The Good, The Bad and The Ugly - A Real Trading Record

Hi ikdenk,
Your proposition is a very interesting one and opens up a whole new facet of trading, thank you for the comment and helping to widen the debate. I certainly find focus on one market, one method, short duration trades, and not trading for too long at a time suits me but, of course, that is just me. There are many other ways of trading and there is no definitive right or wrong here.

It can be argued that trading multiple uncorrelated markets has benefits in having more opportunities and generating risk-reducing diversification. I have also seen traders employ multiple strategies in parallel, often being a trend-type and a reversal-type strategy used together. Many traders are happy running multiple open positions; if you manage a share portfolio for example (as I also do), this is exactly what you are doing.

In my short term trading, though, I stick to one market, one trade at a time, and short trading sessions that always end with no open positions because I like the simplicity and the focus. My diversification comes from making many trades over a year, and each day is a fresh start in, effectively, a new market. But we are all different and you must structure your trading in a way you are comfortable with.

The main caveat I would say if you introduce multiple markets and/or multiple trades is that you have a more complex risk management and trade management regime to deal with. I have not dealt with this at all in this thread as it is not what I do, it is an entire wide-ranging and important subject in itself. You would need to think carefully about what you are doing and ensure you have appropriate management disciplines in place if you go down this kind of route.

This is 5th year as I am live trading only DOW Futures with over 100% yearly profits. I agree with the "restrictive trader" comment.

The less is "the more" and what is even more important, the simpler "the more profitable". I been through all of it and found my "Holy Grail" in the most simplistic technique of them all, NO to all lagging indicators, straight PA and what is happening now with PA on 5-15 Min TFs.

Entry with direction of the market now, place SL, place TP, use money management to squeeze as much as possible and as close as possible to TP from one trade, control Mindfuck(Fear and Greed) while getting there. Simple?

Today trade for the sake of simplicity...5 Min TF Dow Futures.... PA initial direction up, then we came down, PA tried to go up again and created resistance..I placed a Pending Buy if resistance will be broken. +100 points.

Hi all,
Another trade that took two attempts today, giving an example of both a truly heroic underachievement and of the value of discipline:

Market opens 8am around 24370, has an opening wobble and then proceeds to march up to challenge the big figure 400 level where it stalls and presents our setups. First we have a double top just below 00 leading to a short at 97 that gets down as far as +10pts at 87 before jumping back up, causing a scratch at 97 as I moved the stop to breakeven once price had breached 90. If it were truly going down it should fall away from a breach of the 90 level, a rebound off it suggests the drop is a dip in an up move rather than a reversal and I am not interested then in giving the trade any more room than for a scratch.

Price duly breaks up past big figure 00 but again stalls, leading to another short setup at 03 after essentially a triple top around 05. This time the market does reverse properly as hoped. I again moved the stop to breakeven as it neared 90 but it kept falling and I exited on an expansion move down at 81, not wanting to risk a bounce off 80, for +22pts or 1.4R. The failed test of 400 happened to be the key for an enormous collapse with the market falling a modest 140pts to near 260 in a straight line way off the bottom of the chart before trying to bounce. My 1.4R gain looks truly pathetic against the 10R profit available for just another 9 minutes in the trade, for anyone who is a lot, lot braver than me.

Though this morning's trading looks quite straightforward, it is a good example of how you have to follow your setups rather than trying to impose your views on the market. I have to confess I was quite reluctant to take the second short at 03, I thought the push up through 00 was the signal for the market to break up and away after building up strength vascillating in the 90s. But the double top signal came according to my method and I took it, against my better(!) judgement. I had to, despite my reservations, otherwise I'd have no method to speak of if I were to ignore the setup. This is where discipline is so important in trading: set the rules and follow the rules. Easier said than done!

Good Stuff, shop talk, not Greed but randomness of PA after the entry and BE, another 50-100 pips potential if to leave small(for now) position in the market..cheers

Hi all,
A set of interesting setups to observe in this morning's trading:

Market opens 8am around 24410, immediately tests and breaks big figure 400, reaching a low of 374 before moving back up. We soon get a clear double top setup around 416 leading to a short at 13, stop 27 and intial target 99. It goes our way and as the market nears 00 the risk of a bounce is high so I move the stop to breakeven. However, it goes through and today, having pocketed a nice profit yesterday, I feel bold enough to hold on to see if it might properly crack 00, we have already seen 74, after all. And with the stop at breakeven it means we are on a no-risk play here - if you don't count potentially losing the open profit on a bounce, of course! I am lucky today and the market does crack so I hold and exit into expansion downwards at 76 just above the prior low for +37pts, 2.6R, though the fall continues on down to 60 so another 1R available for the brave. On another day I would have happily taken the 1R profit at 99 for 1R. Equally, on another day, I might have held on and be scratched out by a bounce off the big figure. I trust you can see how the subjective trade management by the trader can bring about wildly different results; it is all down to us at the end of the day!

I have also highlighted in gold on the chart subsequent setups for this method, I was happy with my earlier work and did not take them. There is a winner on a double bottom at 60 and a loser on a double top at 80, though the short would have been very annoying as it would have been just stopped out on my 14pt stop before reversing back to fall to new lows and another nice winner. A trader using a slightly wider stop would have captured this; again I hope you can see how different traders' decisions can lead to very different results for the exact same price action using the same basic system.

I trust by now you will have got a sound grip on the quite simple idea behind this double top/bottom method that we have been trading these past few weeks. As I said at its unveiling it is not a new concept, nor is it any sort of holy grail system. But I hope you can see from the posted trades that it can be a solid and robust trading method if traded carefully.

Then again, much the same can be said of the with-flow after failed bounce method I traded with previously on this thread. I wanted to show you similarly profitable trading with two different methods to emphasise my belief that the core trading traits of discipline, risk control, emotional stability and consistency are rather more important than the precise system used. It is the trader who ultimately generates the results, not the method per se, because all trading is ultmately subjective depending on how a trader uses any given method.

With that, I shall take a break from posting for now as I don’t want to get into a boring repetitive trough, something that is very likely for me given - as I hope you may have noticed by now - I really just do the same thing over and over. I’ll look to be back as and when I have something new that might be worth sharing; in the meantime, good trading to you all!

Enjoy your break.

Hi all,

December is upon us, I normally trade until the middle of the month but this year I am going away so I have reached the end of my trading year. Thus, time for a Q4 and full year update on results.

Q4, despite only being for a couple of months, has been decently profitable for the reversal method I am currently employing here. I have taken 74 trades with 32 winners, 24 losers and 18 scratches; a win rate of just over 40% but careful risk control means this is still sufficient to produce decent profits. Winners & losers were roughly of average equal 1R size, all trades were taken with 1R representing a 2% account risk, so the net 8 winners plus a small positive contribution from the scratches brought about a c.18% net return.

Expanding out to the year as a whole, the full YTD shows an account growth of close to 90%, this despite a gross win rate under 50%. I have not taken large risks, no trade was risking more than 2% of the account and the worst drawdown of the year was 10%. I compare this to cash in a savings account with 0% risk and a return (in the UK) of about 4% on the year. I like to think these numbers show my trading was a worthwhile activity this year.

If you are careful about your trading and control your risk well, very satisfactory risk-adjusted returns are possible. And it doesn't matter that much what method you use - I have shown you two quite different methods this year in this thread, profitability has been similar for both. It is the trader that counts rather more than the method. Go about your craft with discipline, consistency and care, and an average method will yield acceptable net profits; go about it badly and even the best method on paper will generate a loss and/or excessive risk.

Best of luck to you all for 2026!
OTM

Thanks for your contributions OTM always nice to see solid grounded no nonsense posts and journals etc.

All the best in 2026

Cheers
Blue

Thank you so much for sharing. Please carry on posting in 2026!

Hi @OldTraderMan

Happy new year.

Are you back at your desk ?

Hope you are all OK and having a good 2026?

@OldTraderMan we're missing you! An update would be great if you have time...

I've taken onboard some of your wisdom this year, albeit on the M15 timeframe. RR 1:1 trades, moving SL to break-even, aiming for a slow & steady equity curve and a respectable % profit by the end of the year. Such a calm and philosophical way to trade, so thank you for showing what is possible with this mindset.

Looking forward to hearing your news soon.

ZT