1. Shift in Market Behavior (Easy Setups Failing):

• Your previously reliable "easy money" setups have consistently failed at the start of the month.
• This suggests that market conditions have shifted, and the strategies that worked during your evaluation are no longer as effective.
• You have recognized that VWAP signals (your most trusted indicator) have been leading to false entries, which has contributed to losses and breakeven trades.

2. Struggle with VWAP Effectiveness:

• You relied on VWAP for both long and short signals, but it has produced fakeouts in both directions, leading to stop-outs or breakeven trades.
• Trades that would have worked partially never hit their price targets, and profits you had were lost as the market reversed.
• This led you to take many small losses (“papercuts”), and miss out on potentially larger wins.

3. Desire to Simplify with Non-Moving Levels:

• You’re feeling conflicted about continuing with VWAP due to its recent unreliability.
• You want to shift to solid, non-moving levels for trading, rather than relying on a moving indicator like VWAP.
• You have started to focus on orderblock displacements and support/resistance levels drawn from swing highs and lows.

4. Introduction of a New Orderblock VWAP System:

• You developed a new strategy that combines orderblocks with VWAP to create static ranges based on significant price levels.
• While this system is still in the testing phase, it helped you achieve a $250 win, breaking your recent losing streak.
• You have observed a potential for higher reward setups using this system (such as a missed 5R trade).

5. Trading Within Larger Timeframe Moves:

• You’ve realized that 1-minute and 5-minute charts create a lot of noise, which makes it difficult to hold trades when the bias is constantly shifting.
• You’ve identified that you are likely engaging with short-term price noise rather than focusing on critical support and resistance from higher timeframes (daily, weekly).
• You have started to understand the importance of multi-timeframe analysis and how larger timeframes create wider ranges in which the market operates.

6. Developing Confidence in New Strategy:

• Lack of confidence in your new system caused you to miss a potential high-probability trade, which would have made a big difference in your performance.
• After seeing success with the strategy, you plan to continue implementing and refining this orderblock VWAP system.
• You are committed to gathering data and understanding the market’s true ranges to avoid trading in the noise of lower timeframes.

7. Adjusting to New Market Conditions:

• You recognize that the market has shifted, and you need to adapt by finding more reliable and consistent setups that account for larger timeframe moves.
• You plan to track the performance of your newly developed strategy and analyze how it performs in the current environment.

Key Focus for the Week:

Your focus should be on gathering data and refining your orderblock-based strategy, which aims to simplify your trading around clear, non-moving support and resistance areas. You are starting to see success with this approach, and continuing to develop confidence in this system should be your priority. Make sure you:

• Track data on how your support and resistance levels perform.
• Hold trades longer based on higher timeframe ranges and avoid reacting to short-term noise on the 1-minute and 5-minute charts.
• Prioritize discipline by sticking to well-defined areas and focusing on the highest-probability setups.

Advice on How to Proceed:

1. Continue Implementing the New Strategy: Stick with the new orderblock-based approach while minimizing your reliance on VWAP. Focus on higher timeframe levels and build confidence in the system by tracking data.

2. Emphasize Multi-Timeframe Analysis: Make sure you are analyzing the daily, weekly, and multi-day trends. These larger timeframes will help you avoid getting caught in the short-term volatility and "noise" of lower timeframes.

3. Be Selective with Setups: With your account in a drawdown, you need to limit risk and maximize rewards. Only take trades at the most critical support and resistance areas identified from your higher timeframe analysis.

4. Risk Management: Keep your drawdown situation in mind. Limit the size of your stop losses, and make sure each trade has a favorable risk-to-reward ratio (at least 2:1).

By focusing on this new, simplified approach and avoiding reactive trades in the lower timeframes, you can regain confidence and gradually recover from the drawdown while minimizing risk.

Today was the first win in a few day, from the start of a terrible month and the beginning of yet another funded account.

Because my drawdown had became more diminished than I would have wanted, I really had to other choice other than to seriously hone down on the most important support and resistance areas that I could find.

One thing I have been noticing is that from the turn of the month, my 'easy money' setups have been failing consistenly. 

Over and over again.

So I had become conflicted, with my daily base hit trades, that I believe helped me pass with flying colors during my evaluation stage.

In the beginning of the month, I was faked out by the bottom VWAP band for a long. Than during the remainder of the week, I was getting false signals at the top VWAP bands for a short. And although sometimes they would work, during the entire week, they would never fill the entire range of the VWAP to hit my price targets, so on top of the numerous papercuts I was taking on trades, for the ones I was in profit, would come back to tag me out at breakeven, and for this reason I left a surreal amount of profit on the table as well.

So one thing seemed certain for this month, my VWAP was failing, and giving me false signals, and this had been my most reliable indicator, and the only one I use.

Upon implementing VWAP, I have really tried to gauge a possible way to replace the VWAP, with something that was purely price action based, so that I can simplify my trading.

And I really like the idea of solid, non moving levels. And although the VWAP has beenvery reliable, it does move.

This prompted me to create a range that was based on the orderblock displacements from above and below, fine tuning the orderblocks from the most critical swing high and swing lows from the resistance and support area that I can locate, with an extremity in price, and untapped liquidity. 

I dont yet have much data to support this new orderblock VWAP system, but I can say, that it did today help me get a win, and break this negative cycle that I have been trading in. 

I actually had a resistance area from yesterday that triggered in the overnight, but because of the lack of confidence, and the lack of data, I watched the high probability setup pass me by on the /MNQ, and I would assume it was at least a 5R trade, and likely could have made up all of my trading losses thus far.

So, I decided to take the exact same setup that was presented yesterday in the overnight session, with a 1 minute variation, and I locked in a $250 winner.

So for now, I will continue to implement this system, since I am still in a critical drawdown that I have to recover from. And Im hoping I will be able to develop and consistently implement this theory so that I can truthfully understand the true ranges that the market is trading in.

One thing that I have noticed, is that upon multiple trend shifts on the daily, 2 day, 3 day, 4 day and weekly candles, I have learned about price imbalances and retracements of the candle prior to the contrary candle for a deeper entry, and now, the implementation of wider ranges that the market can tend to trade in, when these larger timeframes are in play.

It has been extremely difficult to hold trades in this market, with the 1 minute, and 5 minute charts shifting bias over and over again througout the trading session, and because of this, it suggests that I am trading within a way larger timeframe move and range, and engaging with price action in area with noise, rather than critical support and resistance areas. 

So I will let this trading session pan out and see what happens, and if my support and resistance areas hold true, to start tracking the data on this theory.