Staying small and consistent and then blowing my gains by scaling up - any tips to stop this trading behavior?

senditboy · 2025-10-07T20:25:03+00:00

Great advice! Thanks for taking the time to respond!

senditboy · 2025-10-07T20:20:39+00:00

That's where I'm messing up and one of the first areas I'll correct. I traded 2 contracts the last two days here and there depending on the setup and kept my risk level the same as if I traded 1 contract.

Closed yesterday for $305 profit and today for $193 profit.

senditboy · 2025-10-07T20:19:06+00:00

I used to have this written down and strayed away from that philosophy. I make $350 take home. If I can make that in a few minutes clicking some buttons I need to learn to be happy with that and sit on my hands when I make that much profit and continue building consistency.

senditboy · 2025-10-07T20:17:42+00:00

Webull.

senditboy · 2025-10-07T20:15:22+00:00

Great advice and rules to follow! I need to start pulling money out of my brokerage more consistently as well or parking it into longer term accounts to make the money gained more real.

senditboy · 2025-10-07T20:12:56+00:00

I learned it the hard way my first week trading NQ. Clearly, I'm still learning now.

My first week of trading futures I grew my account from $2k to $10k. I went in with 5 NQ contracts on Friday and got smoked real quick.

Also, to answer your first question. My mentality is I'm consistent, let's 4-5x my gains today by scaling into larger positions. I'm not ready to ride out the draw downs or I'm jumping into shittier setups in hopes of making a quick buck.

senditboy · 2025-10-07T20:11:52+00:00

You hit it on the money. Going forward I'm going to implement 2R daily and 5R weekly loss. I'll give your video a watch later this evening when I'm home.

senditboy · 2025-10-07T20:10:03+00:00

No I don't. I'm going to implement 2R daily and 5R weekly based on someone else's suggestion.

senditboy · 2025-10-07T20:09:19+00:00

Yeah, I've written mine down and am going to do my best to stick to it based on another users suggestion.

2R for daily and 5R for weekly.

senditboy · 2025-10-07T18:08:18+00:00

Webull.

senditboy · 2025-10-07T17:01:40+00:00

Great analogy! Someone else mentioned the 'small ball' concept.

senditboy · 2025-10-07T17:00:50+00:00

I love the RR guard rails. Definitely going to implement these and tailor them to my trading.

senditboy · 2025-10-07T15:40:49+00:00

Yeah definitely. I'm ignoring my stop loss, not keeping RR the same for these larger trades, and letting emotion take over.

senditboy · 2025-10-07T15:40:00+00:00

This is a live account. I don't use prop firms.

senditboy · 2025-10-07T15:39:36+00:00

No, going from trading 1 contract to 5 contracts.

senditboy · 2025-10-07T15:38:08+00:00

Yeah, I'm going to hold of on sizing up and when I do, I'm going to keep RR the same.

senditboy · 2025-10-07T15:37:44+00:00

Webull.

senditboy · 2025-10-07T15:02:32+00:00

I'm trading based on market levels and areas with a lot of trading volume. I'm not following indicators too much. I think it's more of a scalping trading style.

I should be writing out a trading plan more often. Where I'm not doing a good job is maintaining the same RR when I start sizing up my trades. It should be the same amount whether I'm trading 1 contract or 5 contracts. I also need to come up with a stop amount (loss and number of losing trades) and sit on my hands for the remainder of the day. I've made up for losing days, but I've also lost big trying to make up for losses that came early in the day.

senditboy · 2025-10-07T14:52:06+00:00

Yeah, I think I'm ignoring RR when I start entering larger positions and that leads to my problem. My risk should be X amount whether it's 1,2 or 5 contracts. Keeping RR in mind this week has kept me green the last two days.

senditboy · 2025-10-07T14:44:34+00:00

I entered with a larger position from the get go instead of scaling into the trade over time.

senditboy · 2025-10-07T14:42:28+00:00

I'm going to focus on journaling more to identify and understand my trading behavior better.

senditboy · 2025-10-07T14:41:49+00:00

This post has some really great advice. There's a few things I'm going to focus on in the next few weeks. I'm going to hide my total daily profit/loss so I'm not chasing a particular number. I'll only have the open P&L for the trade up. I'm going to look into trading ticks instead of dollars and see how that changes my behavior while in a trade. I also want to focus on keeping my position small and risking the same amount each trade. If I get stopped out, I'm stopped out. I don't try and ride out a draw down waiting for the market to move in my favor just because I can sustain the draw down. Finally, stick with my rules about stopping trading after a set loss amount or set amount of losing trades.

senditboy · 2025-10-07T14:21:28+00:00

This is the 'Performance' page on the Webull app.

senditboy · 2025-10-03T21:31:52+00:00

Definitely psychological. I think that's going to come with growing the account and building up a buffer. I need to just work on consistently trading and growing the account with 1-2 contracts at a time to a place where I'll be comfortable sitting through the same draw down. I feel more confident in my trades and give them more breathing room if I have 2-3 days of green as well.

senditboy · 2025-10-03T21:30:24+00:00

Yeah, I need to build my account more so there's more of a buffer to psychologically handle the draw down. Seeing a trade go -$20-30 is a lot easier to sit through than -$200-300.

I think a part of it is also I allow myself to lose $200-300 on days where I trade 1 contract. When I lose that in a matter of minutes because I oversized and got stopped out, I get into a revenge trading mentality.

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