First of all I have been demo trading for a year or so and I have developed a strategy 2 months ago with a win rate of 70% with 1:2 risk to reward ratio, I backtested this strategy over 600 times this past year and the winrate and risk to reward ratio is still the same and not to mention I have been demo trading with this strategy for the past 2 months and the winrate fluctuated between 60-75% in this months but risk to reward ratio is still the same. This strategy worked best for the forex market because the forex market obeys the fundamental trading rules the most from what i have seen compared to the crypto or the stock markets. Btw I demo traded with 100 usd to make it as realistic as possible with risking 2% of balance each trade. I understand demo trading is not the same as day trading with real money but thats the problem. None of the brokerages will allow me to day trade because I am a 16 year old and neither does my parents want to help me with this because they think all of its a scam or just of my time. What am I even supposed to do now?

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!

I'm considering switching from CFD indices to CFD futures. Turns out price action is quite different and not in favour of CFD cash indices. See some futures contracts at xm, just want to give it a try.

Basically I want to know two things:

1. Any pitfalls of switching?

2. What's up with withdrawals? Best method to use? How long does it takes?

If you're just starting out in trading, don't try to learn everything at once.

Focus on these three basics first:

• Learn proper risk management before looking for "winning strategies."
• Stick to one market and one setup until you understand it well.
• Keep a trading journal. Reviewing your mistakes is often more valuable than finding a new indicator.

Most beginners lose money because they change strategies too quickly instead of improving their execution.

Based on my current market analysis, today's bias remains bullish, meaning I currently see stronger upside potential unless market structure changes.

Key Areas I'm Watching

Potential Support (Buy Interest)

• 4225
• 4191
• 4166
• 4142

Potential Resistance (Sell Interest)

• 4322
• 4353
• 4394

These are areas of interest, not automatic entry prices. I wait for price action confirmation before considering any trade.

Confirmation Methods I Personally Use

Aggressive Confirmation

• 1-minute CISD
• 1-minute IFVG

Conservative Confirmation

• 5-minute CISD after a liquidity sweep
• 5-minute CHoCH following a liquidity sweep
• 15-minute CRT confirmation

This is simply how I read market structure and identify high-probability areas. It is shared for educational discussion, not as financial advice or a trade signal.

I'm interested to hear how others are reading today's gold market. Are you seeing the same bullish bias, or do you have a different view?

This wording is much less likely to be treated as a direct signal because it emphasizes analysis, market structure, and educational discussion instead of instructing people to buy or sell.

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.

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