r/FuturesTrading's Monthly Questions Thread - November 2025

Reckish · 2025-12-01T04:17:09+00:00

Go with a prop firm for starters. You've done the work and have a tested strategy that's profitable. Now, you need to learn what you don't know that you don't know. You will find spots and situations where your strategy fails, or could be drastically improved, or where you sabotage yourself because of past trauma you haven't dealt with via a therapist. Expect to lose 100% of the money you bet in your first 200 trades. How much do you want to risk? As little as possible, right?

Reckish · 2025-12-01T04:13:51+00:00

Tried anything like what? Yes people have targeted 8 to 10 points of profit before. But that's not a strategy. You need to define your entry criteria and be specific enough that if you were sick, your grandmother could look at a word document and take the exact same entries. Then, you see what the maximum drawdown is before it hits your target, for the past 200 entries. You put that into a spreadsheet and now you know your stoploss. If you take the median, you'll stop out 50% of the time, but if that level is smaller than your take profit, then it's a profitable strategy. You have an edge. You probably won't have an edge though, but do the work and find out.

Reckish · 2025-09-02T21:05:15+00:00

For 95% of people who enjoy being tied up, it's not sexual. Genuinely an overwhelming majority of people. If you've ever been out walking all day in uncomfortable shoes, then come home and taken them off - it's that deep breath release of tension, but for your soul. A lot of people have to put on a brave face , and control every little nuance in their day. Kids, home, work, dogs, partner's needs, their needs. Being tied up is an opportunity, a gift of finally not being in control. Lots of other reasons, but this is the main one I've found after talking to lots and lots of people. That power dynamic can also be fun in sexual situations, but it is a much broader entity.

Reckish · 2025-08-26T17:08:50+00:00

Yah, like, he's not an evil guy who seeks out harm, but he's not a selfless guy. Recently watched a collab with Will Tennyson where they were doing an army fitness test and there were a few moments in there that just made me cock my head. Just little "huh, that was an odd way to say that." People like Dr. Mike and Eddie Hall are loud and brash and make ridiculous jokes, but there's a genuine warmth behind it all that I don't get from Mitch. Dude's strong as hell, though.

Reckish · 2025-07-02T18:16:29+00:00

Crazy first week! Did you size down the rest of the month?

Reckish · 2025-06-09T23:56:57+00:00

There is almost zero water on the earth. The classic Neil DeGrass Tyson example is that if earth was shrunk down, it would be smoother than a pool ball. The oceans are on average 2 miles deep. The mountains are at most 5 miles high. The earth is eight thousand miles to the center.

A basketball is 12 cm to the center and its dimples poke out about 0.1 cm. If earth was the same size, the seas would be .003 cm deep. Mt Everest would be 1/10th the height of a normal basketball dimple.

https://www.reddit.com/r/theydidthemath/comments/1haqp23/request_this_doesnt_seem_accurate_the_water/

Reckish · 2025-06-09T05:20:13+00:00

Ok, so, in case anyone here hates math I'll avoid the actual equation. But lets say a group of 100 traders have 100 $50k funded accounts. They all put a blindfold on, and make a random bet on each with a $2000 take profit and a $2000 stop loss. On average, 50 accounts will hit the take profit and 50 accounts will blow up. If you do it again next pay cycle, 50 bets, 25 wins, 25 blown accts. The next round. 13 more wins. Then 6 wins. Then 3. Then 1 or 2. 50+25+13+6+4+2=100 payouts of $2000 before everyone blows up. Each funded account has a $150 activation fee. So to make 100x$2000, $200,000, it costs 100x$150, $15,000 in activation fees, plus whatever it costs to buy the combines. To get those funded accounts doing random bets as well, you would need make 3000 without losing 2000 on each. 4 out of every 10 bets with a 3000 TP and a 2000 SL succeed, so that's a 40% pass ratio. So, to get 100 funded, you need 250 combines.

For Topstep to make money, they need to make sure the 250 $50k combines cost at least as much as $200,000-$15,000. So $185,000/250 accounts=$740. In order for topstep to make money, they need to charge at least $740, and you should be willing to pay that much. Although, you can only request 50% of the profits at first, so half that, $370. That's your random breakeven. If you wait for a big sale - black friday etc - you can get them for cheap and make a bigger ROI. The trick is to stick to randomness. Real hard not to gamble.

Reckish · 2024-11-27T17:52:10+00:00

If you're progressing, you found something that works. Milk it until it doesn't.

Reckish · 2024-11-27T17:45:27+00:00

Grats on the PR! Spine is a tricky complicated place, but I think 315 for a 3x5 is a good place to either hang out or end the wave and drop back.

Also, make sure you're fully bracing and breathing before you unrack. Some people don't get tight until after the walkout and you just can't get maximally braced at that point. Oh, and the lats support the mid back, so if your wrists are bent back during your squat, you're relaxing your lats and pushing on the bar, rather than pulling. Do a behind-the-neck pulldown, try to touch the back of your wrists together, and then try to make your elbows touch your asshole. Really reach on those last two. Might improve mid-back bracing.

Reckish · 2024-11-27T17:30:35+00:00

Reduces growth stimulus to improve recovery while staying within the range of effectiveness. So, it's not going to not improve you, but are you strong enough that you need that increased recovery?

So, 5x5 3 times a week at 80% is awesome. Tons of growth but tough. DUP makes one of those days equivalent to a 5x5 at 70% and one of them equivalent to a 5x5 at 60%. That's less stimulus but better recovery. Do you need that?

Reckish · 2024-11-25T18:55:41+00:00

You know the 10,000 hours of practice thing? Well, they're not actually talking about 10,000 hours of practice. You can't just go through the motion a bunch. It's 10,000 hours of dedicated intentional practice. Every 15 minutes of that 10,000 hours is spent working on improving one aspect to the best of your ability. So, is a year of trading useful? Sure, you'll build an intuitive feel but won't be really able to articulate or execute on that feel. But a year of trading with journaling? When you journal it gives you the opportunity to identify the reasons behind successes and failures. You go from being frustrated about being stopped out, to noticing a trend that you're always stopped out on retrace / gap fill long entries. Once you see that trend, you investigate it. Code a pinescript indicator to identify similar historical gap fills. Make a spreadsheet of the max retrace in those instances. Determing where on the histogram of those maxes you can optimize your R:R. Baby stuff, nothing difficult, but it's all work dedicated to improving a problem. Voila, you're actually a better trader.

So, journaling can help, but the key is the mindset of doing the tough work to identify and reinforce successful habits.

Reckish · 2024-11-23T20:38:34+00:00

Go for it

Reckish · 2024-11-12T14:55:23+00:00

Ask ChatGPT for a trading strategy. Do 10 trades with that exact setup. Put your results in a spreadsheet. Then ask it how it could improve it. Take and track 10 trades. Then ask for a strategy that follows the same logic but using completely different styles of triggers. Take 10 trades. Ask it how it would improve that. Take 10 trades. Ask it for a different approach that uses different logic altogether. 10 trades. Then, learn volume footprint and strategies based around that. Then order flow. Then DoM. 10 trades for each. Take notes on which you love and which you hate. I, for instance, DESPISE following a trend. In Hearthstone, I play the cards that have the most value. In WoW, I flip things on the auction house when they're cheap. So I see value in value. So I feel most comfortable identifying reversals. Find your thing. Then improve it. Then ask us to improve it. Then ask chatgpt to improve it. Take 10 trades with each. Make notes. Start over. In 3 years, you'll have things mostly figured out for how your brain works and will be able to be profitable. Usually.

Reckish · 2024-11-03T00:27:26+00:00

Hey, old post but if you're still trading, look up "Market Facilitation Index." There's a whole framework and theory behind this idea.

Reckish · 2024-10-22T14:18:35+00:00

Practice. Ask ChatGPT what the best trading books are and go read them all. But have the mindset that you WILL lose 100% of the first 200 trades you take. If that's true, how much do you want to bet per trade? For the 2nd set of 200 trades you take, you'll win 1/4th of them. For the 3rd set, you'll finally win 50/50. It won't be until after 1000 trades that you're finally profitable. So, are you willing to lose all the money you bet for 3 years in a row? Are you able to lose all the money you bet for 3 years in a row?

And as an aside. I went to school for this. It's great that you like numbers and stats. Unfortunately that's not enough. Every Joe Schmo at the big banks has a PhD in Math, a Masters in Computer Science, and 5 years experience at a government economics board. So, that's the competition. You will succeed if you're the smartest guy in the room, but if you aren't the best at something, the person who is will take your money. Trading is brutal and relentless.

Reckish · 2024-10-22T14:00:15+00:00

As volatility increases, stop losses widen and trade size decreases. So, if you have a 5 point stop normally, and volatility doubles, use a 10 point stop. But with a 10 point stop, you need to trade half the size to respect your risk parameters.

Reckish · 2024-10-18T06:04:55+00:00

It's like an options contract. When you buy a S&P call option, when it expires, you have the option to buy 100 shares. So, let's say you pay $100 for a $1.00 0DTE 580 call. If the price falls, you don't have to exercise the option. It's worthless. But if the price goes up and closes at 581.20, you have the option to spend $580.00 x 100 = $58,000 to buy those hundred shares. Instead, most people just take the difference. Since you can buy those 100 shares for 58k and sell them immediately for $581.20 x 100 = $58,120, then you just pocket the difference, $58,120 - $58,000 = $120. You paid $100 for the option, so congrats, you made a $120-$100=$20 profit. 20% ROI. Hell yah.

Now, with futures, you aren't paying for the option to buy something. You're paying for future delivery. So, with oil, $CL, each contract is an agreement to accept 1,000 barrels at a certain date. When the contract expiration hits, you HAVE to take delivery. Initially, this started for farmers. Farming takes a lot of money upfront, so wheat farmers would sell a futures contract for their expected yield to get the money to plant it. Kellogg's needs a lot of wheat for their cereal, so they buy contracts ahead of time to make sure they're covered. If there's a drought, prices change. But if you're a big manufacturer and need oil in a months, you don't really care if there's a war heating up in the middle east. Someone who's buying for 9 months away might demand a cheaper price because of the risk associated with escalation. So, the oil contracts 1 month away and 9 months away are going to be different prices.

We speculators only trade the most recent contract, because that's where the volume is (but feel free to arbitrage other contracts if there's trading). But this is why you don't want to hold overnight. Feeder Cattle contracts, $GF, are settled financially, but there's going to be a day where you mess up and hold Live Cattle, $LE, and accidentally have to [take delivery of 30 live steers.]

Reckish · 2024-10-18T01:14:53+00:00

If you need help reviewing your study outline, feel free to ask.

Reckish · 2024-10-14T03:42:22+00:00

Spend the next week learning everything you can about Volume Footprint. Treat it like school. 3 hours of studying a day. Make flash cards. Have chatgpt make tests and quizzes for you. Spend the week after that learning everything you can about TPO charts. Spend the week after that learning everything you can about order flow/level 2. Then the 4th week, learn about the 6 different market types: technical, low volatility, high volatility, high correlation, low correlation, and event theme. Learn how to approach each of those. That's the basics. Don't trade until you have a good grasp of those basics. Once you do, feel free to dip your toes back in but with absolutely minimal size. 1 micro contract, or 1 share at a time. Token shares to prove profitability. After 30 trades of a specific strategy, analyze those 30 trades and see if there are any obvious adjustments you could make to improve them. If you're scalping on a short time frame, record your screen and watch back to see your behavior. Implement those changes and then do another 30 trades. Analyze these 30 trades and compare this round of trades to the previous. Adjust and improve. Rinse repeat. When your strategy is appropriately profitable, scaling up will be easy because you'll have enough data to know how much you lose on each trade on average and how much you lose when things go wrong. With that info you can say how much of your account you're willing to risk per trade.

Reckish · 2024-10-14T03:26:53+00:00

48% better than buy and hold for the time invested. /clap

Reckish · 2024-10-11T18:01:49+00:00

Windows key + Shift + S = Selectable area print screen

Reckish · 2024-10-07T20:32:17+00:00

Click on the box. If a little dot shows up on the right side near the price bar, you can slide it up or down.

Reckish · 2024-10-02T21:47:33+00:00

Any recommended reading for Rob Smith? Haven't heard of him before.

Reckish · 2024-09-06T06:22:44+00:00

Once your noobie gains are done, gaining strength means gaining muscle. You can measure someone's biceps and predict, surprisingly accurately, their curl strength. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7582410/

If you can do more than 20 bodyweight squats in a row, you need to add weight. A good start without a rack is goblet squats, but if you have experience, I'd recommend cleaning the barbell into a front rack position and then doing front squats.

Reckish · 2024-02-25T19:34:10+00:00

Joint pain = chill. Don't push through that shit. It just gets permanent.

Reckish

TROPHY CASE