End-of-Year-Review Year Four 2023

The Leap in Process

My fourth year of trading has concluded, and while I'm still aiming for higher profits (though I'm up 46% this year! It’s a small account), my process-related goals are where I made the most progress. A recent health issue sidelined me for about 8 weeks, so these numbers might look different otherwise, but I'm proud of what I've accomplished.

Overtrading is officially a thing of the past. Going from averaging 35 trades a week in my first year, to 25 a week in my second year, to 22 trades a week in my third year, now averaging just 7 trades a week in year four; and averaging 5 a week over the past four months. This controlled approach reflects my evolving trading style and a hard-earned understanding that less is often more, especially in trading.

My setup rating goal for year four was 97%, I managed to get to 96.5% an increase of 5%+ over last year, and an increase of 20% from year one, and I’m very pleased. In previous years not adhering to my setups led me to take what I call “shit trades”, going from 234 shit trades in my first year, to 145 shit trades in my second year, to 105 shit trades in my third year, and now to only 13 shit trades in year four. I lost about $2000 on shit trades alone year one, lost another $1200 the next year, and lost $2400 in year three, totaling $5600 in wasted capital down the drain due to being undisciplined. This year I lost $202.71 and feel this is no longer an issue, I’m not a robot, so sometimes it happens, but in the past 5 months it hasn’t.

My trade management goal for year four was aiming to reach 78%, I got to 74%, close but still need to push in this area, I did improve by 9% in this area over last year, and by 29% since year one. I have been avg. 76% over the past five months, so I'm trending in the right direction.

My win percentage has also improved, thanks in part to running trades. I achieved my highest win percentage yet (45%) this year, and it's been even higher (61%) over the past four months. Controlling losses through disciplined trade management has been crucial to another profitable year.

While I do a lot of work, reading, journaling, market analysis, watching videos, listening to podcasts, personal growth, working with AI, studying charts and reviewing what happened along with how I could exploit it better, constantly exploring new ideas, and keeping an open mind on how to trade, etc…all of that takes time to gel within my thick skull. Light bulbs just started getting turned on as more time went on, I can clearly see it in my journal.

A significant shift occurred around the end of May 2024. I started trading less, making better decisions, and focusing on just three main trading styles. I also let go of chasing profits and focused solely on process. It took 3 ½ - 4 years for things to truly click for me in those ways.

Next year, I'm pushing harder. I've started two prop challenges to trade at a larger size, with the goal of securing six-figure accounts by the end of 2025. I also have to work on eliminating trades I “bad meddle” in, I had 16 of them this year, out of being too defensive and not because of price action or fundamentals. I want to limit those to 4 in 2025. I want my setup percentage to be 98% or higher, my trade management to be 86% or higher, no more than 6 shit trades, and having the most fun yet trading, which will be tough, since I’ve been having an absolute blast so far.

Also wanted to add some other stats, only 44% of my weeks were in the green, the majority of the time (56%), they were in the red. Of course, controlling how big the red weeks are compared to the green weeks is the key to profitability, but you get the point, you don’t have to be right all the time or even half the time to be profitable. Being wrong is just a natural part of trading.

I only traded 41 weeks this year, of course, I missed 8 weeks due to health issues, but I took 3 weeks off just to simmer, to learn, to observe, to practice control. All of it in the service of becoming a better trader. This was new for me, in the past I wanted to trade every single day I could, every single week, practice makes perfect… right? Well, give it a try and take 3-4 weeks just for contemplation and processing throughout the year, I bet you’ll benefit from it.