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.

 

[tr1ps_master]

Update

Summary of trades since last recap:

• 28 July to 1 Aug 2025 = -2.83R (4 trades)
  • What to say...just one of those weeks
• 4 Aug to 8 Aug 2025 = -4.62R (7 trades)
  • 3 trades were a complete mistake i.e. it was not in my original plan. I will explain below why these were taken.

F*ck me sideways!
I literally cannot buy a winning trade.

Current Phase 2 balance $94,193
this is -5.8%
Interestingly enough (for those statisticians out there), I am only -3.57R down overall. This is due to me reducing risk on my previous performance downswing.

The last three weeks, especially last two, have been absolutely Shite - that's putting it politely.

So what happened - after the 1st of August 2025, I have to admit I was in the dumpster. Physically and mentally burnt out. Too much work, too much outside of work, you could wipe the floor with me! I think it has been months of grinding away at this and everything else together. I cannot remember last time I slept well, like seriously, I wake up like I haven't even slept and this has been the case for longer than I can remember. Everything has just morphed into a single continuum of blur. That being said, I am always on point at my day job (which I love and am good at), but once the work day is over, sometimes I could just crash right there and then. I still go to the gym regularly, no excuses!

So after feeling like this for a while + losing trades, I decided to have quite a frank conversation with another trader friend who is a professional. The conversation was good overall, but the advice caused me to mess my head up further. I took 3 trades following this call on a completely different time frame which I usually trade. Well the market humbled me 3 times, very quickly. Completely my own fault. I realised... WTF was I doing...!

So what did I decide to do after? Have a conversation with a different professional trader friend. We trade somewhat similarly, but he is more into indicator building, although executes manually, at least we trade the same timeframes. He suggested I just needed a clear indicator I could custom build for XYZ. This was an interesting idea, because I can clearly see him being successful with it. So I spent 2 days researching and actually building something basic, then realised...WTF was I doing...!

[side note - I am thankful I have traders to talk with should I want to, and enjoy it. But I can honestly say that you will never get the answers you need from anyone else. This is your venture, you know your situation better than anyone. Everything is on you - I've learnt the hard way. We are all different. It's fine to talk in general terms about things like strategy, risk etc, but going in depth about your strategy will not add much value. You live and die by your own sword in this Financial Wilderness]

I was again mentally feeling like starting from scratch again.

Only this time, I caught myself in the act.

I've passed multiple challenges, got a few payouts. I've had really good and bad spells. So I decided to reflect on it a while.

I realised, as I always say to myself, and to anyone else who else. All the answers are in my journal and trade screenshots. I need to see what I am doing in the bad spells to eliminate this crazy performance volatility.

Thankfully I found the answer - I found one error. This caused me to have a -6R swing in my results over just the last 10 trades!
The error was to do with Trade Management.
Over the last 10 trades (excluding my non strategy trades) I am -5.32R.
If I had not made this simple trade management error I would be +0.75R.
-> that is absolutely staggering!

Nothing to do with my strategy, nothing to do with my entries or take profit levels - but trade management. Wow.

Following this AHA moment, I reflected that why on earth did I slip on this?
I just think it was burn out and complacency, because of the burnout or any other number of things. Thank you to my other trader friend - he sent me a message saying he was also having a tough time and he suggested it could be Complacency creeping in. That really hit home.

Its funny isn't it, you think you are just doing exactly the same thing as you normally do, but no you are potentially deviating from your actual trading plan. The mind is strange!

So I went and backtested this approach which I had used previously and absolutely spot on, did not need to do anything but return to what my trading plan said WHEN I AM IN the TRADE.

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Also went back to reading Market Wizards by Jack D.Schwager which I've read before. Absolutely brilliant book. You really get some golden nuggets in there. You only need a few nuggets, like my recent experience with my trade management style, done the shit way, I am losing profitability hand over fist. Done the right way, I maintain profitability.

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I hope to bring better news soon.

I am a lot more hopeful now.

It is the first time in months I feel so clear about my trading again.

Hopefully I can actually get some proper sleep now.

->I will review my trades once a month properly, with an element of testing for certain variables. I definitely slipped on this and it is a very important aspect I believe.

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Let's bloody do this!!!

 

[tr1ps_master]

Forgot to mention on the above update.

The losing streak came right after a holiday.

Pre-holiday, fantastic trading.

Post-holiday, well you can see the post above.

This is also important for me to remember, in the future when I look back, this is quite a crucial piece of information to remember next time I go on holiday.

 

[tr1ps_master]

For those who are interested in seeing some setups/charts.

Here are two trades I've taken on GBP/AUD recently. These are both my T1 - Trend Continuation trades.

1. First trade +0.76R (cut manually because I was expecting this to blow through the upside, however when it started stalling at the anticipated level plus looking at the economic calendar, overnight we had AUD employment figures coming out (I would be sleeping at 2am), did not want to risk current profit, so cut it).
2. Second trade +1.55R (TP was actually 2R, which eventually got hit)(I cut this manually due to really large volume, I would rather take 77.5% of my TP than let this vertical move suck the profit out on a massive retracement, and I am holding and hoping for price to return back up). I am still fighting DD and I am absolutely banking 1.55R!
Total = +2.31R

These genuinely are my charts and sometimes I have my ema's on, sometimes not. But my trading is so stupidly simple, it is largely based on structure as you can see. Price moves from one level to the next. The key for me is to stay away from ranging markets - because I can't make heads nor tails of that situation.

• The question is always when the price is on/around the structure, how early do you get in?

- My first trade, clearly my entry was much better. There is a reason for this, I backtested this so was more confident getting in earlier.
- Second trade, I believe I got in a bit late. This was intentional. I wanted to see another test to the downside, and price holding. That did not come and I saw price steaming ahead, so jumped on the train for the anticipated run up. This meant my SL was slightly larger than I wanted but importantly I could see enough R for me to have a crack at this.

No need to be in and out every day, or looking at the charts all the time, structure does not form that quickly. This works well with a day job.

I like to - Keep It Simple Stupid 😁

Hope this helps.