r/tradingmillionaires

A trading Youtuber called The Trading Geek claims he turned $20 into $10M daytrading using smart money concepts (liquidity sweeps, order blocks, fair value gaps). Videos like his get millions of views, and viewers walk away with a strategy they think they can trade — but almost none of these creators show a real backtest, just a curated equity curve or a handful of cherry-picked chart examples. So to check if his strategy actually holds water, I coded it from scratch and ran 130,201 parameter combinations against 5 years of real market data.

The strategy

Three building blocks, chained together:

1. Liquidity sweep — price runs past a recent high/low, traps breakout traders, then reverses (break of structure)
2. Order block — the last candle before that reversal, where he claims institutional money entered
3. Fair value gap — an imbalance the market tends to fill; used for entry timing instead of blindly entering at the order block

The problem with coding and backtesting this strategy is that it's not fully mechanically defined. There are no fixed rules for what counts as a valid swing point, how deep a sweep needs to be, or how big a fair value gap should be. That ambiguity is exactly why nobody backtests these strategies properly. Which is likely intentional. Instead of picking one interpretation, I turned every vague concept into parameterized rules and tested every combination: swing point detection, liquidity sweep depth, fair value gap size/location, entry timing, timeframe, asset, etc.

Results

The baseline version, or as close as I could get to it with mechanical rules, lost 60% over 5 years even with the best possible settings (realistic trading costs included).

Out of all 130,201 configurations, 24,236 were profitable. Only 211 beat the market. Digging into what those 211 have in common:

• Price-based swing detection (directional change method) beats time-based, and smaller swings outperform bigger ones
• Shallow liquidity sweeps outperform deep ones — large sweeps produced zero winners
• Fair value gaps actually hurt performance — the best entry model skips FVGs entirely and enters at the order block midpoint instead, contradicting his own claim
• Lower reward-to-risk is best; 1:1.5 was most prevalent
• Almost 70% of winners cluster on the 1H timeframe, despite The Trading Geek's claim that it ought to work on any timeframe.

With every optimized parameter locked in, average return across the winners was 159% over 5 years, and the config held up (profitable) on 6 of 7 assets tested — a full run came to roughly +2,500%. But just to be clear, that number is very likely inflated by selection bias. Testing 130k variations and cherry-picking the best one is a classic overfitting trap. Whether this specific configuration has a real edge or is just noise is a separate question.

I'm sharing this as a reminder to never blindly trust anything you see online, especially when it comes to trading. It's much easier to sell courses than it is to make money in the markets.

If you want to see full breakdown of the strategy and results, you can find it in this video, or check out the code on my github page. If you disagree with how I mechanized any part of the strategy, the definitions are all there and you can test your own version.

Figured I'd post this one before the result instead of dropping another perfect chart after the fact. This is the ERL → IRL / ICT 2022 setup I'm currently watching, and I actually have enough data on this specific model now that I'm comfortable sharing the numbers behind it too.

The weekly profile is what started the idea. Monday established the initial range, then Tuesday into Wednesday pushed lower and flushed sell-side liquidity, including Asia SSL. Under the weekly bias framework I use, I'm watching Monday as accumulation, Tuesday/Wednesday as the potential manipulation, and then looking for distribution/expansion afterward. That doesn't guarantee Wednesday printed the weekly low, but after taking liquidity I needed price to prove it wanted to reprice higher.

That's exactly what started happening. Price displaced aggressively away from the lows and created a clean 30-minute bullish FVG. For me that's the transition from ERL back toward IRL: external liquidity gets raided, displacement confirms the reaction, and the imbalance created during that displacement becomes the area where I'm willing to enter rather than chasing price higher.

The actual trade plan is pretty simple:

• SSL/ERL has already been taken.
• Potential weekly low/manipulation has formed Tuesday-Wednesday.
• Bullish displacement confirms the reaction.
• 30m FVG becomes my IRL/entry zone.
• Stop belongs beyond the low that invalidates the entire idea.
• Opposing external liquidity is the DOL.
• I'm generally taking 1R-2R rather than trying to squeeze every point out of the weekly expansion.

The reason I've gotten much more confident trading this is because I finally stopped lumping every trade together. I created ERL → IRL as its own strategy inside TradeZella, then used the Reports/Strategy section to isolate what the model was actually doing instead of relying on memory.

Across the 68 trades currently tagged to it, I'm sitting at a 70.59% win rate, 3.55 profit factor and $16,510.20 net P&L. Average net P&L is $242.80 per trade, average win/loss is 1.48, winning-day rate is 76.36%, and the average hold is about 4h 13m. What's probably most important to me is that the equity curve has continued grinding higher over the sample instead of the results coming from one or two monster trades.

That's also why I don't really care whether this particular callout wins. One trade means nothing. If the FVG holds and we continue toward the opposing liquidity, I execute the model. If the low gets invalidated, I take the loss and log it. The whole point of tracking this stuff is getting away from judging your trading based on whatever happened today.

I'll come back and post the result either way. Win or loss, it'll become trade #69 in the dataset.

Retail is coming back baby!

Discord: https://discord.gg/y6U4usTsTB
Access to indicators: https://outsideredge.com

It’s been about 10 months since we started OutsiderEdge, and we’ve now grown to over 2,000 members in our Discord community.

During that time, our indicator library has grown massively. We now have a wide range of tools that traders in the community are actively using every day, and we’re constantly improving existing indicators and developing new ones based on feedback.

I’ll admit that I’ve neglected Reddit quite a bit. OutsiderEdge is still essentially a one-man operation, and most of my time and attention goes into development, support, and improving the Discord community.

I’m going to try to become more active here and share more updates, setups, educational content, and development insights.

But if you want to follow what we’re building, ask questions, or interact with the community, I definitely recommend joining the Discord. That’s where OutsiderEdge is most active.

Appreciate everyone who has been part of the journey so far. We’re just getting started.

I’m targeting a 1:6 risk-to-reward long on gold, with price pulling back into the marked support/demand area around 4,360–4,363, where previous structure and the rising trendline converge. The idea is to enter after bullish confirmation from this zone, keep the stop below the recent support/swing low around 4,350, and target the 4,405–4,410 area, giving roughly 1:6 R:R if the setup plays out.

*Market Structure*

The H1 chart remains bullish overall. Price has produced a sequence of higher highs and higher lows, with several bullish Market Structure Breaks (MSB/BOS) visible during the advance.

However, price is now trading close to the major 4,439–4,440 resistance/liquidity zone.

2. *Resistance*

4,439–4,440 is the key level.If price sweeps 4,439 and immediately closes back below it, however, that would look more like a buy-side liquidity sweep and could initiate a deeper retracement.

Bullish breakout targets:

4,450–4,460 — immediate extension zone

Above that, continuation should be evaluated using fresh H1 structure rather than assuming a fixed target

3. *Support*

the more interesting short-term risk is a liquidity sweep above 4,439 followed by an H1 bearish structure break.

If that happens, I would watch the levels sequentially:

4,439 → 4,360 → 4,332 → 4,305

A break below 4,360 would be significant because it would show that the latest bullish impulse is losing structure.

A sustained break below 4,332 would increase the probability of a deeper retracement toward 4,305, while a break below 4,305 would substantially weaken the current H1 bullish structure.

The chart's drawn downside paths therefore make technical sense as conditional correction scenarios, but they should not be treated as predetermined price paths.

*Final View*

The chart is not bearish yet. The dominant H1 structure remains bullish, but gold is sitting directly beneath a major resistance/liquidity zone around 4,439–4,440.

The key decision point is therefore simple:

Break and hold above 4,439 = bullish continuation.

Sweep 4,439 + bearish structure break = correction.

For me, 4,360 is the key line separating a healthy bullish pullback from a more meaningful H1 correction. Until that level breaks decisively, selling aggressively against the trend carries higher risk.

sup everyone, Took this trade with a nice 1:4 RR. However halfway along the trade i decided to close my trade at a support area which i haven't marked on the chart but it's the first blue arrow where i close half of my position. And as expected price stalled there for a day, couldn't break the downtrend so it fell again to my final TP.

Closing half of my position and updating my SL to breakeven in the middle of the trades is such a blessing that allows me to be completely free from staring at the chart.

Does anyone else use this method to manage their trades? i like it very much

Built a system that automatically record and screenshots your screen every time you open a trade (stops after 30 minutes in case of swings / always can manually record)

I didn't like the way other trading journals made me replay my trades in a separate system from TOS.

Now I saw my screen exactly as I was seeing it.

I've always kept screenshots but now it screenshots automatically when I open and close a trade.

Now videos and screenshots automatically get saved for that day and can review everything quickly.

(I included the small window at the bottom of the calendar because it needs to be popped out to keep the window active so it works with your trading app open)

But do you guys find alpha in trade recordings?

I've always thought screenshots were way better than a Tradingview trade replay but after rewatching videos of big red days I think the video is waaay better.

Due to promotional rules I can only answer trading & trading review related questions.

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