Profitable traders reveal their "ah-ha" moments (r/Daytrading)

A great post full of helpful information and replies about profitable day traders from Reddit.
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Risk disclosure: Futures and forex trading contains substantial risk and is not for every investor. An investor could potentially lose all or more than the initial investment. Risk capital is money that can be lost without jeopardizing ones’ financial security or life style. Only risk capital should be used for trading and only those with sufficient risk capital should consider trading. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results.

[@ImanTrading]

In retrospect... these are self-titled "profitable" traders. Just keep that in mind, lol.

[@ImChickenLittle]

We're not joining your paid discord

[@ImanTrading]

@@ImChickenLittle ? It’s free, but good, please don’t join the free server

[@soroshisu]

@@ImanTrading thanks for the video pookie

[@ChromaticTempest]

Critical thinking, honest evaluation, deep analysis, creative parallel thinking, and so on, all come from honest journaling and self-discovery, as well as from data collection. Without reflection, there is no improvement. At this point in my journey I know that trading is a door to self-actualization. I know this b/c my mental state has had to evolve to such the place that allows me to recognize emotions in the moment and separate their influence out from flooding over objective reasoning. This one skill alone is why anyone interesting in trading should continue down the path, as the reward coming from its mastery will be far larger than anything monetary. This is one of those things that really can't be understood fully without experience. It IS the maturation story plot every human is seeking whether conscious of it or not.

[@jayaybe1]

What a wonderful post! I agree wholeheartedly but I'm not quite there yet 🙂.

[@cosmo1kramer]

How does recognizing emotional trigger and redirect to appropriate action make you a greater human being. Isn't that a basic definition of a human. If someone slaps me i don't slap back unlike animals but think about it.

[@tozkal96]

its true that being aware of our emotions and being able to think forward and plan for the future is what sets us apart from other animals, but if you think that humanbeings are not emotional animals then you are sorely mistaken. people shouldnt mistake the capability for objective thinking for being the baseline behavior pattern in humans. and someone who isnt taught to not hit back will hit you back or run away, both alternatives are emotional responses that are innate to humans just like the rest of the animal world.@@cosmo1kramer

[@nukepizzaa]

"It IS the maturation story plot every human is seeking whether conscious of it or not."

[@deeplytrekrl5369]

"On a side note, anyone can do this. It's about discipline and not giving up. You don't have to be a super genius to be successful. You are enough." ^ Love this.

[@RCP3Kids]

Was surprised not to hear this as it's as old as I am...and I'm pretty old. There's an old saying that goes "Bulls get Rich, Bears get Rich, BUT...PIGS GET SLAUGHTERED!" Speeks to not being greedy in trading. It has kept me sane...

[@sskhussaini]

I think I read this in a book called Pit Bulls, not sure iirc.

[@Steph_D_1st]

Mine is when I recognized that "no trade is better than a bad trade."

[@Salsuero]

This should be written more like "a non-trade is better than a bad trade." I read it your way and was like... good trades are certainly better than bad trades... why are you saying no trades are better? Then I realized you meant "no trade" means "not trading". Anyways, not criticizing... just making it more clear for anyone reading who might have been confused like I was.

[@Steph_D_1st]

@@Salsuero What i meant and what most people understand from my writing is that a day without a trade is better than taking a bad-trade (usually a forced trade).

[@PragyaTheMotivation]

Fail smaller fail faster is the key to success

[@nukepizzaa]

thank you

[@albertop27]

Loved all your videos, this one stands out to me because of how hard it was for me to find actual advice on Trading/day trading beyond the usual "don't even think about it", "be ready to waste all your money" and "just HODL". Thank you.

[@ImanTrading]

Thank you Albi! I’ll be doing more of these because you’re right, it shouldn’t be difficult to find good information. That’s part of the motivation for why I make videos, so people don’t have to waste their time.

[@widxchange]

"if the trade goes against you, cut it quickly cause you can always get back on"❤

[@CloudParadox-is1jc]

I learned that the hard way.. cut losses and reposition.. reposition again when needed

[@quimica1786]

i just spend 5 hours backtesting stuff and I was full of hope that this strategy i was developing could work. Turns out it doesnt and i felt like crap the entire day. After accepting my defeat I tried ogain with another setup, only to realise that if i go 6 months back in time market conditions were completely different and this type of setup would not form at all, so i realise that even if i make this strategy work, putting another god knows how many hours into it would be completely useless when conditions change again. I felt like an idiot for wasting my time like this, getting discouraged the first time and trying ogain only to feel the same way, except worse. It feels like i cant make a decent strategy from scratch only trought price action, observation and backtesting, no matter how hard i try. i wanna make this bullshit work, and as college student im used to work hard to get good results. They say trading is not like that, and that no strategy works forever. I knew this, but i guess i didnt internalize it. Just wanted to say that this type of informal videos helped me a bit to get trought this little depression. thanks.

[@ImanTrading]

Hey Q, I’m sorry to hear that you feel like that. Tough to put so much time into something without getting a result. I’m in college too, so I know what you mean. I can assure you that you’re not an idiot for doing that. It’s so tempting to work on an algo, because the idea of combining a bunch of code into something that can potentially be so rewarding can cloud our judgment a little. I looked into it quite a bit too, but it’s extremely difficult to find something that actually works. A lot of the profitable traders like day trader next door would not be able to translate their behavior into code. It’s very alluring but tough to almost impossible to implement. I’m glad that this video was helpful for you. I will be doing many more of these, since the experience of others is very beneficial to our own wellbeing and our learning process. Don’t give up my man; trading is tough. I know how hard it is to try and do this while being a college student. Something that helps me is to have a long term perspective, because I know that my efforts might not be beneficial a week from now, but they certainly add up and will be helpful in a year +. Small steps lead to big changes. You’ve got this :)

[@saketshandil9632]

We need more of such videos please. coming from someone who is stepping into the world of trading, i think your videos were the first point of clarity i found in this entire youtube mumbo jumbo. And even though i might have a million questions, as well as preconceptions, i think i need to be open to learning and breaking preconceptions and get it there. Thankyou for your help.

[@CryptoGrit]

probably the biggest AH-HA moment was when I realized that each time that I push for the profits I loss money... when I wait for good opportunities and feel really confident about executing it it's usually positive outcome...

[@floydsmithjr7999]

When I learned how to properly read price action and accepted that it doesn’t always do what it looks like it should do.

[@Salsuero]

Price action doesn't always do what we WANT it to do. Actually... it rarely does exactly what we WANT it to do. Should... well, that's a bit subjective... what it should do isn't necessarily a thing because it's doing exactly what it should do -- which is reacting to people buying and selling. Price action does exactly as it should... based on the actions of the people trading shares. But WANT -- now that's the truth!

[@kevinwchapeljr6460]

I hope you keep creating and posting. Thanks.

[@ImanTrading]

Thank you very much :), that’s the plan!

[@Dimewick21]

Proper sizing. My Achilles heal for my first 4 years. As soon as I pulled my lot size down to an amount where I could comfortably look at the money I gave away at a stop loss as a fee for playing, everything else fell into place. So obvious but so elusive… so many blown accounts before this.

[@LukaszAdams]

When i understand in what im good and in what im not soo good and need learn better or avoid my weak side.

[@Shahed-z8z]

Blueprint Only trade in the direction of higher time frames Tight stop losses bigger take profits Only trade when liquidity has been taken of the opposite party

[@TheApeMachine]

Time series and neural networks actually go very much hand in hand. For instance, I am currently experimenting with building a trading bot that uses amongst other things "moving averages" and I have a very simple neural network continuously evaluating and optimizing the moving averages "window". Another thing that would probably be a good idea is to have something similar for dynamic stop-losses and such.

[@nukepizzaa]

very interesting, can you share more like this? I think that trading is a continuation prblem like there are word continuation models for artificial intelligence, so yeah I absolutely think that this can be solved with ai

[@Prophitman8]

6:42 im glad you pronounced it "Opps" lmao

[@bigrick072alkmaar]

You are great (I)man! I love your insights on this and because of you, i feel emotional ready for trading and think this was the best way to get started! I watched almost al your (very funny) video's and for someone with autism this was THE way to go! Love it, keep up this great work!

[@MaBrickHouse]

How has it gone man?

[@Tom-se5ol]

Using 2-4 micros instead of mini’s on funded prop accounts. I was finding that my directional bias was usually right, but unless timed perfectly each time you’ll lose money trading too much size.

[@ekansnake]

don’t try to predict the market, go with the flow, and no indicator has an edge only your own perception, and consistency, take partials and move your stop loss if it makes sense

[@posthardcoresinger]

I have an aha moment like once every week or three. Then my trading improves for a short bit, then the aha stops working. Rinse and repeat into infinite drawdown.

[@ant-alltime]

Hi have you been journaling since you posted this comment

[@posthardcoresinger]

@ant-alltime no. I've tried a couple of journaling methods. Makeshift, as well as using Tradezella for a while. It was hard to really make use of the info though, so I stopped recording after a few months. Honestly even if I journal religiously the likelihood that I even understand fully what it is I'm looking back on is low which makes me feel like it's sort of a waste. Might just be the way my brain works. Especially during times where I'm trying strategies that provide entry signals a bit more often, it can be hard to even recall exactly how I was viewing the chart after the fact for every trade if I wait until end of day to journal, even if I leave my notes right there on the chart (which makes it messy fast). I moved over to another trading community since I've posted that though, and the guy who runs it is a skilled 30 year investment banker analyst so I'm hoping his requirement that we post our trade breakdowns daily in the discord will start doing me some good.

[@120soldier]

Last Tuesday they were green on their paper money account 💀💀

[@Salsuero]

The thing people mention about paper vs. live being a lack of emotional investment is certainly true. The thing they often fail to add, which is pretty important too, is that you don't actually have your orders in the book. The platform decides your orders got taken simply by the price hitting your limit/stop price, but not by actual share processing. If your order is behind a big one, the price may hit your target, but your shares may not actually get taken due to them being stuck behind a bigger order that needed to fill in front of yours. And if you size your shares too big, you might only get partial fills... which definitely impacts your results. Paper trading just fills it all, no problem. Also, having too big a limit order can actually affect the market... such that it may move in the opposite direction because your order scares people. Paper trading has no way of doing this. So, while paper trading is good to learn how to actually use a platform and for getting a basic strategy and learning how to implement it, it's not as good for showing you true results of implementing that strategy in a live setting (your own emotional reactions not even taken into account). Something I think should be mentioned more often.

[@TimeWaveOfficial]

Who said that they are profitable? Did you see their statements?

[@owningyourfinances]

Good stuff, I will add something not directly related to any strategy or tip, but just about the human aspect. When you are trading (even with a plan) there is a temptation to keep sizing up when you get wins, but why? The ugly truth is that our mind develops an unhealthy reliance on the dopamine hit it gets when we gain a big win, but in order to re-create that experience, we will need a bigger win next time. Don't do it for the dopamine. Don't do it for the money (well, you know, that's just a bi-product), just learn a process/strategy that works for you, and stay disciplined. Win or lose, it's just another day. But if you let dopamine start making all of your decisions, then you are going to lose it all.

[@dennis8858]

Great video...simple and educative.

[@TrevorTrove]

"Have i lost touch with finances? No no its the market who is wrong"

[@TheRandomDave]

this was good. kinda fun to hear other's experiences. ty

[@ImanTrading]

Glad to hear that! I thought so too

[@kac669]

im a live funded trader with topstep (i can prove it iman) and my aha moment was honestly the moment i quit thinking about $, your focus as a trader is making good trades, not trying to get rich

[@saiine]

1. Focus on learning how to lose well, rather than focusing on how to win well. Wins take care of themselves, and you can optimize those once you stop bleeding money. 2. Make decisions based on probability and nothing else. 3. Bankroll management, Bankroll management, Bankroll management. This is different for everyone, but I subscribe to no more than 5% of my roll is leveraged in a play. 4. Don't even think of thinking of using margin until you have several years of consistently profitable trading under your belt. 5. Good trading should be boring.

[@floydsmithjr7999]

I agree with all of those. Number 3, bank roll management, im just getting used to. You may find a trade that looks good, but if it doesn’t fit in with your money management you gotta let it go. Ive learned this from looking at options prices, like if a bid price is $23.00 thats $2300.00 for one contract. If you’re trading with a relatively small account like mine, thats a little bit to high risk for me. You can easily be down $200.00 an hour after taking the trade. My mission for the upcoming year is to save up my base hits, load the bases, so I can swing away when that fat pitch enters my wheelhouse ⚾️ . I noticed a correlation watching the NFL. The quarterback can have 20 completions in a row, then he throws an interception, they lose the game 22 - 20. An experienced quarterback knows when to just throw the ball out of bounds.And that quarterback only gets experience after several seasons of blowing up games, of course there’s always exceptions to the rule but they are rare.

[@ChromaticTempest]

I'd like to share something I learned from a trade I took yesterday. I entered for a long on SPY in the AM before the big trend launched. I set a hefty stop b/c of how high Vix was. The trade meandered a bit then tore downward and I was sure I was going to get stopped out. I figured it was just going to be a red trade as I watched. It didn't hit my stop, tho, and SPY rebounded and rallied for a huge gain for anyone that got in at that point (or even later). I closed at my target (not a point or profit goal, but a time goal), and was happy with the green. Now, for what I realized that was interesting on reflection. I could have doubled my reward in that same trade without any extra risk. How? By buying a second position with the same stop price as the first position when the price was near my stop. This seems obvious now, but what I didn't think about is that I wouldn't be adding anymore risk at that point, just increasing the potential reward size as I was right beside my stop. The odds that my stop would get hit at that point were high, but it was 0 extra risk, and all extra reward potential. So even if I see the same dip after I enter in the future and add a second position there then get stopped out, it doesn't effect the PnL negatively, but if my stop doesn't get hit, even 1 out 10 times, that's 1 trade where I got double reward for no extra risk. I think trading is all about key realizations about methodology exactly like this one that offer up a slight edge in execution or strategy that traders just hadn't thought about previously, and that realization only comes with reflection on the trades. So, I'd like to add rule 6. Always review both taken and not taken trades with an open mind and focus on improvement!

[@jayaybe1]

5% ! Yikes! About 1.5% is about my comfort level😀. Any more than that and I'm .

[@faizaanmirza9108]

"A diet of strong whisky, cigarettes and redbull. Your body is a temple". This is why reddit >>>>>

[@vvs7949]

My aha moment, which never happened, I just started getting profitable because of the work I put in. But it was realising that you can’t just use one thing by itself, it’s loads of little things added altogether

[@lozyl956]

My ah ha moment was when I realize trading is no better than flipping a coin, make a little more than you lose and you become profitable.

[@hashflame]

true but the only difference is that you can have an edge with skills, so trading is like gambling but you get additional odds in the big picture above %50 if you develop your knowledge and your system

[@netking767]

(Not profitable yet) I had an ah-ha moment when I accepted that it was all probability and losses can and will happen, no matter the strategy. I'll share any others I get once I'm actually profitable.

[@eio4528]

So... are you profitable now?

[@netking767]

@@eio4528 almost...i can be but I'm honing my strategy to work for big swings. so soon

[@ZeroToBmw]

are you profitable yet ? @@netking767

[@bamang233]

@@netking767profitable now?

[@jonr.e.5011]

Hey .. are you profitable yet?

[@mubashirkhan8465]

Wow! this actually made my day. Just lost my half portfolio 🙃 ... ugh still learning...

[@ImanTrading]

Glad you enjoyed it, and sorry to hear about your portfolio :(. Unfortunately, we learn the most from the big mistakes. You’ve got this!

[@dragoY9955]

Thank you so so much!

[@aleksander4711]

For me trading is unlearnable there are too many variables, I cannot make any sense of it and what is more profit and loss start to be more like philosophical concept .

[@laeioun]

Generally, people tell you to buy companies that you like and that have room to grow within their industries. This is true, but a falling tide lowers all ships. Don't buy the best company in a falling industry.

[@theotothefuture]

lollll the person who was talking all in CAPS and saying using no indicators is "pro level". Typical lmao

[@ashir...897]

Well i have a cousin tranfered 56 dollars to future trading and by following signals reached 300$ in a week...... After that he simply got liquidated because he wasnt using stop loss and extremely high margin, that his mentor who was talking half his profits had suggested 🤦🤦🤦so basically don't get that kinda mentors I also agree with the trading with very little actual money rather than paper trading because there is a lot of emotions involved when trading eith real money no matter how little

[@Xennox2]

I search for an edge. A couple of hours later I find myself reading about edging.. THATS NOT WHAT I WAS SEARCHIN FOR.. Be careful out there Peace out

[@getrag1707]

Good video

[@ImanTrading]

Thank you, glad you enjoyed it

[@again2081]

You only trade futures now?

[@ImanTrading]

Yes, but I don’t get to practice as much as I’d like. Once my internship is over and I’m out of college, I’ll be doing live trading videos... possibly on a different channel. For now, going to devote my spare time to this channel and try to focus on my specialty, psychology. These kinds of videos are also helpful and fun (to me lol)

[@Soupermahn]

@@ImanTrading leave college!

[@ImanTrading]

@@Soupermahn haha tempting, but I only have 1 easy semester left so I may as well finish. Not gonna drop out the last semester of senior year lol. I’d like to say I have a bachelors degree in behavioral science

[@speedfastman]

@@ImanTrading Where those hot live trading vids at.

[@ToxiicZombee]

Strict stop losses

[@StretchedFX]

Literally just not giving a fuck anymore

[@aboka2k]

thanks alot! this is Gold!

[@MarkEm]

I didn't know that people actually trade the 1-minute charts. Thought people only use the 5 min to understand the 30 Min

[@ImanTrading]

Personally I trade 20sec charts lol

[@avi6961]

ah-ha!

[@CaseVault]

Not related but I was wondering what your age was?

[@ImanTrading]

22

[@CaseVault]

@@ImanTrading cool, You're very knowledgeable for your age!

[@ImanTrading]

@@CaseVault 😁 thank you!

[@foamformbeats]

I've thought a bit about using machine learning and one big obstacle would be dealing with time horizons. How would the AI know how long to keep the trade? My guess is initially it would see most charts as up and to the right over their entire existence and therefore just plan to buy and hold until you're dead. Otherwise you would need to program something like "up or down in x seconds, minutes, hours" and hopefully that time horizon combined with a correct pick of direction would yield a substantial profit....or something like x % profit and let it pick a direction (but with a time constraint? or no?). It gets tricky when you combine a time constraint with picking a direction (and even more so when adding in a variable of a minimum % change). I have other ideas for the use of machine learning for trading though and would love to work with someone who is knowledgeable in the field if they are reading this.

[@Yanzter]

Well i think, people are already using neutral networks for trading

[@mrtrader4628]

I love it damn good sh*$T

[@navketan1965]

Sir,Do you use or recommend auto support/resistance indicator & if so what time frame S/R levels to execute intraday orders in forex. For What time frames S/R--I would think it should be 1H or 4H time frame S/R. One hour is short enough but still meaning full enough data--and it it better to use 15 minute chart to watch price action at A givenS/R(BECAUSE 5 MINUTE CANDLES GIVE TOO MANY FALSE SIGNALS) ?. If S/R level appears on more than one time frame,that level becomes even more RELAVANT.?Sir,Thank you

[@Fx.D]

🤔Very interesting

[@AB-zv6dz]

There isn't a profitable trader on reddit. Profitable traders don't spend their time discussing why they are profitable lol.

[@こなた-m1o]

…why not? why would people successful at things not talk about them? that has never applied to anything i’ve seen people be successful at in my entire life.

[@AB-zv6dz]

@@こなた-m1o Of course succesful people talk about things they are succesful about. But successful people, obviously, talk about things with people equally or more succesful people. Succesful people do not waste their time talking to morons on reddit. Morons on reddit talk to morons on reddit.

[@saxon6621]

@@AB-zv6dzdude you’re in a KZbin comment section. No one knows wether these guys are profitable unless they’ve posted proof.

[@Kyle_P2022]

Is it just me who thinks sticking to rules in a market that changes every second of the day sounds stupid? Like: "wait for an imbalance correction to 0.382 fib then sell" That was just a general example (of a real strategy sold to my friend by SDL Academy, stupid af I know) but surely the better way to trade is knowing absolutely all factors of price action and knowing what type of market to utilise them rather than some made-up sequence of coincidences?

[@DailyAiGuy]

Rules are set so the probability of your edge(strategy) can play out with the randomness of the market. You'd need to find an edge first and then have a specfic list of rules to execute a proper setup for your edge. How is this done? You backtest....backtest...backtest. Backtesting can give you the confidence to place trades with your strategy when it appears in the market. That doesn't mean they will win everytime, they just need to win more overtime to bring in profits. Any strategy can work as long as it has an edge with proper risk management. Hope it's going well for you and your friend.

[@CloudParadox-is1jc]

My aha moment was learning no amount of T.A. will predict the future of a price.. i use a few of the standard (vwap, volume, mace, etc..) but i dont trade off them.. i trade what i call trading the manipulation.. that is.. i use fibonnaci to mark out my levels and i try to anticipate how the money will trade because thats who controls the market.. (big money, old money, market makers)... I try to anticipate how they're going manipulate and trade that.. i do pretty well now lol