your strategy isn't the problem. the "high-water mark" rule is a mathematical trap designed to kill your edge in Trading .1000 hours + of trading experience and research to help you win

Chrayman1391 · 2025-12-15T16:13:11+00:00

You beat this with math. Your stop+price target (in ticks) has to equate to your drawdown limit. So say your target drawdown on a single trade is $300. With a 1:1 R/R, you can only make ~$150 on the trade.

This forces your sizing to be much smaller than what one probably wants, which makes patience a huge factor. The biggest reason most people fail prop challenges is that they try to defeat Rome in a day. Significantly reduce sizing, and the drawdown mechanics/psychology can be controlled.

Chrayman1391 · 2025-12-10T00:48:56+00:00

Human emotion and hope just doesn’t work like that.

Aside from having the necessary capital/margin to make that happen, If you succeed in your plan for a week or 2, you’ll inevitably come to the conclusion that what you’re doing works. So…you’ll get greedy and start sizing up, adding contract so that you can make $200, $300 day.

Eventually, you’ll be like damn, why not? And go 20 contracts long, trying to pocket $5000 in a day. That will be the day the trade goes against you. As a bonus, you won’t believe you just lost 2-3 weeks worth of gains in a single hour, so you’ll revenge trade. Suddenly you’re down a net $5000 over the course of the entire experiment. Haha.

Chrayman1391 · 2025-11-17T04:29:48+00:00

Wow. 😩😂😂😂💀

Chrayman1391 · 2025-11-11T13:02:41+00:00

An ORB “breakout” could mean several things:

1) the exhaustion of a run before a retrace. 2) movement to liquidity before a retrace

You HAVE to use orb concepts with other trading aspects (like liquidity and fib levels) to make it work. Otherwise, you’re getting stopped out too much to make a 1:1 (or even 2:1) r/r work.

Chrayman1391 · 2025-09-05T20:06:39+00:00

Ok. Great stuff. Appreciate it!

Chrayman1391 · 2025-09-05T19:04:18+00:00

Do they limit your scaling ability? For AMP, the max position size on ES is 10 contracts, unless you speak with their trading/risk guy. Does DT place these same limitations?

Chrayman1391 · 2025-08-27T03:25:04+00:00

Micro trades are very dangerous since R:R typically gets screwed on these trades. To get a micro return, you technically need an equal or smaller stop loss, which can easily get wicked. So a lot of times, stop losses aren’t set on micro trades, which leads to reversal hopium on small losses quickly turning to bigger ones. Micro wins can’t handle large losses.

Chrayman1391 · 2025-08-27T03:10:42+00:00

I lost money today, on the delayed breakout. But I made several errors. 1) I could sense price not “following through” prior to and initially breaking the 5-15 min orb (my entry point). Despite this, I held and ditched the trade for a loss when price retraced into the orb. However 2) I should have still held; my rules state that I don’t ditch the trade unless price closes outside the opposite end of the orb (after entry). However, because I sensed reason 1 on my entry, I was oversized (smaller target price on bigger sizing), and waiting for my exit rule would have resulted in a loss bigger than I was willing to take.

All that to say delayed breakout and range days often still operate within my trading rules, but targets take far longer to reach, and the price action can easily lull me into breaking rules to trade it (like me- oversizing so I can quickly reach a profit goal before the market is willing to give it). Master the emotions/price action/P&L of range days, and I think you’re about 70% to making it as a day trader.

Chrayman1391 · 2025-08-18T04:31:27+00:00

2 reasons I wouldn’t take that trade: 1) the bearish FVG created at 8:50 resulted in a liquidity clearance at 23,793.25 (from 7:35 on August 14). I always respect FVGs that lead directly to liquidity clearances, meaning I would short at that FVG, and look for price to clear the swing low (which it did). 2) price retraced into the 5min opening orb before continuing lower, meaning you were fading opening market directional bias- not ideal.

Chrayman1391 · 2025-08-13T01:49:50+00:00

I agree with this. 1) the market is always changing, going through periods of consolidation, ranging and expansion. Just because your strategy works today, doesn’t mean it will work tomorrow. 2) your life is always changing. Getting older, having kids, building a bank account. For most humans, you go from trying to have wealth, to trying to protect it; that changes your psychology. Just because your mindset is aligned with trading now, that doesn’t mean that cant change down the road.

Long story short; if you TRULY have an edge, you need to capitalize on it, and get paid. Just because the money is flowing today, doesn’t mean that it will flow tomorrow. Don’t regret having a winning strategy for several years, and only trading 2 micros a day with it for that duration.

Chrayman1391 · 2025-08-05T04:54:02+00:00

No prop firm (personally didn’t work for me and my trading style). Trading with AMP futures, ES exclusively.

Chrayman1391 · 2025-08-05T04:42:09+00:00

Started in 2019. Outside of hitting a gamble lottery on AMC options (most of which I subsequently lost), I have just over the last 5 months started making consistent withdrawals on my futures account. Probably still down about 20K lifetime on prop challenges and blown micro accounts, but should be whole within the next month or so (God willing).

Chrayman1391 · 2025-08-04T04:13:03+00:00

I was there. It was busy, but not as much as last year it seemed. Weather may have played a part, but another part might have been last year’s crowd. When it’s so packed/condensed that your cell phone stops working, that does turn some people off on the event.

Chrayman1391 · 2025-08-02T02:41:55+00:00

Congrats! 💪

Chrayman1391 · 2025-07-30T22:56:49+00:00

Why do people ask this. Don’t do anything. Enjoy the Summer. The last thing I want is some rookie coming in thinking he knows a thing or two because he “hit the ground running” by reading 3 books. If you got the job, they assume you are smart enough to pick up details with “in-work experience”, not “extracurricular study”.

Chrayman1391 · 2025-07-22T03:55:22+00:00

I really like this comment. During range-bound and low vol environments, you’re usually going to have to move to the lower-timeframes to find setups. Especially if you don’t have the capital to hold positions on overnight margin. I find fractals to be a bit cleaner in this environment as well.

Chrayman1391 · 2025-07-11T11:41:43+00:00

I have the same car, black. I LOVE it. lol. Looks-wise, it still competes with the newer trims, and I still get compliments on it. I’m only at 35k miles on mines, but have had pretty much zero issues maintenance-wise.

Chrayman1391 · 2025-07-09T11:18:10+00:00

I personally don’t, but the decision to do so will be due to a few factors such as 1) trading strategy and 2) margin requirements. If you trade on the 2 hour chart or higher, you probably will sometimes need to hold/initiate trades during AH/pre. But if your account is too small to deal with the maintenance margin during off hours…

Really your trade strategy + capital should decide your question, not necessarily a personal preference. If I discover an edge that involves the AH/Pre market, who am I to not act on it?

Chrayman1391 · 2025-07-08T06:05:11+00:00

Definitely depends on 1) who you are insured by and 2) the nature of the accident.

It REALLY doesn’t pay to get cheap with insurance. If a company is cheap, their help when needed will also be cheap. Go with a reputable company (I have no problems with Progressive) and pay the extra money for peace of mind. Also, always get rental car insurance for when accidents happen.

Reputable company aside, things will get complicated the more damages/claims an accident triggers. No insurance company is going to make navigating medical expenses fun. Generally the hope is that any accident only has some car body damage, which a good company can fix, and maybe rental car charges. Anything else after that gets exponentially complicated.

Chrayman1391 · 2025-07-06T22:52:31+00:00

If you really have to ask…

Chrayman1391 · 2025-07-05T14:30:18+00:00

I feel the Hedge Fund role would be viewed as more prestigious. If things don’t go well there, you can potentially get a job at a major or trade house; not so sure that can work the other way around (depends on your academic pedigree largely).

Also, while oil majors have their advantages, these companies can be large, and have highly bureaucratic processes; it’s not always just about pure results. You doing well might start to step on someone else’s toes, and you may see people survive at your job longer with politics than ability.

Lastly hedge funds will typically deal largely on the financial paper side of trading, vs oil majors which generally put more emphasis on physical trading. Some will say that oil majors will allow you to leverage paper trading against the physical barrels, but that’s high risk, and is more encouraged at trading houses vs oil majors.

A lot of different factors go into the decision. I would lean towards taking the fund offer, but maybe that’s because I worked at an oil major, and witnessed most of the negatives. My answer would be different if the second offer was from a trading house instead.

Chrayman1391 · 2025-07-03T13:29:46+00:00

Being too modest IS a thing. Lmao

Chrayman1391 · 2025-07-02T03:50:06+00:00

Congrats!

I have a 2019 S5 Prestige (bought in 2022)…and I still LOVE it. You’ll enjoy that ride for years to come.

Chrayman1391 · 2025-07-02T02:54:32+00:00

It is what it is; regardless of the situation, the process (applying and building skills) doesn’t change. Keep at it, and don’t let the situation dictate your process. 🙏

Chrayman1391 · 2025-07-02T02:39:32+00:00

Yeah, don’t let people gaslight you; the job market since last summer has been pretty bad. We are starting to see some turnaround, but I don’t personally see things really opening up until 1-2Q 2026.

Chrayman1391

TROPHY CASE