Your main intention should be to prioritize disciplined risk management and consistency over profit maximization.The goal is to focus on executing your strategy with precision and sticking to your refined trading rules to rebuild confidence and stabilize your account. 

Your primary intention should be to "Trade conservatively and focus on capital preservation." Given your limited drawdown cushion ($750) and recent trading outcomes, your goal is to rebuild confidence and establish a positive trading rhythm by prioritizing discipline, patience, and precision in every decision. Approach the day with the mindset of a risk manager first, trader second.

Key Takeaways from Your Trading Notes:

1. Acknowledgment of Mistakes

• You recognize that the first week of your funded account was drastically different from your evaluation phase, leading to significant losses.
• The combination of a shift in market conditions at the start of October and potential psychological hurdles seems to have negatively impacted your performance.
• You identify that overtrading and failure to follow your own rules (such as the daily loss limit) were major contributors to your poor performance.

2. Psychological Factors

• You acknowledged self-sabotage and negativity, expecting trades to fail before even taking them, which likely influenced poor decision-making.
• There's an understanding that mindset needs to shift toward positive visualization to manifest success and turn things around.
• You've recognized that keeping a calm, professional mindset and approaching trades with low stress is key to staying in control and making rational decisions.

3. Critical Trading Mistakes

• Breaking the Daily Loss Limit: You repeatedly exceeded your daily loss limit by significant amounts, which was a major factor in the drawdown.
• Overtrading: You moved from 3-4 trades per day (in the evaluation) to 15-20 trades per day after funding, leading to overexposure and losses.
• Not Taking Profits: A major issue was letting winning trades go back into the red, missing the opportunity to lock in profits. The failure to secure $800 in profit on Friday underscores this problem.
• Chasing Unrealized Gains: By aiming for extended targets (e.g., Upper VWAP band) instead of scaling out profits earlier (VWAP target), you lost unrealized gains. Adjusting profit-taking targets could have saved you from significant losses.

4. New Approach and Game Plan

• Reduced Expectations: You’ve set a max daily loss of $75 with a target of $150/day, aiming for small, consistent wins. The goal is to bring the account back to breakeven by making trading "boring" and stress-free.
• Switching to S&P500: Due to NASDAQ's high volatility, you may need to shift to trading the S&P500 for a more stable, less volatile approach.
• Focus on Consistency: Your goal for this week is simply to stay disciplined, follow the loss limit, and consistently hit small targets rather than swinging for large wins. This will help prevent blowing up the account.

5. Technical Adjustments

• Timeframe Correlation: You've introduced a rule where the weight of a level correlates with the timeframe. For example, a weekly level requires confirmation from a 5-day, 5-minute chart or higher.
• Entry Confirmation: You plan to refine your entries using higher timeframe levels (such as 3D mean reversion setups) with appropriate confirmation from lower timeframes (5-minute or 15-minute charts).
• Taking Profit Earlier: Recognizing the importance of adjusting your profit targets to realistic levels, such as using VWAP as a guide for smaller but achievable gains.

6. Positive Outlook and Commitment

• Despite the setbacks, you remain optimistic about the potential to turn things around. You’ve invested significant time and effort into your trading journey and are committed to not letting one bad week ruin your progress.
• You acknowledge that every trader faces crossroads like this, and the ability to recover from setbacks is what differentiates good traders from elite ones.
• You've recognized the need to remain calm, focus on discipline, and approach the upcoming week with a renewed mindset and more conservative strategy.

Key Actionable Steps:

1. Stick to Your Max Daily Loss Limit: Absolutely adhere to the $75 loss limit to preserve your remaining drawdown and avoid blowing the account.

2. Lower Trade Frequency: Go back to your evaluation stage discipline—limit your trades to a maximum of 3-4 per day to avoid overexposure.

3. Lock in Profits: Adjust your mindset on profits—take what the market gives you rather than holding out for larger targets. Start with VWAP targets instead of aiming for full ranges.

4. Follow Timeframe and Setup Rules: Use the new correlation rule to ensure your entries align with the timeframe's weight and the confirmed setup, especially for key levels.

5. Psychological Reset: Practice positive visualization and affirm your winning potential before each trade. Shift your mindset from fear of loss to confidence in execution.

By focusing on these key areas, you can slowly regain control and get your account back on track while preserving your capital.

Refined Trading Rules

1. Max Daily Loss Limit:

• Daily Loss Cap: $75. If this limit is hit, stop trading immediately for the day.
• Mindset: Treat this as your #1 rule. Preserving capital is the priority.

2. Daily Profit Target:

• Profit Goal: $150 per day (2:1 risk-to-reward ratio).
• Focus: Once the target is hit, walk away and end the trading session.

3. Trade Frequency:

• Max Trades Per Day: Limit to 3-4 high-probability trades per day to avoid overtrading and emotional decisions.
• Execution: Stay patient and selective, waiting for A+ setups.

4. Market Focus:

• S&P500 Preference: Given current volatility, focus on trading the S&P500 to minimize risk exposure. Only consider NASDAQ if conditions clearly favor it and targets are adjusted accordingly.

5. Timeframe Confirmation:

• Multi-Timeframe Analysis: Ensure trades align with higher timeframe levels and confirmations:
  • For Weekly Levels: Use a 5-day, 5-minute or 15-minute chart for confirmation.
  • For Monthly Levels: Use a 10-day, 30-minute chart for confirmation.
• Shorter Timeframes: Fine-tune entries using imbalances on shorter timeframes (1-minute or 5-minute) after confirmation.

6. Entry Execution:

• Use Stop Orders: Always use buy/sell stop orders to trigger trades. Avoid using limit orders to enter trades against momentum.
• Directional Reversal Rule: If your first trade is wrong and stopped out, reverse the directional thesis for the second trade of the day.

7. Profit Taking:

• Lock in Profits: Cut profit targets in half when trading volatile assets like NASDAQ (e.g., VWAP instead of entire range). For S&P500, aim for realistic targets aligned with levels like VWAP bands or key support/resistance zones.
• Don't Hold for Unrealistic Gains: Secure gains early if they align with your setup; don’t let winning trades turn into losses.

8. Mindset and Discipline:

• Positive Visualization: Approach each trade with confidence in your strategy and a clear mind. Avoid expecting failure before the trade even starts.
• Boring Trading is Good Trading: Focus on steady, stress-free trading without trying to hit home runs. Stay disciplined and keep emotions in check.

This rule refinement ensures your approach is well-structured, disciplined, and focused on preserving capital, aligning with your new risk management goals. It’s designed to prevent overtrading, over-leveraging, and emotional decision-making while maximizing small but consistent wins.

okay, so, I just have to get real, and be brutally honest about how terrible I traded this week, with it being the first week of my express funded account, and overall a COMPLETE 180 from how well I did in the evaluation, prior to the transition to funded. And I think its not only a combination of the market drastically changing at the turn of the month into october, but also likely a psychology issue as well. And I have to catch it ahead of time, right here, right now, before its too late, and I blow this account.

I owe it to myself, for all of the hard work I have put in, not only for this 4TH funded account, but also for an entire year of work I have dedicated, wanting to quit multiple times, feeling lost, helpless etc, and I still have the chance, although damaging my account more than I should have on the first week of trading, but still have the chance to turn it around. And we have to be optimistic about that, and turn it around as a professional funded trader would and should

If you are going to do this as a full time career, you are going to hit this crossroad many times in your journey, and what separates good traders, and elite traders, is being able to dig yourself back up out of a hole, and turn it around for the better.

So with that being said, we are going to create a brand new overview of the entire week of trading since the turn of the month, all of the things we did wrong (which are many things) and also do a deep dive on how the market is actually moving, with trade of the day setups, and over viewing all of the trades I took to try to understand how to approach this upcoming week of trading. 

WE HAVE $750 DOLLARS OF DRAWDOWN LEFT TO WORK WITH:

So with that being said, we will have a max daily loss limit of $75 dollars. YES. 75 dollars.

for this reason, we may have no other choice than to trade the S&P500 as its less volatile than NASDAQ. 

We will have a realistic target of $150 dollars a day which is 2:1 ratio for our daily loss limit.

S&P500 Daily ATR is currently: 65 Points

NASDAQ Daily ATR is currently: 337 Points

So this means NASDAQ is currently 5X(times) more volatile than the S&P500 at the moment. 

SO the goal for this week, is the massively drop our expectations, DO NOT think about the money, make the trading week as boring as possible, completely reduce stress with low dollar fluctuations on the account, look to hit $150 and WALK.

if we are able to make $150 a day for this upcoming week, we will be breakeven on our equity for the week. and double our drawdown limit.

THAT IS THE GOAL, nothing more, nothing less. 

YOU MUST KEEP THIS IN MIND. do not come into the trading session swinging the bat hard. OR YOU WILL REGRET IT, and likely lose your trading account.

there is no reason to rush anything, you have all the time in the world, and you will be saving yourself the discouragement of failing this funded account.

A good way to approach it, is to imagine you just received your first payout, and this is you trading the account with a $750 dollar limit, which is a realistic scenario, do not approach is from a loss perspective. 

Things clearly done wrong during the trading week:

- We have broke our daily loss limit rule multiple times, losing WAY more than $200 dollars, multiple days, and on average losing more than double the daily loss limit

- OVERTRADING, and this could be one of the worst. I went from taking MAX 3-4 trades a day, on my evaluation, to literally taking 15-20 or more trades per day on my funded account

- Continuously taking trades that were proven to be wrong over and over again, thinking that the outcome would somehow change, contantly being short minded, and taking paper cut after papercut on the 1 minute and even somehow the 2 and 5 minute charts

- Not doing any deep dive journaling sessions, relying on what was working from the evaluation and the setups from the evaluation stage, thinking I had everything in the bag, and getting mentally lazy

- NOT taking profit, and letting almost every single trade that was in profit go against me, either resulting in a loss, or breakeven trade, which is completely unnacpetable, because friday, not only did I not lock in an $800 short trade, but I let the day go from what could have been a massive green, turning my entire week from negative to positive, but I wound up LOSING my biggest day, around over $500 dollars. THIS HAS TO END IMMEDIATELTY. Either by cutting our profit targets in HALF when when trading the NASDAQ, which would mean VWAP targets rather than the entire range from Lower to Upperband. The targets simply were not hitting, and I lost alot of money in unrealized gains by letting many trades go against me. In theory, had I taken profit all of the times I was up more than $200 unrealized, I likely would have over 1,000 dollars on the week of trading, potentially even more. So we have to keep this in perspective. 

- Self sabotage, which is something ive realized about myself, I get very very negative, and I almost expected the outcome of each trade to be a loser, yet still took the trade. I have to envision myself winning. to manifest it. 

So now, we will overview all of the trade of the day setups, for both premarket 9:30 session.

One thing I want to note, Is that the defualt timeframes are the 1 Day 1 minute chart. And then the next chart is 5 Day 5 Minute.

So basically, the default timeframes, suggest that anything more than a 1 day LEVEL, will require a minimum timeframe of 5 minute, and 15 minute timeframe confirmation.

Anything more than a WEEKLY level, meaning a monthly and above with require a 20 Day, 1 Hour chart and above, and all of those entries can be fine tuned with price imbalances on the shorter timeframes.

This first setup that we saw, took place from a 3D mean reversion, therefor, it required a minumum of 5 minute confirmation. 

(NEW TRADING RULE)

the Weight of the LEVEL, that correlates with a timeframe, has to be taken on the amount of days suggested on the lower timeframes.

EXAMPLE: A weekly level, is a level that consists of a full trading week. (5 Days)

So the trade must be taken from a (5 DAY) 5 minute or 15 minute default trading chart.