Live Day Trading (Simple Scalping Strategy)

What is up guys? Currently I'm up a little over $2,300 and I want to break down this trade. That way you can learn the simple strategy I use to find it. So really simple, what you're going to do is you're going to go over the last five days and you're going to take this volume profile tool. You can just get this by going to your indicators and typing in fixed range volume profile. You can also get it down here at the bottom. There's two ways you can do it but what I like to do is I take this and I anchor it over the last five daily candles. So as you can see if we go right here, it starts back here. So there's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 full daily candles. Okay. Not counting the first one or the current one five candles. So then what I like to do is just add these levels to my key levels. Now typically I will also watch for, you know, your London lows, your Asia lows and highs and then previous days low and high as well and just any other higher time frame, fair value gaps, etc. Now today I actually came into the market bearish. I wanted to see if we get a continuation down through this gap. However, the market did not provide. So I ended up taking this long and I used this or I took this long just simply based on the volume profile. Now what is the volume profile? Well it's showing that during a specific time range where was the most volume traded. So if we look right here, this shaded area, see it's a little bit darker and that's where the most volume was traded. So we know that the market accepted this as fair market value. Okay, we, we hear this term a lot in ict but the real application of it is where was the, the market established to be at a fair price? This is where the highest amount of volume, meaning the, the largest market participants were trading and they agreed on the price to be. This was fair. Now as we see the market rushed out of this obviously with the tariff news and everything and then the market has been kind of fighting to stay back in it. Now why is this important and how can you use this to find trades? Well, at the end of the day trading literally is just two things. It doesn't matter what you do if you're doing ICT or any other strategy, it's just key levels plus reactions. Okay, how is the market responding to areas of price where we are expecting a reaction? Now this is just going to give you a little bit of a bias but also help you with establishing where you're going to look for these reactions. And these can be reversals or continuations. Now if we know that this is the value area low, meaning the low of that area where most of the volume is traded, well, we know that if the market gets accepted under this and stays under it, that's the market literally telling you the participants are accepting lower prices. That is the definition of a bearish market. And likely you'll expand until we start to develop value again and people can agree on a fair price. Now, if the market comes back up into, into this area and you test it, typically that's going to be somewhere you look for reaction. So if you can see right here, we traded into this right here and I was bearish. So I was actually looking to see if we got some kind of reversal. Now in this example right here, we traded back into that value area low. And if we were bearish, you typically want to see like this kind of reaction. Now as we can see the market hit into that level, we started to get a little bit of a sell off. But then what happened? Traded right into this fair value gap and then just continued this bullish structure. We didn't really have any kind of reason to be bearish. We had, you know, a low displacing up with an energetic push. And then the market just continued that move. Now, as soon as we close this candle right here, that was my entry right there. Whenever we are closing the candle, I entered the trade and I put my stop under. The original stop was right here. As you can see, I've moved it in profits. But my original stop was under the candle that displace through the structure. And this is a little trick you can use for scalping if you didn't catch like the optimal entry. And this is a continuation trade. A lot of people only look for reversals. And you know, at the end of the day, I was looking for a reversal. But anytime you had a key level, you're looking for what either, you know, your reversal signals displacements to the downside to take the trade off of the level. But if that level fails to give a reversal, well then you can know that, okay, cool. This market is likely going to go to the upside. So as we can see right here, the market showed us by displacing this high, closing this candle right there, that this market is likely going to continue. Now if you're wondering why I put my target where I did, we can go back to the volume profile again. Now as you can see right here, we have These big mounds. Now you can see that there are very big areas where there's a lot of volume transacted right here, here and here. Now a lot of people under or I guess overthink these volume profiles. To truth be told, the best way to use them is use these levels. The value area low, the point of control which was the area the most volume was traded and the value area high. Those are just key levels. Now another way you can use this is what we call low volume nodes. Now these low volume nodes, as you see right here, are basically the dips where there are very small bars. Typically at those areas you will look for some kind of reaction. And I'm just trying to scalp this range, I'm not trying to be a hero here and swing for the fences. I think the markets after we have this kind of really big, big move, you're actually more likely to kind of get this chop and, and a little bit of inefficient price action. So that's the reason that I'm just putting my target for that low volume note. It's just the next stepping stone, right? Using this can help you and maybe the market goes here, maybe I eat my words. But typically using this can help you understand where the market might have some problems before just targeting, you know, a point of liquidity. And we do have that time based liquidity right above that, which is the previous daily high. That is also a level you could look to trade from. So the way I look at it is I'm just trying to get a piece of the pie. I'm not trying to, you know, swing for the fences here, just based on the current market conditions and the whole macro situation with Trump and China and everything. So yeah, really simple guys. Your strategy should just be setting key levels and reactions. Now whether that is the first candle rule, setting the high and low of the first five minute candle like I talk about in a lot of my videos, that's a strategy. Whether it's time based liquidity, where you're looking at previous day high and low, or Asian session high and low and all those, that is a strategy. But at the end of the day, both of those are just using key levels and reactions. And as you mature as a trader, as you gain a little bit of experience and discretion, you will be able to look for other key levels such as these volume profile levels such as 4 hour and 1 hour swing highs and lows etc. And the higher time frame fair value gaps at the end of the day, an A plus setup to Me is really just something where you have a reason to look for a reaction in price and you have a very strong and clear reaction. If you can establish those two things and you have a target with good risk to reward, that is a good trade setup. I think a lot of people overthink this.

And you know, want 25 different things to align before they take a trade. So currently we're up 3, 900 on this trade. We'll see if this gets to the target. That pretty much, you know, goes over everything. The volume profile. A lot of people overthink this. It's really simple. You literally just take this anchored over the last five day, five daily candles, look at the levels, look at where there was low amounts of volume. And this gives you a little bit of a roadmap of what to expect. Now, some other ways you can use this is let's say the market would have traded into this level right here, right where we look for that original reversal. And let's say it had a really strong move to the downside. Well, at that point you could look to enter sales and I would have had a much wider take profit because as you can see, there aren't really any low volume nodes and in fact volume just gets lower and lower until it's pretty much nothing. Now the way you look at this is almost like a bumpy road. The higher this is, the more you're going to have a little bit of chop through it, the more you're going to have bumpy or price action. But once you get to these areas where there are very low amounts of volume, then those areas you're going to move very rapid through and then value areas. Typically as you're, you know, if you deviate back into it, typically you're going to have some kind of mean reversion, meaning you're going to go back up into the range. Two levels within the range. Whether that is your fair value gaps or your swing points or your low value nodes, it's really up to you. God, I was in Miami all week last week.

And I literally my throat, my voice is like gone from a mixture of talking and smoking cigars. I haven't been smoking cigars much lately. I know you guys probably think I smoke them all the time, but I actually cut back a lot and Miami got me. So this trade is moving pretty nice up a little over four grand on it right now, which is pretty cool. We'll see if we can get a pop up to this area. But yeah, I think that a lot of you guys can really benefit from adding some of this stuff into your strategy. It just helps you with a little bit of a road map. It's not something you have to do. Not sitting here saying it's the best in the world, but at the end of the day.

Understanding the volume and the true mechanics behind the market, I think is what a lot of ICT traders are really after and that's why they get into ict. But truth be told, price action alone, yes, it can make you very profitable, but it is limited in terms of seeing where the real volume is being traded. So on this trade, I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to start price waiting here. As we're getting a little bit closer to this target, we're starting to see really good volume. I don't want to see us come under these big displacement candles. And this is something I talk about my candlestick course, which that video did not do very well. I guess you guys thought it was just like a basic candlestick pattern video. But nonetheless it shows a lot about just understanding the energy of each candle. And as I'm in a trade, if I'm in a scalp, which I would still consider this kind of a scalp, more of a day trade, I guess I don't really want to see this market, you know, if we're putting in a lot of big energetic candles, especially in an area where I know there is a risk of the market just chopping around, I don't want to see the beginning characteristics of the market shopping around. And if that happens, I just want to get out of the trade. Especially if I've got a decent risk to reward, not anything crazy. Almost 2. Risk to reward secured, original trade restored is almost 4. So I'm happy with that. And I personally like to move up my stops like this rather than just like trimming, trimming, trimming. Because at the end of the day, like typically trimming in my opinion, leads to lower profits overall for most people because they don't do it right. And you end up just taking profits too early for the sense of safety because you don't want to be fully out of the trade, but you also don't want to be fully in the trade. I would mo most of the time rather just be fully in it or fully out. So that's why I like trailing up my stops and just securing the full amount of profit. Because what happens with a lot of people is they'll take like one contract and move stops to break even. And you know, you could say that's not a loss. But to be honest, in my opinion once you get to a certain amount of P of running P and L, you shouldn't be just like willing to give it all back. It's not a good idea to do that.

So yeah, and and I posted as well.

Some of the levels in the Free Discord. If you want to join the Free Discord, I'll leave a link down in the description for that. But I posted that we were going to have these reactions from these levels. I was off my bias this morning. I did think we're going to be bearish which kind of let me on the sidelines until to up until this point I actually had zoom calls up until this from around 11 or actually 10:30 and that's why I missed the the first best entry. But we still got in the and made some money. It feels good to be back in the market after vacation. It's almost funny like you almost kind of feel rusty sometimes like when you don't trade even for like a week but at the end of the day it's just like a I feel like it's a human innate feeling to to overthink things and feel like oh but because trading is literally like riding a bike, you know, the more so the things you have to get back used to is kind of like the market environment and thankfully the market has became very volatile since I last was trading. I wasn't trading all last week because it was my birthday and I was on vacation which was nice. But we have the Vix still above this 18 mark. So if you guys don't know what the Vix is, it's just volatility index expected volatility on options over the next 30 days. Essentially simple terms. But typically to simplify this, the higher this number the more volatility to expect. As you can see we have the.

The VIX popped up pretty nicely. We've also had some pretty crazy moves on gold. I personally think this is going to likely continue. I posted a little bit about this in the Free Discord as well. Just like general investing stuff, I actually rebalanced my long term portfolio to a lot of gold ETFs about like two or three weeks ago, which is paying off nicely with crypto. I'll give like a minor little crypto update here. Personally I'm still bullish on crypto. I think that if we're going to start to see something that's going to be with alts like I I own Avax hbar link ada. Those are like my my big four Right now notice, now notice this. Look how much the low volume there is. If we can just get out of this little range. Like all of this big move down was really because the liquidity on the books was so thin during that crash. I mean hell, we even went to to zero practical on some coins. Like I know Adam, Adam I think went to like 01. But moral of the story, I like alts. I think that if we can start to get some displacement to the upside, we can start getting some really rapid movements and I, I think this is a great time to buy now if this dumps, it is what it is. No, not financial advice. Don't over leverage yourself and, and expect zero always on crypto. I actually had a friend over last night and he's new and I was telling him like you have two options. Either you can buy bitcoin, hold it forever, know that you're going to most likely be straight, or you can degenerate a little bit with some of these alts and understand that if the market crashes, you know, you might be cooked. So let me go to nqz. So we have my chart drawings up five grand right now, which is pretty cool. I'm most likely going to go ahead and move my stops up again just a little bit here just under that candle. Now we've got. Oh no, wrong thing. No, don't do that. We've got a little over 2 to 1 risk to reward secured, which is cool with me. So good trading day. We'll see if this target hits while we're on here. Give us some time. But yeah, I haven't made one of these live trading videos in a little while. To be honest. I kind of just forget. I know that you guys probably enjoy these a lot more. I think there's this like big shift in the content world away from the over manufactured, over edited stuff, which, I mean there's a time and place for it. But let me know in the comments if you guys like this kind of more direct, low effort content. Because I can put this out like 10 times more than, you know, the YouTube videos that we usually do, which of course I'll always still post those. But yeah, at the end of the day I just want to give you guys as much value as possible. And I think that in order to do that you need a healthy mix of that, you know, theatrical YouTube content that's really organized in a way to keep you guys watching because that's half the battle to help you guys. And for me to grow in content, I have to keep you guys watching. So there's a lot of, you know, planning and structuring into those videos to make sure to deliver the value in a way that is easy to digest and that you're actually going to stick around for because, you know, most people have TikTok brains, right? It's kind of the way of society now. So maybe these videos that you're watching right now don't get as much of a high view percentage or whatever, but if you're watching this, no, you are one of the few who, who pushes through and actually takes things serious. Because I think that there's more value in these. Like, I know whenever I was learning this is the kind of content I liked watching just raw off the top. Yeah, sure, maybe there was a little bit of, you know, time wasted or whatever, but I think that at the end of the day the goal is to get value and, and learn little insights because all it takes is really like a couple little insights to, to make a world of difference as a trader. And also I think another big thing that traders struggle with is, you know, you guys look for certainty, which you'll never have full certainty, but I think that whenever you consume the right kind of content, it can drastically increase the level of confidence you have. You obviously need to go out and implement this in your own trading to gain real confidence. But whenever you see me doing things on the fly, you see me explaining things in a very digestible manner and simplifying things. I think that it gives you that motivation and the certainty you need in order to take the necessary action to become a better trader. You know, trailing up stops like as you can see, trailing stop, just got hit. So we are out. Made a little over four grand. I'm cool with that. Really good risk to reward. I'll likely just be done on the day for that. But yeah, guys, let me know if you enjoy this kind of content and I'll start posting more and more of it. And stay safe out there. Guys. The free Discord link is down in the description and make sure to subscribe. I'll see you later.