How I made $2000 in 20 mins and How You Can Too
In this instructional video, trader Roman Ceccardi walks through a live 20‑25 minute intraday scalp that generated roughly $2,000. He starts with a top‑down analysis, identifying a 15‑minute fair‑value gap that is confirmed on the 1‑hour chart, and frames the trade within his AOC time‑based method. He explains the three‑day cycle (green, red, trend/parabolic days) and his quarterly theory, which splits each session into four 90‑minute quarters (X‑A‑M‑D phases) to add timing confluence. The video details his position sizing, how he added to the trade as market makers entered, and the use of concepts like rejection blocks, displacement candles, and liquidity sweeps on a 1‑minute chart. He sets a profit target using a 50 % Fibonacci retracement and discusses risk‑reward (≈3R) and the power of compounding position size. The narrative concludes with two key takeaways—always anchor a 1‑minute entry to a higher‑timeframe PD array and incorporate timing/confluence (quarterly theory)—and a promotional pitch for his paid mentorship program, Trading Ascension.
Chapters
Hey guys, just recording this trade breakdown here. I literally just closed the trade like a little bit ago. As you can see on the chart, this is a live chart. And yes, basically the trade opened and closed within a period of about 20 minutes, 25 minutes. And yeah, just breaking this down so that you guys too can replicate this for yourselves in your trading and also make $2K in about 25 minutes. So let's start off with a couple of things. And this is— well, let's start top down basically. And this has a lot. to do with the AOC trading method that I've recently progressed to, which is time-based and also utilizing all of the price action concepts that I'm currently using. Now, first off, higher timeframe, it's going to be the 15-minute. And in this case, on the 15-minute, we see that we have a fair value gap over here, right? Basically, this entire chunk here is a fair value gap on 15-minute. And so just to confirm that, because I wasn't too sure about this fair value gap given the fact that it had already been filled once and twice, so I wasn't overly optimistic on the fact whether this fair value gap would get respected. So in order to confirm, I just simply went on to the 1-hourly chart, and lo and behold, it is also there. I was like, you know what, it's not— this might be like a small trade, but still going to make a decent amount of money, and the risk is really not huge for what ended up being about a 3R trade in a matter of 25 minutes. So I was like, yeah, you know, why not? Let's look for an entry here. And the second thing that we must look at is timing, because The price action theory that I teach only works as well when you— like, it works almost 5 times better once you apply the concept of time into it. And full disclosure, I did not actually mean to close everything here. It just so ended up happening. Like, it just so ended up happening that I closed everything there by accident. Now, I pressed close and wasn't looking at the numbers, and yeah, that's how it happened. Um, my original target, which I expected to get hit still, uh, only the fact that I missed this, you know, second entry with this candle here coming into the fair value gap, missed that. So not going to continue to chase this trade. Already got my profit. Sure, it could have been another like couple grand, but yeah, you know, it is what it is. You make mistakes. So original target was actually supposed to be above the true London or even just true day. So basically what I'm looking at in order to set the profit target today was if we go into the 15-minute, I want you to look at the chart from, you know, basically last week. Ignore those. Those were really just, you know, counter-trend Yada yada, you know. Didn't lose a lot of money. This more than makes up for it. Anyways, that's your day one. Okay, you get a failed breakout here, and then it closes back higher, right? So this is your first green day. So this is day one of the three-day cycle. That's day two, trend trade. Day three, parabolic blow off. And now you have had three consecutive days of pump. And yesterday we had our first red day, where basically you went above previous day's high. You consolidated in order to trap. Traders and trap volume up here, and then you broke down, right? And then you came back up to retest that trap volume, and then you dumped it. And this is your first red day, which is also— sorry, this— yeah, this is your first red day, which is a— well, think of it as a signal for reversal. So heading into the day, I'm already expecting the larger chunk of the move today to be towards the downside. We'll see if I'm right, but most likely that was your first green day. I'm a little bit sick right now. So I do apologize for my voice. So that's your first green day. And look at how the next day plays out. And I'm basically expecting the same thing here. First red day, you are going to— in my opinion, I think that these relatively equal highs are going to get swept first heading into the New York session before the ultimate dump. So day 2 tends to be more likely than not a trending day. Basically, it follows the trend of what happens in day 1. So day 1, the fact that you have a failed breakout here and you close as a first red day, this is your day 1 in the 3-day cycle. Day 2 is a trend day, so expecting it to follow the trend. And then day 3 can either be a reversal or a parabolic trend trade as you got here, right? The largest chunk of the move actually happened on Friday as a day 3 setup. So given that knowledge in mind, like I already knew, just sort of building a profile in my head on how London was going to play out was that at some point during the day you will see some kind of retracement into, you know, back into the trap volume or Either taking out those highs before the eventual dump during the New York session. So with that in mind, it just gave me another reason, right? I wasn't trading. I wasn't taking that trade purely off of the concept that, oh, you have a fair value gap. And I definitely did not take that trade purely off of the template that I was building in my head. It's sort of a combination of both. And then the last thing is that it needs to happen at the right time. And this is where I get into, again, quarterly theory. This has actually been a game changer for me. Basically, Every session can be split into four quarters of one and a half hours, right? So you can see that quarter one starts at twelve a.m., ends at one thirty, and three, one thirty-three, three, four thirty, four thirty-six. So and this is you know applies to every session. There is the Asian one two three four, and then there's London one two three four, and then you have New York morning one two three four, New York afternoon one two three four. Very straightforward. Now all you need to understand about quarterly theory is that there are only two ways that this can play out, right? Just like how in the three-day cycle there's only two ways that it can play out. In quarterly theory, it is either going to be X A M. D, which stands for X is a special letter, can either mean reversal or continuation. But it can either be X, accumulation, manipulation, distribution. Or the only other way that this plays out is accumulation, manipulation, distribution, and then X. X basically either reverses this move here or it continues the move of the distribution, right? If distribution is down, X could either go down also or it could reverse, right? All depends on how the levels are looking like, how the market structure is looking like. But basically Q2, super important. Um, there's a reason why the London kill zone, like the London Open Kill Zone by ICT, exists around this time period. It's because this is the manipulation phase. And the fact that we were getting a down move to fill this fair value gap exactly the manipulation quarter of the London session is just another signal that adds confluence to my trade. And that's why, you know, I could afford to just keep adding to my position, because the more time that went on Especially after this manipulation was done. The more time that went on, the more confirmation I had that I was right. And so, you know, why not add to my position? This trade here, full disclosure, would have only been roughly— if I only had my initial position, it was $300 worth of risk. I think my first position was around, let's say, $940, right? That's 940, and my target was 071. So that would have been about 7 pips. 7 pips, I had 12.5 lots, that would have been roughly about $800. And by adding to my position as it went up, that $800 turned into basically $2,000. So that's the power of compounding to your position. And sure, your risk goes up, and that's why you only do this on, you know, setups where you are, you know, certain. Rather than certain, more like confluences add up. Right? The system and the confluences add up, and that's how you can gain the confidence to add to your position. By the way, going back to— yeah, I was talking about quarterly theory. So yeah, that wasn't just another point of confluence. Now, usually when it comes to trading with quarterly theory, I like to hold the trade for the duration of Q3 because that's usually distribution. And you know, more often than not, Q4 tends to continue the move of Q3 as well. So basically, Q2 manipulation, that's your bottom of the day, or like bottom of the session. And then the next couple of hours, you're just going to see it keep going up. And that's generally the trend. And so it is a bit of a pity that I closed my position out here. Otherwise, you know, I would be in a lot more profit at the moment, and sure as hell would be in way more profit later on. Uh, but I missed it. It is what it is. No worries about it. So, uh, now that the premise of the target is set, and yeah, just a couple of takeaways that I want you guys to take away from this. Number 1, make sure that your trade is always based off of a higher time frame PD array. So when I'm trading on a 1-minute chart, my high time frame PD array is the 15-minute. So the PD array basically just means key level. And this was my key level, right? If it's not based off of a higher time frame PD array, you are trading like it's not going to be high probability. You always want some kind of PD array, some kind of range low to get swept. For example, over here during the failed breakout, it happened right at the high of the week. But then yesterday was Monday, so it can only be the high of the week. So that's takeaway number 1, right? A lot of people tend to get chopped up in the middle here, not knowing where the price is going to go next, always have a higher time period PD array. For example, if you, if you were looking for a long, right, you would take it, you know, around this fair value gap, which ended up being respected for just a little bit before the move downwards. Number 2, understand timings, right? Price action works, and the only thing is they work even better when you add timing and when you add confluence. And quarterly theory is one way to look at time. It is my favorite way of looking at time. But, you know, if you can do just both of those, you're going to be very successful. And those are the 2 main takeaways that I can give you from just the larger picture overview. Now let's actually get into the 1-minute chart where I talk through my execution. So I'm going to start this off by saying that this entry here was super aggressive. I basically saw that price on this candle here swept the candle bodies on the 1-minute chart and this was a wick here. So this was your rejection block, right? You guys should know what is a rejection block. And the moment I saw this candle here displace above This candle here, I was like, okay, that's in, that's my trade right there. Set it at a wick low and targeting here. And I'll explain this target in a little bit more minute detail in a bit. But basically, this entry here was a bit aggressive, but it didn't matter because this trade ended up only with like a $325 risk, which is pretty much nothing. And when the risk is kind of like asymmetric— asymmetric, that's what I meant to say— you can afford to just go in a little bit earlier with a slightly smaller position. And then as you gain confirmation that the trade is going in your way, that the market is telling you that you are right in your analysis, you can add on to your position right here and right here. So that brings me on to my second thing that I wanted to cover, which is why did I choose to add it here? Well, basically we got a break above this level here with a confirmed displacement. This was also a displacement candle, so this indicates to me that the market makers are finally in the game. And this is happening 10 minutes before like the 3:00 a.m. New York, which is my golden zone, and also happening right before the distribution quarter begins. And so the moment you get the displacement, the moment, the moment, the exact moment this candle gets broken with this kind of displacement, um, you know, you are given all the confluence that you had beforehand, you know, it's just very obvious, right? You're like, you, before you headed into this trade, you would already be anticipating the market makers to join the markets and give you institutional sponsorship at this point here. And so you simply take it, right? That's where I added to my position. Sure, it could have came lower, That would have been ideal, but it didn't matter, right? So just added that, and now my risk turned into $800. I really wish I did a screen recording so that I could show you this, but I really wasn't. I was doing some reading and just took a trade while reading. Anyways, um, at this point afterwards, uh, there wasn't really much of an opportunity for you to add to your position until you got this sweep of the candle body lows here. Now, one of the concepts that I talk about a lot and one of my favorite, you know, methods of trading, and it's happening right now as we speak, um, You could actually even just go long here. Thank you, slippage. But you can actually— let's talk about that later. One of my favorite concepts in your trading is a liquidity sweep during an uptrend. So basically, if you're looking for the markets to go up, you want sell-side liquidity to get swept, right? Because that's where the market makers are going to get the fuel necessary to pump the markets higher to create new highs. So when you are overall in an uptrend and when you're expecting the uptrend to continue, it always pays that you don't even have to wait for a retracement area, quote unquote. Just go for the sell-side liquidity sweep because that's going to give the market makers the fuel necessary in order to pump the markets up even higher. And this might end up as an early entry because now that I look at it, there's candle bodies here, candle bodies there, whatever. And yeah, so once you get the sweep, markets make a new high. And now let's actually break down this profit target here because this profit target is essentially taking a Fib Drawing it on that high, that low here, and that's your 50%. And I was intending to actually take a TP1 and not close out the entire position here. That didn't end up happening, so, you know, it is what it is. Um, usually when you buy things in a discount, you want to take profit close to a premium, and the 50% is always a premium. And, you know, it's as simple as that. Now hopefully you've learned something new from this breakdown, and hopefully you'll be able to apply this into your own trading. And I'll Just let you guys know how this trade plays out. And yeah, now if you're at this point of the video and you're still watching, it's clear that you're someone who's serious about their improvement and serious about making trading work. If you've been struggling with making trading work for you, maybe it's a bit too complicated, there is way too much information, or maybe you can sort of see what's happening on the charts but you struggle to turn those ideas into proper trades with profits, or maybe you want to get started trading but you just don't really know where to start, then I'm here to tell you that Trading Ascension, which is my private mentorship, takes on 8 students per month. And if you're interested in taking a proven step-by-step fast track to getting to $10K per month trading, or simply to make huge progress in your trading, then I invite you to click the link in the description box below, and I'll see you inside Trading Ascension. Bye-bye!
