0:00 What is good, guys? And today, we will talk why I have been switching to trading futures in the last few months, and I'll give you guys my breakdown on what are the reasons behind that decision. So, first of all, let's get into the first point why I have been trading less FX, especially this year. And the main reason is that the market has changed. What do I mean by that? As you guys know, in Forex, I am usually trading the H1 timeframe as my entry timeframe, and occasionally the M15 once the H1 is giving me my setup. So, I trade mainly the daily expansion and the
0:47 weekly expansion, right? So, I rely on the market offering a weekly expansion profile, and then daily expansion profiles in alignment with that. The thing is, nowadays, the last few months, the FX market has been in a consolidation profile, and we have seen less expansion profiles on daily timeframe. Meaning, most of times, we see the daily being in a prolonged consolidation. And if I trade a system relying on daily expansions, but I don't see those often, then obviously, my setup frequency will also drop quite a bit. Now, what may be the reasons behind that? Why do we see less daily expansion profiles? I think the main reasons are
1:33 due to rising global uncertainty. Meaning, the world is pretty much right now in a pretty uncertain state, and that's affecting the currency markets quite a lot, right? If you guys have looked in the last few months on economic data releases, right? For example, CPI, NFP, unemployment claims, all those typical red folder news, they have barely moved the market. With NFP and we had like a 10 pip candle and the other red folders like unemployment claims, they haven't been moving the market at all. So, the market has not reacting to those news, which have been my present butter, right? Back in the days, first day unemployment claims was like pretty much most of times the setup on those New York sessions. Nowadays, we are just in a consolidation and we
2:19 barely see hourly or daily expansions. Then the next thing going hand in hand with that, right? We often times see the expansions, if we do have expansions happening at pretty much the most random times when the orange man over in the states wakes up and decides to yap, then we see the markets moving at a pretty much the most random and unpredictable times, right? Meaning around the daily closure over the weekend, during Asian session, and obviously I can't participate in those moves, right? Meaning often times we're in a consolidation and once the expansion is happening, I am not obviously on the charts. And the main sessions, right? New York sessions most of times are now in a consolidation. London session moves often get retraced heading into New York session and then some daily expansion
3:05 often happens late in the day, even after London close session. So, those are the main reasons why for me the FX market right now is simply a low probability market to engage with. And as I mentioned, right? My strategy is mainly on FX relying on the H1, right? I trade the H1 as my entry time frame and then align myself with the daily and weekly expansion profiles and I require manipulation at those key times, meaning New York session opens, London session opens, around news and so on. But as mentioned, if the news barely lead to volatility, then we also don't get manipulation at those key times. And we also often times we have seen the market just expanding without manipulation. We have been in a consolidation profile for a few days and
3:52 then the market just moves with all sweeping the consolidation highs or lows. And my system relies on trading after manipulation. I can't just long consolidation and hope I'm on the right side of the market. That's the main reason, having no proper manipulations and if they happen, they often happens out of session. So, that puts me I mean, if you take a look at DXY, right? On the daily time frame or also on the weekly time frame the last few months, we have been stuck in this range pretty much since last year on the DXY and we have not seen any clearly trending profile. Most of the weekly candles just large wicks, small bodies and we don't have follow through in those weekly time frame candles. Also here, right? Those large candles we have occasionally, they are all caused
4:39 by Trump announcements, any geopolitical news and they happen overnight. And also often times those moves are just go and we don't see a retracement which allows to get into any trades, right? Daily time frame same thing, right? I mean, if you take a look at a daily time frame now in the last few weeks, most daily candles, right? They have really small bodies, large wicks and also a bunch of gaps which come from all of those overnight weekend gaps which we see in the market. And then again, we just chop around. We have, you know, not really any proper manipulation, leave equal highs here. And overall, it's just not the higher time frame market profile which I know my system requires to thrive in the market.
5:26 If you go back into like the '22, '23, also '24, right? We could see the market has been moving really nicely. We had weekly expansions. We had daily expansions that aligning with those weekly expansion profiles. We had nice trending markets, right? Even in '24, '23 but we had also a monthly consolidation profile where we have in that monthly consolidation still weekly trending market profiles, right? You can see here we have a nice trends to the range highs but to lows, but here's just more or less chop. You don't have those clear clean trending markets. And that is the main reason why I just don't like putting a lot of risk or taking that many setups in that current market regime because there is simply not a lot of setups which meet my
6:11 standards right? And that puts me pretty much into two options. I can either say, "Okay, I will only take one or two, maybe three trades a month, depending how many setups nowadays my system is producing." Or I can say I will switch my trading style and instead of focusing on daily expansions, weekly expansions, I will adapt my system towards trading hourly expansions, H4 expansions, or maybe even M15 timeframe expansions, right? And the decision I made was I wanted to have a higher trade frequency. Not because I think a higher trade frequency makes you more money, but just if you trade prop firms, you can't trade with one or two trades a
6:56 month. You have to hit those minimum profitable trading days, you have to hit the consistency rules, and with one or two trades a month you just can't hit consistent payouts. So, that's why I decided to switch my trading style to move a lower timeframe approach where I focus on, as mentioned, catching those hourly H4 expansions. So, if I go to lower timeframes, the question is is FX the best market to trade lower timeframe expansions? Meaning, if I enter on the 1-minute timeframe, the 5-minute timeframe, is the FX market really the best market to trade on such lower timeframes? In my opinion, the FX market is probably one of the worst markets to trade the 1-minute timeframe. I don't know a single person who makes
7:42 consistent money trading the one-minute time frame on FX, right? You can make with that information what you want, but if you want to make money trading, trying to trade the one-minute time frame on FX, your odds of making money consistently are close to zero. I'm not saying it's impossible, but trust me when I say this, you will have an easier time doing that on other markets such as indices. Now, why are the lower time frames on FX so bad in my opinion? If you take a look at the one-minute time frame or the even the M5 time frame on Forex, there's way less consistent price action, meaning we have sometimes really clean price action on the M5, then again, a few sessions or a few days where the price is absolutely bad, right? Lots of chop, lots of
8:29 multiple fakeouts, and overall just a really weekly weird behavior on the lower time frames. And on top of that, you also have worse trading conditions in terms of spread, slippage, fees. But, if you trade the one-minute time frame on FX, you need higher lot sizes, which will mean you have higher fees. You have on FX quite a big slippage, right? You have spread, meaning also even if you find a decent setup on the lower time frames, your overall realized risk-reward is much lower than your risk-reward on paper. If you have like a one to two risk-reward trade on Forex, most of times, I'm talking now about entering on the M1, right? Not the H1, but entering, let's say, a one to two or a one to three on the one-minute time frame on FX, the realized risk-reward on those trades
9:16 is always way lower than the one on paper. Because, as mentioned, you have spread, you have slippage, you have the fees, which are way higher due to the increased lot size you need if you have a tighter stop. Because, obviously, if you have a five-pip stop, you need a way higher lot size than if you have like a 20 or 30-pip stop, which means you have to pay more Also, on lower time frames, the slippage will affect your risk reward much more than on like an hourly entry time frame. Also, again, because your stop is way smaller, meaning your risk reward, your relative risk reward, will be automatically way lower than if you would trade on a higher time frame. So,
10:01 that's where futures come into play, right? On futures, we have way more time-based movement. What do I mean by that? We have 9:30, right? Where we have every day a volatility injection to the marketplace, and you know during that time window, you have volatility, right? And we as traders, we need volatility. And if I know every day at 9:30, there will be a volatility injection, that gives me a predictable and defined time window. Also, if you look at a lower time frame, for my system, the price action is cleaner. Someone else might say, "Damn, one on futures is not clean." Again, that's subjectively. In my views, for my system, for my trading style, the lower time frames, the 1-minute time frame on NQ, is a much
10:49 cleaner price action than on FX. And that's why I decided if I will switch my system to a lower time frame approach trading, as mentioned, lower time frame hourly, H4 expansions, I will do that on indices on futures and not on forex. And on top of that, I have a much more defined trading window, right? And I know exactly we have London session, 3:00 a.m., and we often times get clean expansions in that hour. We have 9:30 open. We have then 10:00 a.m., which also is a really consistent time window. We have the PM session, where we have the power hour at the end. So, we have all of those really defined time windows during the day, which offer opportunities each day, which I can capitalize on. So, overall, that makes
11:35 for me the futures market a much better option to trade the lower time frames. Now, many people have been asking me, "Do you trade futures differently than FX?" No, I don't. I trade the same concepts. It's just a few different things due to me trading the lower time frames. The execution, obviously, are a bit different, right? Trading the monthly time frame is different than trading the hourly time frame. You have to be way more precise. You have to make decisions much more quicker. All of those things are, obviously, a bit different, but the concepts I apply are still the same. I still use the same stuff I have used on FX in the last 6 years. And as mentioned, we have small different market nuances. For example, the session times are a bit differently,
12:21 how markets are delivering price after, for example, 9:30 open, once you have those volatility injections, they are a bit different. Each market has own nuances. Even if in Forex, you will see that Euro trades differently to pound, and pound Euro trades differently to, for example, the other majors, and exotics trade differently than majors, right? So, each market, and within each market, each pair, they have their own characteristics. Also within futures, right? NQ and ES move also slightly differently. NQ is much more volatile. YM often tends to be more decoupled from ES and NQ. So, each market, each pair, has its own characteristics anyways. So, obviously, you have to get used to those different market nuances, but it's just a matter of time until you get used
13:07 to it, and you get the hang of those different market nuances. So, the main the main difference between indices and Forex, right? Indices are a naturally appreciating asset. I mean, if you take a look at the daily time frame, or the weekly time frame on indices, They are historically appreciating, meaning they always most of time at least, obviously we also have corrections. They but they are historically appreciating assets, right? Meaning you know those markets are overall more or less up only. Obviously, we will have corrections within those up only moves. But if you know historically those markets are upwards trending, right?
13:52 That gives you an edge to the long side, right? Meaning if you just look for more longs than shorts when the daily order flow is bullish anyways, it's already easier to have a bias. And while Forex is mainly a mean reverting asset, right? It's overall on the monthly time frame, yearly time frame a consolidating market. Especially the major currencies, we don't see those large trends. Obviously, we'll find trends on the weekly or also monthly time frame occasionally, but most times currencies are more or less in a ranging market because currencies, they don't naturally appreciate over time, right? Unless you have like a currency with large inflation, for example, um or high central bank rates. But if you talk about the major currencies, right? They are overall
14:38 Let's take a look at the EUR/USD, for example, in the last few years. We are overall in that multi-monthly range here, right? Obviously, we have trending markets within, but overall, it's a ranging market, right? Also, if you zoom in the last 10 years more or less, euro has been in this range between 1.04 and 1.20-ish, right? That is the range we have been trading in. And that doesn't mean you can't trade this market, but obviously those things will adapt your trading on the lower time frames as well. All right. Then the next big point, another reason why I switched or focused more on futures is the prop firms. If you take a look at the landscape, the prop firm landscape on CFD firms in the last 1 to 2 years, we have less reliable firms nowadays.
15:24 Maybe we have like but even a handful of reliable CFD prop firms. Then on top of that, the firms which are around, they get more strict with their rules on like a monthly basis, right? Stupid rules coming up such as you have to add stop orders in a certain time window. You have to make sure that you close and open trades before and around news. Like each prop firm has different rule sets and it kind of is all over the place which just have clear framework to know, okay, what rules do I actually have to keep in mind? When I used to have the highest amount of CFD funding in in my career, literally had to have spreadsheets open with all the firms and their different rules so I could keep track on, you know, where can I hold trades? Where do I have to close trades? What are all the rules that I need to follow for a full
16:09 payout? And that's just additional headache you don't want to have in an industry like trading which is itself already complex enough. Then also payout issues, right? Most of those firms just make up reasons to deny payouts. And the worst thing you can have as a trader is you earn your payout and then this firm comes up with a shady reason to deny your payout. It's like, you know, you don't need that stress in your life as a trader. On futures prop firms, right? I'm not saying on those firms that it's all the best and so on, but from my experience the last few months, you have way simpler rules. You don't have those unnecessary weird restrictions which are just there to breach a trader's accounts and you know, make more money for the prop for the prop firm itself. You have simple rules,
16:55 they're straightforward. Yes, you have consistency rules overall. But I do think those consistency rules are actually a good thing because they promote consistency, right? And if you are a profitable trader, those consistency rules shouldn't be an issue. Having like three profitable trading days or hitting a 50% consistency rule, that is easy, right? If you are consistent taking trades, those rules shouldn't even be an issue for you. You should meet those rules automatically. Then the next thing, you have faster funding, right? On CFD firms, you have most of times two phases to get funded, and if you anyways have already lower trade frequency by trading on the hourly timeframe, you're stuck now for weeks just to pass a funded account on CFD firms. While on those futures firms, where I can pass an account in one or
17:40 two days if I want to. And they are much cheaper. I don't have to spend 500 bucks for a challenge. I can spend on most firms less than 100 bucks and get like a 50 or 100k challenge, and then pass the challenge quite efficiently and quickly, and get immediately funded stage, and then work on getting a payout. Overall, futures prop firms are right now, in my opinion, way more scalable. You have way more transparent rules, and it's just a way better model right now to extract payouts from than on those CFD prop firms. I'm not saying you can't make money on CFD prop firms. I'm just saying on futures firms, they are much more scalable, they are cheaper, they are more transparent, and it's easier to achieve funding on those firms. And also, I am not saying Forex is dead,
18:26 right? I'm saying the current market regime is not really supporting the way I want to trade Forex. If FX comes back, you know, if conditions come back again, and we have clean daily weekly expansions, I can still go back the next day and start trading FX again. Well, it's not like a plug and white. Most people out there, they always think, "Oh, it's either plug or white, either with Forex or indices." No, I can trade both. I can trade FX on the H1 and still trade M1 on entry if I want to. But why would I force myself on a market which is currently not fitting my my system, right? For me right now, the sun is shining on the futures market. I just go where the market gives me the better opportunities. Most of you are, for some reason, marrying a certain market and then want to force to make this market work out.
19:13 And that's also a really big thing which I have noticed in the last few weeks with my students who are transitioning to trading futures from FX. I have many students who are great in doing TA, right? They can read the market on a high level, but they struggle or have been struggling last few weeks with making profits on FX. And sometimes the issue is not really that the trader, right? Sometimes the market environment simply doesn't fit your system, and that's totally fine. There is no system out there in the world that always yields great results or great returns. That's just the way it is. And if the market environment is changing and it's not looking like that market environment will change anytime too too a better degree in anytime soon, then why would you force yourself
19:59 trading that market? And I'm not saying you should blame the market for you being stupid and revenge trading and all that stuff. I'm just pointing out to that if you switch to trading futures, right? And you've been struggling on FX in the last few weeks and months, but you actually do have a decent understanding of the markets, trying out futures, you have nothing to lose. Worst case, you buy a challenge for 50 bucks, trade at a low risk to get a feeling for, you know, the futures markets, and you may find out you don't like it and you go back to FX. But that's your only downside. Upside is you try it out, you like it, you might make way more money, and you have another market to trade. There's only upside, no downside. The biggest mistake which I see people doing in trading, they refuse to adapt. They have
20:45 one approach which might work for a few months, and once it stop working, they refuse to adapt, but the markets keep evolving and change is the only constant we have in life and in trading as well. And if you refuse to adapt, you will lose your edge. In trading, you always have to make sure you work on your edge, you keep refining your edge, and you don't stop growing. Right? you stop growing and stop being a student of the markets, you will become a losing trader. That's just the way it is. And the worst thing you can do is to say, "Okay, I won't adapt. I will simply lower my standards, and I will keep forcing low-quality setups." Right? Imagine I would go now into the market and take lower-quality setups on the H1 on FX, which I normally wouldn't take. But now I tell myself, "Okay, the market
21:31 is now simply lower probability, and I will take that as an excuse to take low-probability trades." It would not work, right? When the trade results would be massively worse. So, I have to find a way to adapt and change my trading. And if you just apply with the same concepts you already know, right? The concepts I am teaching, and just apply them in a better-fitting environment, that can already change a lot. I have seen so many students in the last few weeks who told me, "Well, I've been trading NQ for a few weeks, and lately it was a game-changer for me to go from FX to NQ." And suddenly they get funded, they hit tails, and the only thing they have changed was the market they are trading. So, take from that what you will. And that pretty much concludes today's
22:17 video. If you want me to make a video on how to transition from Forex to Futures, then let me know down below, and I will, yeah, cook up a video on how I would transition the best way possible from FX to NQ. That being said, also join the Discord. I am posting there for free the breakdown of all the NQ trades I'm taking each day. Also, obviously, leave a like and subscribe, and then talk to you guys again in the next video.
