May 26th, 2026

I’m calling this Day 22 because May was honestly a rough month and I needed to completely reset and refine the strategy again. After a lot of frustrating volatility and inconsistency, I decided to put more money into the account and start fresh with a better approach and clearer rules.

This time I’m starting with $4,000. The volatility lately was just too stressful with a smaller account, and realistically it probably would have wiped me out if I kept trading the same way. I spent a lot of time going back through trades, reviewing charts, and backtesting everything again before restarting.

The core strategy itself really has not changed much. What changed is the filtering. Now I’m only taking trades when the Williams Alligator is fully opened up with all of the lines properly stacked and moving in the correct direction alongside MACD alignment. That cuts down the number of trades significantly, but it also keeps me out of a lot of the chop that has been destroying me lately.

The downside is that entries can feel a little late sometimes, especially on fast moves, but honestly the strategy held up pretty well over five months and hundreds of trades during backtesting. That gives me confidence that it can work as long as I stay disciplined and actually follow the rules instead of forcing trades.

Today itself was a calmer and slower market day, but profitable. Not every day needs to be exciting. Right now consistency and staying emotionally controlled matters more than chasing huge moves.

Day 22 Travel Poster

MNQ Chart

Today was a really solid start to the revised strategy and honestly it worked almost exactly the way I wanted it to.

The first trade came around 7:25 after price crossed above VWAP and everything aligned correctly. The first contract hit the 2 ATR target for 37 points, and the second contract was eventually stopped out for a 5 point gain after moving the stop up.

The second trade came after the market open following a very choppy start to the session. One of the reasons this refined strategy feels better is because it kept me completely out of that early chop. The Williams Alligator never fully opened up until around 9:10, which prevented me from forcing anything too early. Once the setup finally aligned, I entered long and price continued working higher. That trade ended with 71.25 points on one contract and another 5 points on the runner.

The third trade happened later in the day around 1:10 PM. This one was also a long setup, but price never made it to the 2 ATR target. Eventually both contracts were stopped out for basically breakeven at around -0.5 after price crossed back below the red line.

The final trade of the day was actually one I did not take, and honestly I should have. That is probably one of the bigger lessons from today. The setup was there, but I got nervous and hesitated instead of simply following the rules. Going forward I really need to trust the strategy and take the trade even if I feel uncomfortable in the moment.

Overall the day was profitable and a strong start to the reset, but it still could have been better if I had fully followed through on every valid setup. The interesting part is that the missed trade actually corrected itself the following day, which I’ll explain more in the next post.

Total Profit: $213.28