From $0 to $100k (whilst working full time)

[tr1ps_master]

Really appreciate the honesty in your post - it’s refreshing to see someone openly say “I’m not consistently profitable yet” rather than pretending otherwise. That kind of transparency is what a lot of traders (especially new ones) need to hear.


I can relate to the “strategy flipping” problem - I think most of us go through that phase, even after finding something that works. For me, the only thing that really helped was committing to one strategy for a fixed number of trades (e.g., 100+ trades) before even thinking about making adjustments. Once you see the full data set, it’s a lot easier to stick with it.


Your H4/H1 EMA structure approach sounds solid, especially paired with proper backtesting. I’d definitely be interested in hearing more about how you combine structure with EMAs. Also curious - when you backtest, are you doing it manually bar-by-bar or using software to speed up the process?


Following this thread - looking forward to seeing your stats and progress over the year.

Hi capkidd,

I have found trading to be a mirror of your inner self. If one is saying they are consistently profitable and they are not, they are only lying to themselves and the trading becomes even harder. I have found a few truths along the way so far, maybe that's a post I should do in time, but one of them is to Be Really Truthful, like disgustingly truthful, with yourself (which I have no problem being!). The amount of times in my journal I have written, "This was executed like a pro" are far outweighed by "you are being an absolute KNOB!" (and a few more colourful things too!). This has reduced significantly, but every now again a 'flare up' still occurs!😁 If I cannot seriously recognise the situation I am in along with timeline from Newbie to Consistently Profitable to Professional trader, then I have no business being in this game of risk is my take on it.

My H4/H1 ema structure approach is basic and quite good, because its basic. You can have two structure points as far as I see it.
If you throw up a chart, any chart, and put your favourite EMA's (at least two ema's) on.
Structure 1 - the 'Space' between your ema 1 and ema 2
Structure 2 - previous resistance becoming support (if we are in an uptrend).

During any trend, either structure 1 or 2 will most likely give you a good reaction. Note - I do not say continuation of the trend. It may continue to trend, it may not, but a reaction you will most likely get. So you may want to backtest which structure works best for you.

I normally backtest manually because I am a Price Action and Market Structure trader. I am sure someone out there is clever enough to code that.
Tip - I found that if I would like to have say 100 trades logged for something specific. For someone in full time employment and a family person, the thought of that is quite daunting. Therefore, I said to myself, let me do 5/10 trades a night. And you may not do it every night, but there is structure and within 1 month you can easily test your strategy that way.

Funnily enough, this weekend, was the first time I backtested in a long while to make sure my method still works - spoiler alert - it does.
I will make a post updating my journey and why I needed to do this. But this has given me so much inner peace now.

Thanks for the follow.