u/panipuriftw

More time on charts feels productive. Like research. Like discipline.

But after a point, it’s just boredom in the name of analysis. Your brain stares long enough and suddenly every candle starts looking like a setup.

Look at this trade history.

Nine trades. Switching between puts and calls on the same ticker, same expiry, same morning. Puts, calls, calls, puts, calls again.

That's not a strategy. That's a brain that stayed on the screen too long and started seeing setups that weren't there.

The dangerous part is none of the losses look terrible by themselves: -$29, -$16, -$23.

It doesn't feel like blowing up. It feels like "almost got it." That's what makes it dangerous. Death by a hundred small bad trades nobody warns you about.

The loop is simple:

Long session → more trades → more forced entries → more losses → stay longer to make it back → more trades.

Doesn't end with a better win rate. Ends with a blown account and a journal full of trades you knew were wrong while clicking buy anyway.

What changed for me

Shorter sessions. Hard stop on number of trades. If the first two don't work, laptop closes.

Less screen time forced better filters. Can't afford bad trades if you're only there for 90 minutes.

In an options funded account, avoiding one bad forced trade can matter more than catching one extra setup.

Funny how that works, but how many trades are you averaging per session?

I've tried a lot of intraday setups over time.

ORB, EMA crossovers, momentum chasing, news plays. Some work, some don't. But the one setup I keep returning to is the VWAP reclaim due to its consistent structure.

What's actually happening in this trade

VWAP is the average price traded during the session, weighted by volume. When price is above VWAP, I’m more open to long setups. When price is below VWAP, I’m more cautious with longs or looking for downside continuation.

A reclaim happens when price breaks below VWAP, and then comes back and closes above it.At first, it looks like sellers have control. They push price below the level. But if they cannot getcontinuation and price reclaims VWAP, that’s where the trade starts to get interesting.

By this, it might seem like you’re predicting a breakout but it’s not. You're just waiting for the market to show that the balance of power has shifted, and then getting in on the right side of it.

The exact entry I look for

The setup starts with price breaking below VWAP, not just a wick. I look for a clean break where sellers push price under the level and it looks bearish for a moment.Then when the price comes back up, I close a candle above VWAP on decent volume.

That close above VWAP is the signal, but I usually don't enter there.I wait for the retest.

A lot of the cleaner VWAP reclaim trades I've taken the price almost always come back to tap VWAP from above after reclaiming it. That retest where VWAP now acts as support is my entry. Better price, tighter stop, cleaner risk-reward.

If the retest fails and the price closes back below VWAP, I'm not in the trade.

A recent example from my trading journal

SPY, mid-morning session: Price dipped below VWAP around 10:15 AM, it looked like sellers had control. They pushed the price under the level, but couldn’t really get continuation. That was the first thing I noticed. If sellers had real strength, I wanted to see a continuation below VWAP. Instead, the price started climbing back toward the level.

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By 10:28 AM price closed back above VWAP with a strong candle. That was the reclaim. But I still did not enter. I waited for the retest, because the reclaim candle only tells me the price above VWAP.

Around 10:34 AM, price came back to tap VWAP, held it, and then bounced. That was the entry.

Stop went just below VWAP, because if VWAP didn’t hold as support, the trade idea was wrong. Risk was around 0.15%. Target was the morning high, roughly 2R away.

Price hit the target around 11:10 AM. It was a clean trade, no drama.

The whole thing took 45 minutes and required exactly one decision… wait for the retest, enter when it holds.

What kills this trade

Choppy sessions!

If the price crosses VWAP 4-5 times in an hour, I skip the session entirely . At this point, VWAP isn’t acting like a clean level anymore. It’s just the price moving back and forth.

Also avoid this in the last hour of trading. VWAP starts compressing toward price as the session ends and the level becomes unreliable.

My preferred window for this setup is 9:45 AM to 12:30 PM. The morning session has the cleanest VWAPw reactions.

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Risk management

My stop always goes below VWAP not below the entry candle. Because if VWAP doesn't hold as support, the thesis is wrong and you need to be out.

I also don't move my stop to breakeven too early.

I used to do that a lot, and it kept getting me stopped out on normal pullbacks before the trade had room to work. Now I only consider moving the stop once the price has moved at least 1R in my favor.

For targets, I keep it simple either a previous structure level or 2R, whichever comes first. I don't hold hoping for more.

Why I prefer this setup than most intraday setups

Most setups I tried were pattern-based and it kept me looking for a shape on a chart.

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VWAP reclaim is structure based and gives me a clear structure. You're trading at a real level that real participants are watching. The retest happens because other traders are also watching VWAP and entering there.

What do you think about my strategy? Any tips you want to add here.

I’ve been trading with prop firms for over a year now. 

But, my journey started with crypto trading during the 2021 bull run. Back then, I developed a trend-following system riding the alt waves, and most of my trading knowledge came from trading Bitcoins and alts. When I decided to get serious about trading, the natural next step was to try crypto prop firms.

At first, I couldn’t pass any of them!

Like many unprofitable traders, I doubled down on educating myself with EMAs + VWAP + TPO + order flow + ICT… just name it and I bet that I’ve studied those too. Slowly, all that studying paid off, and it helped me to become a breakeven trader in the crypto space.

It was around that time that a friend (who trades US stocks) suggested I give an options-focused prop firm a shot. I was hesitant because options were a new market for me. But, I still went with it and decided to keep it simple by focusing only on: SPY, trade directionally, and avoid jumping between tickers.

Once I had a basic feel for SPY price action,  I took a $10K Advanced account and set a modest daily goal: $100–$200 profit per day, then done. 

Within 5 days, I passed the advanced challenge and moved into the funded account. 

Sharing a breakdown of my SPY plan:

My main setups were –

1. Pullbacks into a 1-min or 3-min trend

If SPY was in a clear bullish trend, I looked for pullbacks into the short-term trend. I used the 13, 21, and 34 EMAs as my trend guide. 

1. Liquidity sweeps of major levels

I  watched the previous day's H/L and important H/L from the 15-min, 30-min, and 1-hour charts. If SPY swept one of those levels and gave a strong reaction, I’d look for a quick scalp. These were usually reaction trades, not trades where I’d sit and hope for something big.

1. Fibonacci retracements into the 618 AKA golden pocket

After a strong leg up, if the price started retracing, I watched the 0.618 area. If that level lined up with the broader trend and the reaction looked clean, I’d look for an entry there.

Risk-wise, I kept it very simple.  I checked my available drawdown and divided it by 8, so one bad trade wouldn’t put the whole account in danger. 

I also had a few rules to avoid overtrading:

-> Trade only during the opening hours of the NY session
-> Under 3 trades per day
-> Stop trading once I hit $100-$200 during the eval
-> No forcing trades if my setup wasn’t there
-> If I lost two trades in a row, I stopped trading for the day

The last rule helped a lot because one of my major mistakes in crypto prop firms was trying to make money back immediately after a loss. 

Once I moved into the funded account, I kept the same plan as eval. 

During eval, I usually stopped at my $200 target [to stay consistent]. But on the first day of my funded account, I let one of my better setups breathe a little more, while still keeping my risk controlled. That day, I ended up +$700

The next day +$800, and the day after +$1,000. 

By the fourth day, I was up $3.7k on the account and eligible to request a $500 payout. My first actual payout from a funded account!

This win wasn’t instant. It came from having a structure that fit my pace better. The no-time limit + single step challenge also helped because  I didn’t feel forced to take mediocre trades just to finish quickly.

Lesson learned: treat each funded account like proving consistency, not gambling. Have a daily routine, limit profit targets, and protect your capital first.

Would love any advice from more experienced prop firm traders on my setup, still learning.

Same

I don't understand why these ppl r hating eo outside but omg my heart is happy! That last hug of the trio was all i needed💕