Three diagonals to rule them all
Day Trading Futures for a Living
The illusion that you need to catch the next big move as a day trader, is the single thing that stands between you and profitability. You can try this for years if you’re stubborn enough, but ultimately, you’ll have to accept that most of the time, markets are just chopping around, playing ping pong between levels.
There is your key to profitability: “ping pong between levels”.
For this reason, my daily plans evolve around levels. Key support, key resistance, levels in between, if I can get my signature Diagonal Entry Model to give me a risk informed entry, the levels lead the way.
Consistent profitability comes from accepting that when price breaks or holds a specific level, the path of least resistance leads to the next level, where price may do one of three things: coil, reverse, or accelerate. Nobody ever knows which of the three it will be. We can have conviction, faith, hope, but in the end, price leads, and once the next level is reached, if price reverses, your gains fade.
Therefore, three factors define my success as a trader: waiting for the entry to set up, understanding informed risk for position sizing towards the stop level, and understanding where and when to lock in profits. This is literally all I do.
I will always leave small parts of positions to try and trail, but I’ll never let these runners consume my profits. During times when markets are trending, these runners build big swing positions and accumulate significant gains, while during times when markets are consolidating, basing, I will have stop sell orders at upside or downside targets.
To become a profitable trader, all you need is a standardised way to do things. More about this under the Methodology section further below.
Trading System
My focus is primarily on longs, even during bear markets. New followers are often surprised at how easy it is to make a living with a ‘long only’ system. I do take shorts occasionally, and my setup models work both for short and long setups, but even when markets are trending down, solid 10 to 12 point bounces always set up, with regular 20 to 40 point squeezes.
To make a living, 10 points a day is really all you need, and once you have that consistency, if you want to make more money, you can increase position size instead of trying to play for bigger moves.
Find consistency, then scale
Here is Wisdom
My life changed when I understood that you never need more points to make more money. If you know that you can get 5 points from each setup consistently, then all you have to do is consistently lock in what you need, from those 5 points. Increasing size is key, not increasing timeframe.
Scaling is easy, find consistency, then size up.
how to learn
Methodology
My system works for day trading and swing trading. It works on Forex, futures, stocks, crypto, literally anything that has a chart can be traded with my simple entry model and position management system.
I have outlined and published the parameters and technical details of my signature Diagonal Entry Model via Substack, where you have full access to all my work for a standard, small monthly fee. More information here: Trading Courses.
If you want your charts to look like mine, you can copy my TradingView setup via this link: Copy Barky’s Setup.
The key entry models are described in the first course:
#1 Barky’s Diagonal Entry Model;
#4 Scalp Model: The LTF DEM.
When you’ve read and understood these instructions, you can immediately start practising, but keep your eye on risk management, which is fundamental to compounding gains.
personal guidance
Supportive Community
For a more intimate learning experience and extra conviction during the execution of my system, I have a Discord server where I keep an undated, live S&P500 futures channel for my day trades.
The Discord also features educational nuggets to take your understanding of the model to a deeper level. There are channels where I keep the indices charted for intermediate term direction, and a long list of leading assets that I chart for swings.