Hey Everyone!
As the year comes to a close, I like to reflect on my trading performance—acknowledging what went well, identifying areas for improvement, and setting goals for the year ahead.
2024 saw some excellent opportunities for outlier returns: $MSTR $SMCI $NVDA capitulation days, $TSLA and Bitcoin momentum runs following the election, Quantum Computing sector, the Panic Day back in August, the China Stimulus run, etc, etc. A lot of different opportunities to hit homeruns, much more than we saw the past couple years.
I did well this year, but did not fully capitalize on these opportunities so I will spend some time going over these opps and how I can be better prepared in the future.
My core strategies performed well and will continue to execute on them in 2025, but I will be looking to add more size and be more aggressive on the best-looking setups.
Equity Curve was good in 2024. Was very happy with how I handled drawdowns and kept myself from digging too big of a hole, which was one of my goals for this year.
May, November, March, February and December were my best preforming months respectively.
Lunch time and early afternoon still tend to be my worst time of the day to trade, which makes sense. Will continue to be very light around those times and only trade A+ setups if I do. 930 to 10 is by far my most profitable time as I’m sure that is similar for most traders. Lots of opportunities during this time.
Let’s look at my trading stats for this year.
Trade Stats
Below I posted my stats for my core strategies.
Overall, they did well, but I have some ideas for next year that I’m going to implement to try and improve on them, which I’ll cover below in each section.
My best performing strategy was my Swing Trading. This is no surprise. I make a majority of my money from swings mainly because of the potential on positions held overnight. My worst performing strategy, which was still profitable, was the Low of Day Break, but I have some new rules that should really improve the performance in 2025.
For the stats below I’ll be talking mostly about Win Rate and Profit Factor. Win Rate is pretty straightforward…it’s the percentage of my trades that are winners. Win Rate is only relative to your Profit Factor. You can have a Win Rate of 30% and still have a profitable strategy.
The Profit Factor is how much I make for every dollar of risk. So, if the Profit Factor is 2 then that means I’m making $2 for every dollar of risk. It’s a good way for measuring a strategy’s effectiveness.
I log my trades in TraderVue where you can get all kinds of useful information, and I HIGHLY recommend using some kind of journaling software. It’s the best way to understand how you are progressing and where you can improve.
You’ll begin to see a theme in these reviews of each strategy and that is to be BIGGER FOR LONGER, especially in my trend following setups. This is going to be my primary focus next year and you’ll see why as we dig into the stats below.
Opening Range Breakout (ORB)
The Opening Range Breakout strategy needs very specific variables to line up in order for me to take it so there won’t a be a ton of trades throughout the year. I only had 94 trades in 2024 at the time of this writing and the stats are below:
It had decent stats with a 70% win rate and a Profit Factor of 1.74. Not bad, room for improvement though.
The equity curve below shows that it wase somewhat of a volatile strategy last year and had better edge at the beginning of the year when markets were running hot and earnings were really good.
I tend to take profit too quickly in this strategy and don’t leave enough on for a bigger move. Once I’m up 1.5 to 2R I scale aggressively but what I’ve come to find out in this review is that a good amount of the winners went on to run 5R+, meaning I could have made 5 times what I risked but had scaled most of my position out at 2R. This is a trade from earlier this year that is a good example of what I’m talking about:
If I had inversed my profit taking, meaning scaled out just a little at the beginning and then unloaded on the spike higher, I would have made quite a bit more money over the year.
So going forward, I will be holding bigger size for longer. I think a good way to approach this is to look at holding my position until we get a second leg higher instead of scaling out on the initial opening drive. I may have more losers, but the bigger wins will easily offset them.
LOD Break
The Low of Day Break strategy was average this year, which makes sense given how strong markets were. This strategy outperforms in weaker, down-trending markets. However, there is still room for improvement in 2025.
The main problem I have with this strategy is holding winners. I tend to take profit quickly like I mentioned above, and I just leave way too much on the table when I do that. This is a trend following strategy which means I would be starting a position and letting it work instead of scalping profits as soon as it moves in my favor.
Here are the stats for this year:
When I take profits too quickly, it hurts me in the long run when I hit drawdowns with the strategy. That’s why the equity curve is as choppy as it is below.
Too many trades like this happen:
I’ll nail the entry but take profits way too soon and not let the trade work out. When this happens and I hit a trade that is going to trend lower for the day I HAVE TO leave a bulk of the position on for this bigger move and let the trade work for me. One of these trades will make up for dozens of losers.
I also want to make sure there is a fresh catalyst on the name or in their sector and ideally markets are weaker on the day, i.e. trading below VWAP. This all helps the success rate of this setup.
I’ll approach the adjustments to this strategy the same way I will with the ORB. I want to look for a second and third leg lower before taking profits as opposed to taking them on the initial break down leg. This strategy has potential for a 3+ Profit Factor which is what I’ll be aiming for in 2025.
Parabolic
My parabolic strategy was my second-best performing strategy this year. It provides plenty of consistent cash flow and is my favorite setup to trade – mainly because of how fast pace it is.
A lot of these trades come off the scanners, which is why I always tell traders who are interested in this setup to get them. I would say 90%+ of these trades are off scanners.
Alright, so I had about 272 parabolic trades this year with an 80% Win Rate and a 2.60 Profit Factor. Those are pretty solid stats for that number of trades. I will continue to trade this setup aggressively in 2025 and work on ways to get more size on them.
One of the ways, which I have been talking about in my recaps, is starting to leg in on the frontside when my criteria is being met. This allows me to get better prices and more size for when it reverses. It does open the window for more risk since I don’t know how far it can go against me, but given my stats using this method, it clearly has edge and has improved the system. I do not recommend trading the frontside if you are new to this strategy, wait for the turn! You can learn more about this strategy in my Mean Reversion Course.
I will continue to trade this way but want to be more aggressive adding to the position once the reversal happens and the backside sets in. That should help boost the overall profitability of the strategy.
It had a consistent equity curve throughout the year as you can see below. A little bit of a slow start at the beginning but then made steady moves higher throughout the year.
Swing Trades
Swings were again my best performing strategy. Catching overnight gaps and big multi-day leg runs really adds up, especially in strong trending markets. My biggest swing wins this year were in Bitcoin post-election, the $QQQ’s at the beginning of the year and then again coming into the last quarter, and $META. The biggest miss for me was $TSLA post-election. It gave some excellent setups with extreme follow-through:
Here are the stats:
I expect another solid year in 2025 so will again look to push size on my best setups. The equity curve was solid with steady grinds higher and minimal drawdowns.
I do have one main adjustment I want to make going forward and that is tonot hold swings overnight if I am red on them. So, if I start a swing and it is not working in my favor then I will cut the position before the close instead of holding it overnight. When I get in it should be working in my favor by the end of the day.
New Strategy – Imbalance
This is a new strategy that I’ve been tinkering with. I only have a handful of trades so obviously this will adjust back to reality as more trades come in, but it has potential. I know there is an edge in imbalances, it’s just a matter of really studying the moves and finding the best way to play them.
Here’s what I have so far on it:
I plan to keep studying more back tests on this strategy and improving my entry and exits. Will keep you posted on my findings and how my results are shaping up in 2025 with it.
Daily Parabolic
In a year like we just had with some many parabolic plays like $SMCI, $MSTR, $NVDA, $TSLA, China run, Quantum run, etc., this strategy should have been my standout winner.
So, what went wrong?
Well, I completely missed $SMCI, traded $NVDA with way too little size, $MSTR my internet was out so missed most of that chance unfortunately, and then had a handful of daily parabolics in small caps that I got hit hard on. Bottom line is I must hit these big opps with max size and really lean into them when they work in my favor. These are the types of trades that can make your month or even your year.
I plan on spending some time fine tuning my approaches on these bigger opportunities. Right now, I’m working on building out a more systematic way to enter these trades that should help ensure I am getting involved at high probability spots. This will be added to my courses when finished.
The other part of this equation is making sure I am mentally prepared to swing hard. This, I find, is harder than making sure I am involved with the trade. Under sizing these setups is almost as bad as not taking the trade at all.
When you are given an A+ setup like $MSTR on 11/21/2024, then you must be betting exponentially more. This is where I lacked because my winners that I did hit were not big enough to make a major impact overall, which is why my PF was subpar for this setup.
Some practices I’ll be looking to expand on to be more comfortable with exponential sizing is:
- Preparing for the trade:
- Reviewing past setups that are similar.
- Look at how I traded them and how I can perform better.
- Visualizing the trade:
- Visualize the different scenarios that could play out. I find performing “If then” scenarios to be very helpful in preparing.
- For example – “If XYZ has a strong opening drive, then I will look to buy on any pullback to the 10-day EMA and add through High of Day.”
- Prepare for the swings in PnL, try and get mentally comfortable being down or up a lot on the position and how you will handle that feeling (but always have a max loss, don’t give away months’ worth of profits).
- Visualize the different scenarios that could play out. I find performing “If then” scenarios to be very helpful in preparing.
Wrap Up
So that was 2024 for me. I did well but it could have been a standout year had I fully capitalized on the bigger opportunities. The biggest take away for me this year is trying to maximize my winners by being BIGGER FOR LONGER. That will be the theme for me going forward.
Next year has the potential to be another standout year in terms of opportunities. We still have a lot of current themes that are hot like the Quantum and Drone sectors, as well as President Trump being inaugurated in January who is looking to shake things up with Tariffs and major changes to different government departments. This will likely cause some excellent opportunities to take advantage of.
With so much on the horizon, it’s even more important to be prepared with a solid game plan for the different scenarios that could unfold.
As the great Benjamin Franklin once stated, “Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.”
Let’s set some Personal Bests in 2025!