Repeat: your first 30 sessions

You now have the pieces. You narrowed to one market, one setup and one session window. You built a routine, a record and a weekly review. The last step is the simplest and the hardest: repeat it.

This lesson gives you a plan for your first 30 sessions, what to look at when you finish, and how to decide what comes next. One of the honest options at the end is to stop trading.

The 30-session plan

Run all 30 sessions in a simulator. You are testing your habits as much as your setup, and there is no reason to pay for that with real money. If you need help setting one up, see the simulator lesson.

1. Write the rules once, before session one. Market, setup, session window, stop, size, daily loss limit, max trades. Don't edit them until session 30.
2. Run the routine every session. Before, during and after, using the checklist.
3. Record every session. Including the ones with no trades.
4. Review every five sessions. Use the weekly questions. Note problems, but don't change your rules yet. Just write down the one change you would make.
5. Count sessions, not days. If life gets in the way, the plan pauses. It doesn't reset.

At one session per trading day, this takes about six weeks.

What to look at after 30

Rule-kept rate. Divide the trades where you followed every rule by your total trades. If you took 60 trades and kept your rules on 51, that is 85%. This is the most important number in your record. If it is low, your results tell you little about the setup, because you weren't really trading it.

Expectancy in points. This is your average result per trade. Add up all your points and divide by the number of trades. If 60 trades made a total of +90 points, your expectancy is +1.5 points per trade. Work it out for rule-kept trades alone too. The expectancy lesson explains the math.

Be careful with this number. Thirty sessions is a small sample. A few lucky or unlucky trades can swing it a lot. Treat it as a first look, not a verdict. Also remember that a simulator fill is not a live fill, so live results may be worse.

Then decide

You have three choices, and each one is a valid result.

• Continue. Your rule-kept rate is high and nothing in the record says the setup is broken. Run another 30 sessions with the same rules to grow your sample.
• Adjust one thing. Your reviews kept pointing to the same problem. Make the one change you wrote down, and start a new 30-session block with it.
• Stop trading. Your record shows you can't keep the rules, or the setup loses even when you do, or the stress isn't worth it. That is a real answer, and a useful one.

Stopping is not failure. Most people who day trade lose money. A study of Brazilian futures day traders found 97% of those who kept going for 300 days or more lost money. A study of day traders in Taiwan found that less than 1% could predictably and reliably earn returns, after fees, beyond what the market itself gave. Finding out in a simulator, for free, that trading isn't for you is a good use of six weeks.

Become someone who keeps a record

Whatever you decide, keep the habit. The goal of this course was never one setup or one number. It was to become the kind of trader who keeps a record and judges it honestly. That person makes better choices, including the choice to stop.

If you want others to see your work, post your record in the community. My own record is public and posted in points after each session. It is simulated, kept separate from my live account, and shared as an example of the habit, not of results to expect.

The takeaway

Run 30 sessions in a simulator with fixed rules, a routine and a full record. At the end, look at your rule-kept rate first and your expectancy in points second, knowing 30 is a small sample. Then continue, adjust one thing, or stop. All three are honest results.

Do this today

• Write your full rule set on one page and date it as session one of 30.
• Set up a simulator account and schedule your first session.
• Add a session counter to your record so you can see how many of the 30 are done.

Check yourself

Answer each one in your head, then open it to check.