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.

----------
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.

----------
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.

 

[tr1ps_master]

Hello All,

Been a while.

First things first, Balance $95,832 - FTMO $100k Challenge Phase 2
Lowest balance point was $92,564 - this was also a very low point mentally too. I've been battling a back pain for months and this was not helping. Work has picked up a tick too. This is not for sympathy...this is to show context of my journey.

Let's do a weekly recap of trades since the last post which was so positive, little did I know I would hit an all time low on the account again - but then turn it around after a drastic change to my trading.

Summary of trades since last recap:

• 11 Aug to 15 Aug 2025 = +0.49R (3 trades)
  • Trade 1, +0.76R
  • Trade 2, +0.71R
  • Trade 3, -0.98R
• 18 Aug to 22 Aug 2025 = +1.56R (2 trades)
  • Trade 1, +1.55R
  • Trade 2, BE, +0.01R

I'll be honest at this point I have traded 2 weeks and its been very tiresome.
My friend is a day trader and making 1R a day is a bad day for him.
I know that misery is the by-product of comparing oneself to others, however I have been struggling with swing trading for a while.
I am sorry but averaging 1R a week sounds absolutely shit to me.
Furthermore, on my personal swing trade strategy, I am average a really low average R, this means that my win rate has to be much higher for me to make consistent profits, otherwise I am just riding the market cycle of good and shit times.

*****If anyone has a way to have an average 2/3R on a swing trading multiple markets simultaneously and a 65% strike rate - please teach me, I cannot do it.****

I see so many legit verified traders, who just use price action and/or/with futures footprint charts making an absolute killing and their minimum is 2.5R and some average 3R-4R a trade. These guys are clearing 3-10R a week. That is what I am talking about.

Swing trading hard because scanning so many charts, feels I am mastering a setup and do not have a pulse on the actual market. I am not becoming an expert in any single market, I am just playing the law of averages. Maybe this is fine in general, but quite honestly this is difficult for me as I want to be a great trader who understands and has a very specific market understood. You never read about a great trader who smashed this market one week, then another market the next and so on. You hear that the great traders were "the EU guy" or "the Gold guy" etc.

To be honest, even when I am only checking charts every 4h (usually more frequently than this), my brain feels like it never switches off. This is just not good. I've been doing this for almost 2 years and my brain is Knackered.

I had to reflect why I find this so difficult.

****I do prefer a quicker feedback loop, i.e. you win/lose quicker and you learn from this quicker. Maybe that's just my nature. I also want to be able to switch off completely.****

Looking at my journal - I say that again - looking at my journal - I saw that I am actually very profitable on EU/GU and my trades do not last that long on it.

I had dabbled in day trading before - mixed results.

I decided to give Day Trading again, mainly EU/GU/Gold/SP500 only with just my own knowledge I already have using different market sessions. I said to myself I would treat this as a testing ground.

I will be varying my risk on trades to give myself as many possible trades to not blow the account.

• 25 Aug to 29 Aug 2025 = -1.38R (8 trades) - Balance $94,269
  • first 2 trades were swing trades, both losers, -2.04R combined
    • This is where I made changes and decided to try day trading for a quicker feedback loop to learn
  • next 6 trades - Day trading trial trades, +0.66R combined

This FELT nice. I did not make a killing, this was just my testing ground.
I did not lose a ton which was great.

• 1 Sept to 5 Sept 2025 = -2.88R (7 trades) - Balance $92,828
  • still learning
  • getting a bit more of a pulse on the market
  • I actually had some decent trades and saw some errors I should not do in the future
  • The balance completely mentally F***ed me.

I felt like I was getting somewhere, but balance just was saying otherwise.
I remained determined to treat this as a training exercise.
If I blow the account, that will not be good, however, I am on a journey to see what works for me and this is brand new.

I decided to learn some concepts from a very popular person online, cult like following he has. I viewed some short videos others have done summarising his work which was way more concise and to the point.

• 8 Sept to 12 Sept 2025 = -0.53R (4 trades) - Balance $92,564
  • Only mistake I made was to take an old system T2 - Trend reversal, which was my biggest loss -1R.
  • My day trades got much better

This weekend is where it ALL changed for my whole Day Trading approach.

I found this one source of material which added to the concepts and absolutely changed my whole perspective for day trading. I will be honest I think I can try and squeeze 2/3R on swing trades with these concepts.

Now I had a something really simple but super valuable to apply to every day.

• 15 Sept to 19 Sept 2025 =+4.88R (4 trades) - Balance $94,540
  • 4 winners, +0.93R,+0.82R, +2.10R, +1.03R

• 21 Sept to 25 Sept 2025 = +4.10R (5 trades) - Balance $95,832
  • +2.01R / BE (+0.02R) / -1.02R / +2.02R / +1.06R

Important changes to my Day Trading:
- Every week, I have a plan for my pairs (mainly trading EU/GU, SP500 and Gold I look at very rarely)
- Every day, I know what I want to see
- Every day, I switch off completely - this is so good! If I do not see what I want to, I switch off. If I had a good/bad trade, I switch off. Done, there is always tomorrow.
- Although I am day trading, I am not gawking at the screen. Far from it. I am very deliberate with this. If I miss a day, well that's life, I still have my day job I need to perform well at.

I am keeping things so stupid simple, I am scared I will overthink this and try to complicate it!
The fact that I have hit 3x2R trades and can try and pick off 1Rs easier than before has really been a confidence building exercise because I know if I have two losses, they are easier to claw back.

Now - I will reset mentally, because that is a ridiculous return within 2 weeks. This upcoming week is NFP week so...treading very lightly.

I will endeavour to keep you updated as and when there's more to tell.

Hope everyone's journeys are going well.

 

[tr1ps_master]

Update time - Still $100k Challenge Phase 2.

• 29 Sept to 3 Oct 2025 = +3.53R (6 trades) - Balance $96,715
  • +1.01R / +1R / -1R / BE (-0.02R) / +1.02R / +1.52R

Right this is getting a bit ridiculous, last 3 weeks of trading I made +12.51R, fairly bloody consistently!
15 trades, 11 Winners, 2 BE, 2 Losses.
This is bound to come off a little.

As expected.

• 6 Oct to 10 Oct 2025 = -1.63R (9 trades) - Balance $95,954
  • -1.02R
  • +2.06R
  • BE (+0.02R)
  • +0.98R
  • -0.64R - THIS IS THE DECIDING TRADE OF THE WEEK FOR ME - Wednesday Trade, I will talk about this below.
  • -1.01R
  • -1.05R
  • -1.04R
  • BE (+0.07R)

This week has been tough.
I think I am drained mentally. Work has been incredibly busy. Back is still messed up although thankfully getting better.
The last three weeks has definitely subconsciously got to my head and I am starting to Lack my discipline to my process I have been doing.

Up until Wednesdays trade which I highlighted. I was actually +2.04R for the week. Fantastic. Smooth sailing.
My bias was that we would have a false breakout with EU/GU this week and we would Not have a break to the downside (although I am expecting this at some point).
Anyways, on this trade I was +1.3R, I tightened my SL to new market structures. I had a TP of +1.9R. I was actually thinking, this is the False breakout I was looking for and Wednesday, great mid week reversal, I might actually shoot higher for 5R/6R here.

Long story short, I am doing my work and within a couple of M15 candles, it aggressively takes me out. Fair enough. No worries or so I thought.

I don't know why but this trade just stuck to my brain for the longest period, could not shake it.

The upside potential as a midweek reversal on this trade was huge.
I think this blinkered me going into Thurs and Fri.
I mean look at this bloody thing.
To be honest the signs are there for me to taken at least half risk off at the tops, you can clearly signs signs of exhaustion. I did not listen, I wanted the 5/6R trade.

Thursday's trading, I had two entries, same pair, gave it two shots. I thought I was being a genius.
Now looking at my entries, these were the shittiest entries which I should have never entered in the first place. I had not waited for my usual setup.

I am just glad that I am only -1.63R this week.

Oh I have noticed I have taken 9 trades this week, a bit of over trading is starting to creep in. Need to stick to solid trades like I was doing last 3.5 weeks.

The positives are that over the last 4 weeks I am still +10.88R.
I know what I've done wrong.

Depending on how the weekend goes and how I feel, I may take extended break from the markets till Wed next week.
This is huge progression for me, previously I would never do this, but taking a break is really healthy to just reset.