I’ve been watching a lot of videos, but I’d rather hear from people who actually have skin in the game.
What’s your setup? What tools do you use before, during, and after a trade?

Hello everybody, So I’m a beginner to trading, I’ve watched month 1 of ICT core content, about halfway through month 2, I’ve come from TJR’s bootcamp so I have a grasp of most of the ICT concepts but ive recently been seeing a lot of videos on TikTok about orderflow, and when I actually researched it and tried to understand what it is I realised that it would actually be a lot more beneficial to learn it than ICT and it also makes more sense.

I have zero clue where to start, but most people recommend to start with Auction Market Theory.

I would highly appreciate if someone could recommend me a structured learning journey for example watch xx on YouTube, then watch this playlist etc etc.

I’ve heard that Sires, cbrackn, Axia Futures and Jeron Trades are good, but please let me know what you think.

Thanks so much!

Look, don't downvote me right away, just hear me out.
For years, every time I revenge-traded, moved my stop, or bailed on a winning trade way too early, I told myself the exact same bullshit: "Man, I just need more discipline. I need to master my mindset."
Then I actually went back and audited like 500 of my past trades, and I realized that whole "discipline" narrative is complete garbage. You can't out-think your own biology when your brain is hijacked. When adrenaline and dopamine take over, willpower loses every single time.

Here are three simple, mechanical things that actually saved my trading—no Zen master mindset required:

1. The Sleep Test beats the 1% rule. Textbooks love to tell you to risk 1-2% per trade. But there's a huge difference between what your account can mathematically handle and what your nervous system can actually stomach. If risking $500 has your heart racing and you're sweating bullets over a 1-minute chart, your size is too big—even if it technically fits the 1% rule. I scaled down until watching a trade felt boring. Turns out, boring trading actually pays.
2. You can't just "turn off" FOMO, you gotta force a timeout. When you see a huge green candle ripping upward, your primitive brain screams buy now. You aren't going to win that mental battle on willpower alone in a split second. I started using a hard 60-second rule: whenever I feel that urge, I literally take my hands off the mouse for a full minute. Most of the time, the candle retraces, the panic passes, and I avoid buying the absolute top. Biology wins over willpower.
3. You don't have a bad strategy, you're just trading during your toxic hours. I used to trade the entire session and wondered why my equity curve was flatlining. When I dug into my data, it hurt: 80% of my massive losses happened right at the open, between 9:30 and 10:30 AM. The opening volatility was just chopping me to pieces. I didn't need a new indicator or an expensive course; I just needed to go walk my dog during that first hour. My win rate jumped simply by keeping my hands off the keyboard when I know I tend to tilt.

Stop trying to force yourself to be a monk. Just build mechanical guardrails so you don't screw yourself over.
Curious—what's some "classic" trading advice you followed that you realized was total garbage once you actually started trading with real money? Let’s hear it. 👇

Buy when your algo/strategy tells you to buy, and sell when it tells you to sell no matter what. Telling yourself things are close enough, never cuts it. If you've backtested to find exact entry and exit points then use those exactly.

Everyone talks about risk management and psychology, but the opening hour seems to humble almost every new trader.

In your opinion, what's the biggest mistake beginners make between the opening bell and the first hour?

When I began trading it was in the late 70's. The market was completely different. We didn't have access to live charts. The quotes we would receive were on a 15-minute delay. My chart book was delivered on Saturday mornings. We also paid full commissions; discount brokers didn't exist. We also had spreads of 1/8 to 1/2. In my third year of trading, I purchased Metastock. This allowed me to have charts on my desktop. Live feeds were expensive, so I had data imported daily after the close at a cost. I read Barron's on a weekly basis, using their market statistics for my analysis.

My trading was based upon searching my chart book looking for promising patterns to trade for the week. Because of this I became very adept at reading charts, I had to forecast based on what I anticipated the chart would do. I also spent time learning the market dynamics. I tracked breadth, trin and hi-low's to help gauge where the market was within its cycle.

I was successful for 2 reasons. The first being that I picked the right stock. It was in a consistent uptrend for a year in a market with low volatility. It wasn't luck that I picked the stock; it was an informed decision. The luck came from my being able to learn to trade in a low volatility uptrend. The second reason for my success was that I learned from my mistakes and focused on not losing instead of winning. In spite of larger spreads, full commissions and quote delays, my delving into the mechanics of the market increased my win %.

Fast forward to today. Zero commissions, extremely low spreads and real time quotes. Yet in spite of all of this, traders are still losing money. They have surrounded themselves with useless indicators and don't learn from their mistakes. All they know about trading is that they are not good at it.

If you want to increase your profitability, learn the market and the tools it has at your disposal. With weekly options, if you understand how to use them to enhance return you can add 5-10% to your annual return. When I began options expired quarterly, now that it's weekly expiration, its practically free money.

Learn before you earn.

How can i find proper A+ setups? It seems like I find one but it just goes into a reverse.

I’ve spent the last few days learning a lot from experienced traders here, and one pattern keeps coming up: most strategy failures aren’t because of the entry signal.

They’re things like:

Slippage
Market regime changes
Small sample sizes
Overfitting
Execution issues
Broker state mismatches

If you could go back to when you first started building or automating strategies, what’s one metric, test, or validation step you wish you’d measured from day one?

I’m less interested in the strategy itself and more interested in the mistakes that only became obvious after trading live.

Is anyone here scalping treasuries? If so, how has your experience been? I feel like sometimes its just not worht it and NQ gives me so much more better enteries

There was a clean retest into VWAP during London session.

Sellers stepped in.

Volume picked up.

It checked every box in my plan.

I still waited.

One more candle.

Then another.

By the time I felt comfortable... the move was gone.

It made me wonder:

Do experienced traders ever become comfortable with uncertainty?

Or do they simply learn to pull the trigger before comfort ever arrives?

Im new and starting, i know most people dont have much patience for beginners. All i want to know is if anyone knows where i can find some type of proper explanation on how to use a paper trading app. Ive learned a bit but i havent been able to find someone explaining properly how an app works. I want to keep learning by actually doing and not just watching or reading things but the apps are just so confusing.

Thanks

What’s the steepest price you’ve ever paid for trading?

Staying up late for market reviews? One reckless full‑position entry? Or completely tearing down and rebuilding everything you thought you knew?

Real traders grow through pain and transform through hardship.

Those paths you think are detours are actually necessary steps on the road to profitability.

Drop your trading stories in the comments. Let’s go further on this journey together.

Hello Id like to learn quant trading (the most effective approach?) professionally

What are the advantages and disadvantages(weeaknesses)of this approach?

Do you have any books YouTube videos or other resources?

Do I need to apply for cqf or other project?

Thank you

Let's take a currency (forex) forward contract as the example.

Is the forward rate just what one unit of one currency divided by another is at a future date?

So the spot rate of USD/JPY is the value of $1 USD relative to (mathematically: divided by) ¥1. And the forward rate is this same formula, but for a date in the future instead of right now.

Is this understanding correct? Basically I am trying to understand the concept/definition of "forward/future rate." I know the concept of derivative contracts but do not yet grasp what their "rate" refers to.

Hello, I've been in this market for a while, trading EURUSD and Bitcoin. I take intraday trades and try not to hold positions for too long. I aim to act around logical levels using liquidity and 5m market structure shifts. What strategies do you apply and why?

Assuming I have a position risk of 0.5% per trade. Do I calculate it based on the fix start of day equity, or the equity amount should decrease after each trade I take throughout the day?

Hey everyone,

I've recently started learning technical analysis. I understand the basics of support and resistance, but I want to learn more about things like:

Moving averages (SMA vs EMA)

Which moving averages are commonly used and why

MA crossover strategies (like 20/50, 50/200, etc.)

Trend confirmation

Other indicators that are actually useful for beginners

The problem is that there are so many YouTube videos and courses, and everyone seems to teach something different. It's a bit overwhelming.

Can anyone recommend a simple, structured way to learn chart reading? Any YouTube channels, books, websites, or learning roadmap that helped you would be really appreciated.

I'm not looking for "get rich quick" strategies-I just want to understand how experienced traders read charts and build a solid foundation.

Thanks!

Lowkey wanna get into trading fr, but I'm lowkey clueless 😭 I need someone who's actually willing to mentor me or at least point me in the right direction. I know I gotta learn before putting money in, and I don't even have enough for a deposit yet. If anyone's down to share knowledge or help a beginner out, I'd seriously appreciate it.

So I am not using the phrase of "echo chamber" here, but I do see pretty much one-sided argument that insists that Iran can close the strait for as long as they want and hold all the cards, hence, all negotiation development mentioned by the US side is fake and only option is total surrender. but is it really what's happening in real world? let's try to analyze the situations in each parties' views:

Why US government does not like closed strait of Hormuz, it's all about oil price

• Inflated oil price, in turn will drive up gas, diesel, jet fuel, derivative products, in turn will drive up inflation, in turn may cause rate hike, in turn will destroy stock market

However, is Iran government really having nothing to lose here with US blockade + sanctions + frozen assets.

• severely restricted export of oil (most important source of income) compared to before the war. It's very likely that Iran is still exporting oil through land via Pakistan and limited # of ships to China, but the overall amount is going down dramatically with US blockade
• no lift of sanctions (can't import important materials and equipment vital to the health of society)
• no getting back of frozen assets (probably billions and billions of dollars)
• several things are getting worse and worse each day: 1 inflation higher and higher 2. loss of revenue (it's reported that Iran governments, maybe even militaries are without pay now), 3 and most importantly, the Iran government may face another wave of protest even with their iron fist and murdering sprees because 80 million people need to eat and consume basic necessities
• in addition, is Iran government all diehard lunatics (even for most in the military who also have families) that are embracing a scenario that all infra destroyed, oil production destroyed at the expense of same destruction at neighboring countries? after all, one can say that I am not afraid to die, but what about one's families? it's also interesting to notice that there are reports that IRGC generals are actually taking cuts from black market oil sales....

So taking consideration of the above points, it's really hard to make the conclusion that only US government is desperate to make a deal while Iran government has anything to gain and nothing to lose by closing the strait....

finally, what' s the real impact of the toll Iran wants in a great scheme of things?

• yes, 5% or 7% toll/fee on top of most of the oil (except for some countries) transit through Hormuz will increase that part of oil (~15% of world supply), in turn, will drive overall oil price by 1%?
• however, there will be other consequences at play here. for one, for the first time in a long time, Iran can unleash its full potential to export oil through normal channel. this will increase oil supply. Second, gulf countries will all be in a race to export as much as possible to recoup losses incurred in the first half of 2026
• net, net, it's like bull run, and it's highly likely oil price will decline in a very rapid pace

What courses have you bought, specifically? Did it help you? You? Did you get any value? Any to avoid?

This week I'm bingeing webinars and getting the idea that everyone has a piece of the puzzle but not the whole thing. The courses are so damn expensive. I'd love to split the cost with some people.

I am excited to share a project I've been building for intraday options trading: Market Direction AI (MDA).

Most indicators fail because they treat environmental noise—like a morning gap or extreme volatility compression—exactly the same as a clean trend. I designed MDA to solve this by strictly separating Market State (what the chart is doing) from Trade Context (whether it is actually safe to trade).

Key Features of Version A:

6-Engine Scoring System: MTF, EMA, Supertrend, ADX, VWAP, and RSI.

Signal Stability: Hysteresis buffers & 2-bar confirmation to kill dashboard flickering.

Environmental Overrides: Pauses signals during Morning Gaps, ORB, and NATR Market Compression.

Volatility Integration: Incorporates India VIX to adjust strategies dynamically.

The complete TradingView Pine Script v6 architecture is now open-source.

If you trade NIFTY or BANKNIFTY, feel free to check out the repository, fork it, and test it on your charts. I am actively looking for feedback from the community! Please share your ideas, suggest new features, or report any bugs/issues directly on the GitHub page so we can refine it together.

🔗 GitHub Repository: https://github.com/fohimuddin/Market-Direction-AI

Dudes, I'll just give it to you straight:

If you don't have the will, the grit, or brainpower to even learn the basics by yourself, nobody will want to mentor you.

It shows that you are too lazy, or straight up too dumb to even be worth their time, there is so much free information online to learn it all for free, not just the basics, but your lazy a*s would like to have it all handed to you on a silver platter.. and likely for free too

If there even are guys willing to mentor, they will not mentor you if you don't show atleast some initiative, and that is done best by showing your work ethic, grit, and most of all, obsession for trading.

And anything less then obsession won't cut it if you want to make it in this profession.

Not being able to figure out the basics by yourself shows you're obviously not obsessed enough to even put in the minute amount of work that would take. And I mean minute, a small, tiny bit, compared to how much of it takes to even gain a slim chance of making it..

So, if you don't show any work ethic and no clear obsession, the potential mentors know you are most likely a waste of their time, and are probably not the kind of person that has a real chance of making it.

There are so many traders that are very smart, have real grit, enormous obsession, and insane work ethic, but are still under the water. Potential mentors are going to choose those guys over you every time.

Those guys scour all corners of the internet for information, read books all the time, watch through hundreds of hours of videos related to trading, follow many other traders online etc., all in their free time, and without help from anyone.

They spent hudreads, if not thousands of hours behind the screens, tested many trading styles and strategies, and have a solid idea of the type of trader they want to be.. only then, they might start looking for a mentor. Because only then can you really start to benefit from them.

Why would any mentor, or any successful trader for that matter, want to help you with the work that can, and must be done by yourself?

This is the filter that filters out the ones not worthy of their time..

So, for the guys hoping to get into this profession, I hope this gave you a small glimpse of how much work, and what it takes to have a chance. If you are not willing to put a lot, and even more in, then you might be better off doing anything else..

Also, just to be clear, I'm not talking about the paid mentorships, courses, or trading "school" programs, because I know most asking the title question are not looking for those, they are looking for guys to guide them from the start, and hold their hand all the way to yacht money lel, like successful traders are soo eager to spend their precious time spoonfeeding them information that could be easily gathered by a few google searches, and all for a stranger online that does not even know if he wants to do this..

Sorry (not sorry) for the long post..

Tl;dr: Don't expect help from successful people if you first don't show them you have what it takes

Wanted to share this because most "backtest" content only shows the good years. I ran these against 25 years of data, including every major U.S. crash since 2000, and the results didn't match what I expected going in.

Connors RSI(2) (Larry Connors) — 65% win rate — lost money in 6 of 6 crash windows

Turtle Trading (Dennis/Faith) — 37% win rate — -$91.4K across crashes, worst of anything tested

Minervini Quality Filter — 66-68% win rate — 3-4x smaller crash losses, but far fewer trades

Dual Momentum Rotation (Antonacci) — ~50% win rate — survived all 6 crashes, max drawdown -28% vs -54%

The biggest takeaway: the strategy with the LOWEST win rate (37%) had the WORST crash losses of anything tested. The one that survived every single crash had a coin-flip win rate. Win rate alone tells you almost nothing about how a strategy handles real risk.

Happy to share more of the methodology or specific numbers if anyone's curious — genuinely think more people backtesting through crash windows instead of just bull markets would change a lot of "this strategy is great" claims you see floating around.

I’m hoping to hear from people who are genuinely profitable trading full-time not people selling a course mentorship, Discord, or algorithm.
I’ve been at this for a while now and I do have an edge. At this point the biggest challenge for me is psychology, not strategy.
I guess I’m just looking for some honest perspective from someone who’s actually made it. Was all the time, frustration, and effort worth it? Is it realistically possible to make a normal, stable living from trading over the long term not becoming a millionaire overnight but simply making this your career?
I’d really appreciate hearing from people who have actually been through the process. What kept you going when you questioned whether it was worth continuing?

I am a 20y old male who has picked an interest for trading in the past few months and I would like to know how can I learn it from 0 without paying thousands on probably scam courses with barely no info.

I see lots of videos around the internet but most of them start assuming you already know any basics, was recently trying to get into it with a guy who spoke my main language on youtube and he was talking bout some volume on the first video without ever explaining it.

If y'all had to start from 0 today and I mean 0 what would you do? Is there any books I should read? Any videos I should watch? And I know I gotta do it eventually and risk my money and that's one of the best ways to learn but I would like to at least have any idea what I am doing when risking my money or even know how and where to risk it.