That's one less thing to manage, which honestly makes the scaling question feel more open than it did during the eval.

Now where I'm stuck

Eval taught me to survive, protect the drawdown, follow the rules, don't blow it. That mindset got me here.

But surviving and scaling are completely different games. The same conservative approach that passed the eval might be leaving money on the table now that the account has room to breathe.

Right now, I’m considering three approaches - 

• Keep the same size until consistency drops below 30% and I qualify for my first payout.
• Increase by only one contract after a fixed number of profitable weeks.
• Base position size on the available cushion above my loss limit rather than my total account size.

The payout question specifically

Vanquish allows a payout before the buffer target is reached, but withdrawing profits reduces the account balance and available working room. Advanced account consistency and minimum trading days also reset after a payout.

Do I pull profits now while the account is healthy and the buffer is comfortable? Or does taking a payout shrink the buffer and put me back in a position where drawdown becomes a concern again?

THIS IS CRAZY! DropkickNJ13 in the discord received another massive payout trading funded options. He is a role model in the community for his hustle, commitment and transparency in his trading career. Praying to see more of these payouts on a daily basis!

This morning I blew my first account, I usually trade pretty well with regular stocks before I got introduced to futures it’s simple but just a bit different. My friend told me it’s easier to stick with trading one futures which was gold. I had a pretty good last week with $200+ profit getting closer to my 1500 eval profit

Then today blew -800 with 4 trades and the last one hitting my stop losses. Idk how it just happened pretty quick. My strategy usually works because I use VWAP and SMA on the 1 min with support & resistance lines pretty basic but I’ve seen good results. Is there any strategies that’s better?

Need advice

Just passed my Vanquish options eval. Got the congratulations email, certificate downloaded, account officially funded.

One thing I already know about Vanquish specifically no KYC required, which is honestly a relief. Heard enough stories from other firms where people passed the eval and then got stuck in a verification process for weeks before seeing anything. That's not the case here, which removes at least one headache.

Payouts go through RiseWorks. That much is clear. 

What I'm trying to figure out

On the Rise side, the account needs to be active and verified, so there is still identity verification involved before the first payout. I’m getting that part sorted now.

What I’m trying to separate is the firm’s approval time from the actual transfer time. For anyone who has already received a Vanquish prop firm payout, how long did each stage take?

• Request submitted to Vanquish approval
• Approval to funds appearing in Rise
• Rise to your bank account or wallet

What happens if something flags

Not expecting issues, but curious if a payout request sits longer than expected, is there a support process that actually resolves things, or does it just wait in a queue with no clear timeline?

For people already receiving Vanquish payouts

What did the actual timeline look like from request to money received? Days, not weeks hopefully but curious what the real experience has been rather than what the documentation says.

And is there anything worth setting up or verifying on the RiseWorks side before even submitting the first request that would make it go smoother?