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Living in China, trading for a living 18 replies

1 trade per pair per year 6 replies

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Trading for a living

  • #581
  • Edited 12:04pm Nov 10, 2025 11:52am | Edited 12:04pm
Quoting Noisy
Stopped out on the Nastaq short position too. Mondays… {image}
I think there's a less flattering explanation...

Remember Impulse-Correction-Continuation?
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  • #582
  • Nov 10, 2025 12:33pm Nov 10, 2025 12:33pm
Quoting M31
{quote} The best way of applying FVG, that I have found, is the 'Unicron Setup' I hate the name but it is effective 4:1 and higher trade. Every trader is looking for these (last image). Or trade from 4hr FVG touch (first image below) {image} {image}
Thanks.

I looked into the FVG Unicorn Method, and it seems there are many different variations. Generally, the FVG methods appear to be better suited to higher timeframes, which raises the question for me: would I even get enough signals if I were to trade only those signals on an H4 chart or higher, and only in one market at most, and only during the trading times available to me (if having to do it the manual way), to consistently achieve my required minimum return under a certain maximum risk, regardless of market conditions, by the end of the month/quarter?

To answer this question, I would first need to identify a reliable, repeatable entry and exit signal, which is difficult for me when there are so many different explanations of the method and how best to implement it.
  • #583
  • Nov 10, 2025 12:46pm Nov 10, 2025 12:46pm
Quoting medici
{quote} I think there's a less flattering explanation... Remember Impulse-Correction-Continuation? {image}
Yes. I simply wanted to show two trades I made today using the ORB strategy I've been implementing so far. It's obvious that different approaches lead to different results.

- Did I follow my strategy as described and tested? - Yes
- Did I adhere to my stop-loss and take-profit targets? - Yes
- Did I plan my risk accordingly? - Yes
- Did I execute everything correctly? - Yes

I'm aware that posting winning trades in retrospect gets more likes here than showing losses. As I said, overall I've been profitable with this approach so far, and I might be able to improve a few things while I also explore/test other strategies (if they were at least clearly defined).
  • #584
  • Nov 10, 2025 12:52pm Nov 10, 2025 12:52pm
Quoting Noisy
{quote} Thanks. I looked into the FVG Unicorn Method, and it seems there are many different variations. Generally, the FVG methods appear to be better suited to higher timeframes, which raises the question for me: would I even get enough signals if I were to trade only those signals on an H4 chart or higher, and only in one market at most, and only during the trading times available to me (if having to do it the manual way), to consistently achieve my required minimum return under a certain maximum risk, regardless of market conditions, by the end...
With gold 15-minute/30-minute/1-hour you get ~one of these trades per week. SMC calls it a breaker block, but imbalance (FVG) isn't mentioned. Traders who trade with these usually chart hop, looking for them to develop and set alerts. They are reliable, I would call them money makers, and if the price passes through it's invalidated and has quite definable rules.

I personally use FVG as a reversal from a strong trend. I don't trade until I see a FVG in the new direction, and then look to trade the bounce from it. The 4-hour FVG is my trade direction, in combination with 1-hour market structure.

The image below is one that is invalidated; they take minimal chart time to find but they are not frequent.
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  • #585
  • Nov 10, 2025 1:44pm Nov 10, 2025 1:44pm
Quoting Noisy
{quote} Yes. I simply wanted to show two trades I made today using the ORB strategy I've been implementing so far. It's obvious that different approaches lead to different results. - Did I follow my strategy as described and tested? - Yes - Did I adhere to my stop-loss and take-profit targets? - Yes - Did I plan my risk accordingly? - Yes - Did I execute everything correctly? - Yes I'm aware that posting winning trades in retrospect gets more likes here than showing losses. As I said, overall I've been profitable with this approach so far, and I...
I had same winning setup idea ( number 2 ) on SPX500 like Medici. But my story/reasoning is simpler - breakout pullback long.
Also you can see I toke a loser before it. Zero likes for winning trade well even 84% of my trades where winners today,
but got only 1 like. Maybe because my trades where on Apex evaluation account. Joking aside, we are not going it for likes,
we are doing it to learn something new.
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I might be wrong , I have been wrong before
  • #586
  • Nov 10, 2025 2:48pm Nov 10, 2025 2:48pm
I now understand the basic concept of FVGs and will start testing it manually and exclusively for GBP/USD from tomorrow, for the time I have available (first 4 hours of the London or New York Session).

I will try to identify FVGs on the 1-hour chart and also use this timeframe as my executional chart to place my orders on.

We’ll see how it goes. Gonna share the new trade explorer link tomorrow so everyone can follow it in full transparency.
  • #587
  • Nov 10, 2025 2:55pm Nov 10, 2025 2:55pm
Quoting Mandariin
{quote} I had same winning setup idea ( number 2 ) on SPX500 like Medici. But my story/reasoning is simpler - breakout pullback long. Also you can see I toke a loser before it. Zero likes for winning trade well even 84% of my trades where winners today, but got only 1 like. Maybe because my trades where on Apex evaluation account. Joking aside, we are not going it for likes, we are doing it to learn something new. {image}
Yes. For the ORB Strategy, I’m not waiting for a pullback. Orders are placed immediately on touch of my high/low ranges as defined by time and will continue to trigger until the end of the day (22:30 UTC).

Overall I start to believe the real magic comes from proper risk management and exits in trading. Like one of the thread followers mentioned, you can probably also make money by just entering at random price levels at random times but sticking to a solid risk/money management.
  • #588
  • Edited 2:17am Nov 11, 2025 2:02am | Edited 2:17am
Quoting Noisy
{quote} Yes. I simply wanted to show two trades I made today using the ORB strategy I've been implementing so far. It's obvious that different approaches lead to different results. - Did I follow my strategy as described and tested? - Yes - Did I adhere to my stop-loss and take-profit targets? - Yes - Did I plan my risk accordingly? - Yes - Did I execute everything correctly? - Yes I'm aware that posting winning trades in retrospect gets more likes here than showing losses. As I said, overall I've been profitable with this approach so far, and I...
I think you have a crap strategy, and the only reason that it shows meaningful profit is the parabolic move that happened in gold during the autumn. That move is now over. So move on.

Why not play with this toy instead: https://www.automated-trading.ch/NT8...range-breakout? It uses FVGs to find its trades.
  • #589
  • Nov 11, 2025 2:28am Nov 11, 2025 2:28am
Quoting Noisy
{quote} Yes. For the ORB Strategy, I’m not waiting for a pullback. Orders are placed immediately on touch of my high/low ranges as defined by time and will continue to trigger until the end of the day (22:30 UTC). Overall I start to believe the real magic comes from proper risk management and exits in trading. Like one of the thread followers mentioned, you can probably also make money by just entering at random price levels at random times but sticking to a solid risk/money management.

I like that. If dice is all we need. No effort and need to learn to read a price.
1st roll - what time to take trade 1=01:00, 2=02:00 and so on...
2nd roll - long or short. Odd numbers = short, even numbers = longs and 6 = no trade.

What money management rules make it profitable ?
I might be wrong , I have been wrong before
  • #590
  • Nov 11, 2025 3:46am Nov 11, 2025 3:46am
Quoting Mandariin
{quote} What money management rules make it profitable ?
This is a well-known puzzle among traders, simply because there are many general lessons about trading that can be learnt from it. I asked Perplexity AI to make its contribution. See attached. Comments?
Attached File(s)
File Type: pdf Optimal Trade Management and Money Management Stra.pdf   1.1 MB | 346 downloads
  • #591
  • Nov 11, 2025 4:09am Nov 11, 2025 4:09am
Quoting medici
I think you have a crap strategy, and the only reason that it shows meaningful profit is the parabolic move that happened in gold during the autumn. That move is now over. So move on.
Well, it was already profitable for the 4 weeks before I started switching the portfolio to DAX, NASDAQ, and Gold. However, the drawdown was significantly higher when I was still trading the five indices, including the FTSE and S&P 500. I was told that this was due to the positive correlation of this basket, which was particularly critical during extended losing streaks where they all moved in the same direction. I switched accordingly, and indeed, since then, Gold has been the most profitable, even though the intention wasn't to increase profits but primarily to reduce my drawdown.

However, I still have an account running where I have only traded the 5 indices since the beginning (DAX, FTSE, DOW, NAS, SP500). Yes, the statistics are anything but good in terms of win rate, profit factor, and drawdown, but it's still been profitable so far. The particularly high drawdown and profit at US30 also resulted from incorrect position sizes that were initially executed, but are now correct. Risk per order is 0.25% of balance.

Account Age: 14 weeks

Current Equity: $10,902.08
Current Balance: $10,856.20
Highest Balance: $12,836.48
Deposits / Withdrawals: $10,000.00 / $0.00
Commissions & Swap: $0.00 / -$110.36

Win rate (%): 36.7%
Profit Factor: 1.05
Avg Win / Avg Loss: $92.55 / $51.10
Avg Trade Duration: 2h 10m
Max Balance Drawdown: 41.56%

Total: +8.5%
Daily: +0.12%
Weekly: +0.55%
Monthly: +2.07%
Annualized: +34.96%

US30: +25.6%
US500: +5.7%
GER30 +1.7%
NAS/100: -1.8%
UK100: -16.2%

Quoting medici
Why not play with this toy instead: https://www.automated-trading.ch/NT8...range-breakout? It uses FVGs to find its trades.
Yes. I also discovered this system two weeks ago while searching for a similar ORB system that I could potentially use for futures trading on a futures platform.

My current system runs on the MetaTrader 5 platform, which now also supports futures trading, but I haven't yet found a prop provider that offers the platform. However, I'm running the system on another demo account with a futures broker I found that offers MT5 (AvaFutures), and from a purely technical standpoint, it's been working well so far. This account is also profitable so far, although it's NOT trading Gold.

I'm still not entirely convinced that filtering/context for the ORB approach, such as by trend or FVGs (Fair Values), makes the ORB approach significantly more profitable. As I mentioned at the beginning, I've already tried all sorts of filters in the past, and they never really led to better results. While I haven't tried FVGs, I have tried all the other possible trend filters like Moving Averages, ZigZag, SuperTrend and many many more.

Further, if I aim for accuracy and thus likely reduce the potential trade frequency considerably, will I still achieve my important goal of consistent minimum profits on a monthly or quarterly basis? As I said, profitability alone is not enough for me to make a living, even if the strategy shows a profit after 12 or 24 months. The win rate would have to be extremely high, I think, considering the small number of trades that would likely be executed after all the filtering.
  • #592
  • Nov 11, 2025 4:15am Nov 11, 2025 4:15am
Quoting medici
{quote} This is a well-known puzzle among traders, simply because there are many general lessons about trading that can be learnt from it. I asked Perplexity AI to make its contribution. See attached. Comments? {image}
Thank you. Its like a free money. No one in FF has these kind of results. Not even Larry Williams with 11k % in one year.
1000 trades and average 150 trades a month. Less than a year 31k % with only 4.4% max DD. It leaves Larrys records in shame.
Just I remark - if we cut losing trade always at 0.5R then 0.5R is actually 1R.
No extra money right now. But when I have some left over I definitely put it to work on that system.
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I might be wrong , I have been wrong before
  • #593
  • Nov 11, 2025 4:33am Nov 11, 2025 4:33am
Quoting Noisy
{quote} Yes. For the ORB Strategy, I’m not waiting for a pullback. Orders are placed immediately on touch of my high/low ranges as defined by time and will continue to trigger until the end of the day (22:30 UTC). Overall I start to believe the real magic comes from proper risk management and exits in trading. Like one of the thread followers mentioned, you can probably also make money by just entering at random price levels at random times but sticking to a solid risk/money management.
If you are referring to a coin flip, which I've mentioned once or twice. It's timed to coincide with Comex 4-hour candle times, so it is structured and not truly random. The signal is a coin toss from www.random.org, which uses atmospheric random noise, and this signal part is truly random. There are three signals a day, and I manage with 3:1. It's more of a training exercise and to demonstrate risk management. It also, for me at least at that time, made me realise and accept the unknown outcome side of trading. If you struggle with trading not being an absolute outcome, its ok to be wrong, and there is no wrong with a data-tested system.
  • #594
  • Edited 6:09am Nov 11, 2025 5:24am | Edited 6:09am
Quoting medici
{quote} This is a well-known puzzle among traders, simply because there are many general lessons about trading that can be learnt from it. I asked Perplexity AI to make its contribution. See attached. Comments? {image}
Thanks for sharing. Yes, that's amazing. I also saw a study somewhere about a random trading system that delivered consistently profitable results over the long term. Unfortunately, I can't find the link anymore. However, I don't intend to try out such a system now, as it probably wouldn't deliver the results I need (even if it were also profitable in the long run). Although, yes, it might be an interesting thing to observe with another demo account.

Quote
The breakeven stop strategy was catastrophic, turning a 1,783% return into a -2% loss

This also reflects my experience. Not only on the 1-minute timeframe, but also on higher timeframes. The price often fluctuates back to at least the entry level. Very tight stops probably aren't much better, are they? I think you should give the price some room to move. However, all the FVG approaches boast about being able to set very tight stops. In my ORB strategy, I use a dynamically based ADR stop loss. I think this idea is fundamentally quite good, as it doesn't place stops at some arbitrary level, but instead takes the underlying market's volatility into account. Setting stops behind the recent highs/lows is also often criticized.
  • #595
  • Nov 11, 2025 5:51am Nov 11, 2025 5:51am
Sell signal on EURGBP and buy on GBPHKD
  • #596
  • Nov 11, 2025 7:37am Nov 11, 2025 7:37am
Tried looking at a GBP/USD 1-hour chart with an FVG indicator on it. I don't know, but based on that I will hardly be able to trade, as this doesn't really take into account the time I have available for manual trading, nor can I somehow foresee how/if this would lead to a constant minimum profit within the required time.

PS. The two FVGs drawn most recently for today did not hold up and the price broke through both.

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  • #597
  • Edited 11:02am Nov 11, 2025 9:32am | Edited 11:02am
Quoting medici
{quote} This is a well-known puzzle among traders, simply because there are many general lessons about trading that can be learnt from it. I asked Perplexity AI to make its contribution. See attached. Comments? {image}
If the system executes an order every half hour, it's not truly random, but still interesting. I'll code the system according to the rules mentioned in the PDF and run it in a separate demo account.

That gave me also an idea I'd heard about before. There are so-called Volume-Based Rebate (VBR) programs where traders are rewarded for generating trading volume by returning a percentage of the spread they've paid? If, for example, a random-based system like this could generate a lot of trading volume and at least breaks even, you could potentially profit from the sheer volume you trade. I have no idea if you could even earn a living, but just thinking outside the box.
  • #598
  • Nov 11, 2025 11:24am Nov 11, 2025 11:24am
Quoting medici
{quote} This is a well-known puzzle among traders, simply because there are many general lessons about trading that can be learnt from it. I asked Perplexity AI to make its contribution. See attached. Comments? {image}
What isn't entirely clear to me from the PDF.

1) It says the initial stop loss should be 20 points, but on the other hand, it says you should always close a position at a loss of 10 points. So why not just use an initial stop of 20 points?
2) It says "Maximum 1 position open at any time". So, should the existing position be closed every time a new position is opened, regardless of whether it's currently in profit or loss? I think that's what it meant.
3) It only states that a trade should be opened every 30 minutes, but not within which specific times. I assume this refers to the entire regular market time during which NQ is traded, i.e., from Sunday 6:00 p.m. to Friday 5:00 p.m. ET.
4) It says "Trail stop only after reaching 40+ point profit", but not what the trailing step should look like that defines how far the current market price must move in a favorable direction before the stop order is automatically adjusted.
  • #599
  • Edited 12:17pm Nov 11, 2025 11:44am | Edited 12:17pm
Quoting Noisy
{quote} What isn't entirely clear to me from the PDF. 1) It says the initial stop loss should be 20 points, but on the other hand, it says you should always close a position at a loss of 10 points. So why not just use an initial stop of 20 points? 2) It says "Maximum 1 position open at any time". So, should the existing position be closed every time a new position is opened, regardless of whether it's currently in profit or loss? I think that's what it meant. 3) It only states that a trade should be opened every 30 minutes, but not within which...
I am not responsible for that document, and am not interested in discussing it. I simply posted it as food for thought, and as a response to the question asked by yourself and Mandariin.
  • #600
  • Nov 11, 2025 1:43pm Nov 11, 2025 1:43pm
Quoting Noisy
{quote} What isn't entirely clear to me from the PDF. 1) It says the initial stop loss should be 20 points, but on the other hand, it says you should always close a position at a loss of 10 points. So why not just use an initial stop of 20 points? 2) It says "Maximum 1 position open at any time". So, should the existing position be closed every time a new position is opened, regardless of whether it's currently in profit or loss? I think that's what it meant. 3) It only states that a trade should be opened every 30 minutes, but not within which...
For me random entry = no edge = casino = lottery.
You can't make bad trading system good with money management.
I might be wrong , I have been wrong before
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