Speaker A
All right, welcome back to the series. If you're new here, I'm JJ. I'm a full-time futures trader. I've been doing it for 16 months, and I've done $1.5 million worth of prop firm payouts.
JJ Simon shares his day trading journey, making $105,700 in 3 weeks trading NQ futures with full transparency and detailed trade analysis.
Key Takeaways
- Consistency and risk management are crucial for long-term success in prop firm futures trading.
- Transparency in sharing every trade helps build trust and learning opportunities.
- Adjusting trade size and stop loss based on market conditions improves risk control.
- Trading continuation and reversion setups around breaks of structure is a core strategy.
- News events like FOMC can create predictable market moves if priced in correctly.
What the video covers
- JJ Simon is a full-time futures trader with 16 months of experience and $1.5 million in prop firm payouts.
- This video is episode 2 of a series documenting his goal to increase payouts from $1.5M to $2.5M.
- He shares every trade and payout weekly with no screenshots, only videos for full transparency.
- JJ emphasizes the importance of consistency over hitting home runs in prop firm trading.
- He uses optimal risk management to ensure payouts even during losing weeks.
- The video covers detailed trade setups, including continuation and reversion trades based on break of structure and market bias.
- JJ adjusts contract sizing based on candle size and market volatility.
- He discusses trading during key sessions including Asian session, Monday to Wednesday trades, and the FOMC event.
- JJ explains his strategy for handling news-driven market moves and fair price concepts.
- The video includes real-time trade examples, losses, wins, and risk management decisions.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction and Series Overview
- 00:31Importance of Consistency and Transparency
- 01:06Weekly Payout Summary and Asian Session Trades
- 01:49Monday Trading Setup and Execution
- 02:32Monday Asian Session and Trade Analysis
- 03:15Tuesday Market Bias and Trade Decisions
- 03:58Tuesday Asian Session Trades
- 04:40Wednesday Trading and FOMC Event Strategy
- 05:27Adjusting Risk Based on Market Volume
- 06:18Further Trade Analysis and Market Structure
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
This is episode two of a series where I'm documenting my road from $1.5 up to $2.5 million worth of prop firm payouts.
Speaker A
I'll be showing every single trade and every single payout it takes for me to get there. Honestly, this week was not my best week, but I was still able to take $18,000 worth of payouts. 18k is definitely a good week, but compared to
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the pace that I want to keep, it was not the best. And honestly, that's why I'm running this series this exact way. I'm going to show you every single week, every single trade, and every single payout. No account balances, no
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screenshots, literally just videos, so it's fully transparent about the entire process. And it's fine to have weeks like this since consistency is honestly the most important thing in prop firm trading. You don't want to hit a home run every single week. You want to have
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consistency building up over time with a slight positive expectancy over the prop firm. Plus, I use optimal risk management, so even red weeks still grant me payouts. But, let's get into the proof right now. All right, here on
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Take Profit Trader to start off, I had—this is the payout that was pending last week, so ignore that. I had one, two, three here for about $9,600.
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And then on Topstep, I had two payouts for $4,500 each after the profit split.
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So, that's going to bring me to $18,600 this week. All right, I'm going to include the Asian session as well. Here is Sunday evening. We had news right before the open, which was green bias.
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Asian session open, green candle, broken close above previous structure, so this is a very good continuation long, also based off of the fact that news was so green and we have a good break of structure. So, standard 38-25 take profit
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stop loss. From there, I was trying to trade a reversion back towards the Asian session open. My entry was just off a break of structure here.
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Unfortunately, this one was a loss, but pretty standard trade according to the strategy. Unfortunately, it seems like the news was a lot stronger than the market anticipated with the Sunday open price. Now, for Monday, slight green bias as well just from the news and it's
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been drifting up all night. Opening candle was green and it broke and closed above structure, so exact same thing as the Asian. Pretty good continuation trade. The candle body is 33 points, which means I will size my contracts in
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half, which gives me a 50-point stop and a 76-point take profit, which was a pretty easy trade. After that, I tried to short back towards the market open.
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Entry was just off a break of structure, as always, 25-point stop. Take profit was at the open. Unfortunately, this one was a loss. Really good continuation, and then unfortunately, only half of the reversion on Monday. Now, Asian session
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of Monday, 6:00 p.m. open was here. Asian candle was red, but it was extremely unbiased because the body was basically non-existent. It was a green candle up here, but I was short biased back towards the open of 9:30 of the
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previous day. So, I did just enter when this huge red candle printed. Um, it broke structure barely, definitely not the best setup because there was a huge wick, but I still stuck with it.
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25-point stop, 38-point take profit since it is a continuation trade. After it moved down farther, I decided to long back towards the Asian open. Had about a 45-point take profit, same 25-point stop loss as usual, and my entry was just a
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break of structure that I saw out of this consolidation here. Now, Tuesday morning, I actually did not take any continuation trade, which is very weird because I'm pretty much always taking continuation trades. Uh, the first candle was extremely unbiased because the body
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was literally four points. So, that alone just tells me that the market doesn't really have a strong bias going into the session, and uh, I'm not too in favor of taking continuations on those days. I would have taken a continuation
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short here if it broke below the structure, but it wicked it instead of closing below. So, I did not take any shorts, and then quickly after, it decided it was possibly long biased just coming all the way back up above the
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opening price. So, it honestly was 250/50 for me. I didn't take any continuations. I just waited for a move away from the opening price, and then I traded this reversion back towards the open. Unfortunately, I literally got stopped out by one tick, and then it
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went all the way to the take profit. But, nothing you can do there, just a standard break of structure entry, and then unfortunate weird green candle printing out of nowhere when clearly the fair price seems to be here. After that,
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there was quite a large move down, so it was still before 11:00 a.m., and I decided, "Why not try one reversion long?" Uh, there was no break of structure, which does make the setup a little bit worse, but nonetheless, one,
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two, three green candles in a row, no wick on top of this one. I figured the uptrend was starting, and in this one, I did use a 50-point stop loss just because there was 150 points in my favor, so I sized down on this trade.
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Now, for Tuesday Asian session, 6:00 p.m. open here was green Asian open. I'm going to do whatever the opening candle does, and it is green. Break and close above structure, so pretty good continuation trade as usual for Asian
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session, 38 points take profit. I tried again to short back towards the pre-Asian price, 25 point stop, 50 point take profit, same as usual, just entering off this candle here, which seems to have broken structure a little bit, definitely not the best. There's
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also a huge wick, but uh, this one would have been probably a better setup 'cause there is structure there that does get broken. But nonetheless, we're lost anyways, very weird uptrend for most of the week. All right, now Wednesday was
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finally a good day after the others were quite bad, but opening candle was very red, 50 points, so I'm going to size down because it's more than 25 points. Stop loss 50 points, take profit 76 points, so barely hit take profit,
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and then it reversed fully back up to the pre-open price. I was able to find entries here on my evals, but I'm only showing funded accounts. On evals, I will take displacement candle entries, but funded accounts, I like to wait for
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break of structure just because it's a stronger entry criteria. After that, quick move down, I determined would be unfair, and I was just trading back towards the pre-open price. Entry off a break of structure here, 25 point stop,
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140 take profit. Unfortunately, got stopped out pretty quickly. Second entry, just the next break of structure that we saw, 25 point stop, 93 point take profit or so, and that gave me a win here. So, pretty good day, two wins,
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and then a small 25 point loss. Also, we had FOMC, which is literally one of my favorite things ever to trade. FOMC is always priced in so well, like we literally know if the rate is changing or not, so
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um, when it comes out and it's exactly as forecasted, then this entire move down is unfair. I will still take a continuation because more often than not it does win, and I did 50 point stop, 76
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point take profit just 'cause the candle was huge. Maybe I could have even sized down lower than that, but I just saw 157 point red candle and I got in short as soon as it closed. Pretty standard continuation short right there. Now, the
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pre-FOMC price is extremely fair just because it's already priced in what the rate is going to be if it's changing or not. So, when it broke structure, I just bought. This one was actually 50 point stop on both of these trades just
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because of how much volume there was. Again, 157 point candle. So, you can adjust if the market is telling you to adjust. It should be pretty obvious if you should adjust or not, but this is one where I adjusted.
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in half. 50 point stop, 140 take profit just off a break of this structure here.
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Unfortunately, not a win. Next entry here, breaking in this structure, 50 point stop, 225 point take profit. This one was a win. So, it did get back to the pre-FOMC price as expected.
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Actually, leading into this Asian session, I thought this whole move down would be unfair as well because, again, pre-FOMC price up here should be really fair.
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So, 6:00 p.m. opened. The reason I didn't buy at 6:00 p.m. was because it opened red. So, I was a little bit concerned. There's also this wick up here rejecting longs, so I did not buy here, here, here, here, or here,
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which all kind of seem like good entries now that I'm looking back at it. But, anyways, Asian session opening candle green breaking clearing all this structure.
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It just seems like a very standard continuation. I feel like every single Asian continuation trade that I took one. Maybe maybe not not one on Tuesday, but opening candle 31 points. So, again, more than 25, cut the size in half. 50
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points, 76 points, very easy take profit there. I did short back to the Asian open. My high time frame bias is really back towards pre-FOMC price, but I figured there's a slight chance that it it goes up it retraces within its move
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up. So, definitely not the best trade going against my bias in the high time frame, but nonetheless, I saw honestly a lot of red candles here printing and a good break of this this and this structure all in one candle. So, I was
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somewhat confident that it would win on this trade here. So, usual 25 point stop, 72 point take profit. Did not win.
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All right, and now for Thursday a.m. session. Here is the opening price and down here is the FOMC price, the pre-FOMC price. Which honestly could still be a fair price depending on what the open does. Anyways, the market
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opened, red candle, 22 points, so I'm not going to change the size. 25, 38 for this one, 1 to 1.5 as usual. Good break of structure here. Opening candle was red. High time frame bias was towards the FOMC price, which honestly seemed
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like still a fair price, and market instantly jumped all the way down here and started consolidating here as expected for the fair price.
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Now, I did buy here, which I definitely regret doing. Uh the reason for that is when the market opened, it instantly came back down to the FOMC price, the pre-FOMC price. So, I would probably be under the assumption, looking back at it
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now, that okay, FOMC price is fair and that when I bought here, trying to bring it back to the pre-9:30 open, which I thought maybe there's a chance 9:30's fair, so I'm going to take this. It was not a good trade because the fair price
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would not be up here, it would be the pre-FOMC price since when it opened, it instantly went down to the pre-FOMC price. It was kind of kind of a bad trade that I should not have taken.
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Um I did take multiple trades though. Uh it did come all the way back to 9:30 and then there was structure forming here, so when it broke, I traded back towards the pre-FOMC price right here.
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Uh just because I thought, okay, this is probably a fair price still just because again, when they opened, it instantly came down there and it literally take my take profit like to the tick, uh just exactly on the pre-FOMC price. Then it
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broke up again, another break of structure back towards 9:30. I did take this one as well. Um so, honestly, I should not have taken either of these.
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So, it's kind of 50/50, I guess. That's why I won one one loss, but probably should not have been targeting up here.
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Probably should have had this as the the stronger target and then skipped both of these trades. But, pretty good day in general. Continuation, reversion, reversion, reversion, that sort of thing. Uh so, good day on Thursday and then Asian session,
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9:30 a.m. price is here, pre-FOMC price is here. So, the high time frame bias going into Asian session is definitely short. Like with the other Asian session I just went over, huge red candle, was only 21 points, but red candle prints,
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sell instantly. Good break of structure direction of high time frame bias Asian session was printing this week so glad I'm showing it for you guys anyways just entered right when it closed break of structure red candle high time frame
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bias down towards these two prices and then again like I mentioned with the other Asian session in a downtrend I try to catch the move up so I try to catch this move up in the downtrend definitely not the best thing probably shouldn't be
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doing it all the time but I like to be very aggressive on my prop firm account so first break of structure I saw I thought maybe I can get at least 34 points back to the Asian open and then
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we'll continue down but anyways that was a loss and then I went back to the pre FOMC price now coming into Friday Friday was not my best day probably shouldn't have traded it but last bank holiday the Monday I did two for two so bank
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holidays are are usually fine to trade if there's volume so this news honestly screwed everything up so ceasefire was announced 8:50 a.m. and market open was here green candle good break of structure news was green so probably long drift this is a good fair price
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because it's just consolidation after this news and it's the the open as well so it's a really fair price right here and I just decided I'm going to take a continuation just thought news was so positive and then it sort of just died
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out so I was like when market opens probably going to continue up more of course it didn't but seems like fine entry second entry exact same thing as the first one break of structure it is 16 minutes after the open I
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usually stop continuations after 15 minutes but I decided why not this is more of a news drift trade just wanted to slow rise over the day and it kind of did till the market closed and I exit break even right here
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just cuz the market was about to close and there's no point being in a trade when the market's going to close plus you're up 50 points just a news drift trade on one of my funded in profit but
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that was the entire week and I hope you enjoyed
Topics:day tradingNQ futuresprop firm tradingJJ Simonfutures trading strategyrisk managementbreak of structurecontinuation tradereversion tradeFOMC trading
