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In this interview, we sit down with Houston Truong, North American equities and index futures trader, founder of The Trading Edge, and organizer of the Montreal Traders Meetup. Houston walked away from a comfortable six-figure corporate role in March 2016 to trade full-time, and he’s been candid about the bumps, rewiring, and habits it took to make that leap stick. If you’re a developing trader looking for a real-world blueprint from someone who actually did it, this conversation delivers the context and credibility you want.
You’ll learn how Houston builds an edge with deliberate practice (not just more screen time), uses the unconscious–conscious competence model to fix blind spots, and designs a daily warm-up/cool-down routine so execution stays sharp when markets change. We’ll dig into his playbook of holding and adding to winners responsibly, balancing process and outcome goals without tilting, and the journaling, meditation, and review loops that keep confidence steady through drawdowns. If you want a practical way to get better fast—and trade what’s actually happening instead of what you hope will happen—this is a clean, actionable starting point.
Houston Truong Playbook & Strategy: How He Actually Trades
Market Prep: Build Context Before You Hunt
You can’t trade well if you don’t know the terrain. Houston frames every session with a clean read of trend, volatility, and key level, so his decisions later are faster and calmer. This section gives you a quick, repeatable pre-market flow.
- Mark the prior day’s high/low/close and the overnight high/low; draw them on your active timeframe.
- Define trend on three timeframes (e.g., D1, H1, M5). Trade with the higher-timeframe bias unless a clear reversal structure forms.
- Check volatility (ATR or average true range on your product); size positions so 1R risk fits inside current volatility.
- Box the session’s initial balance (first 30–60 minutes) and note value areas/POCs if you use volume profile.
- Write one sentence for your directional bias (“bullish, will buy pullbacks above X; invalidate below Y”).
- Identify two to three “if-then” paths (e.g., “If we open above prior high and hold, I’ll buy first pullback into VWAP”).
- Remove all indicators that aren’t used in today’s plan; reduce screen clutter before the open.
A-Setups: Simple Structures You Can Actually Execute
Edge lives in a few repeatable patterns, not a thousand opinions. Houston focuses on clean, high-quality structures where context, momentum, and risk lines are obvious. Here are playbook patterns to keep and rinse-repeat.
- Opening Drive + First Pullback: If price accepts above the open range with rising volume, buy the first higher low; stop below the structure low; partial at 1R, let runner ride to opening range expansion.
- Breakout–Retest: Only take breakouts through a well-tested level; wait for a retest/hold; enter on reclaim; stop just beyond the reclaimed level.
- Trend Pullback to Value: In an established trend, buy pullbacks to VWAP/20EMA confluence with a rejection wick; stop below the swing; add only if structure makes a new higher high.
- Failed Break Reversal: If a key level breaks but instantly rejects and closes back inside, fade to the opposite side of the range; tight stop beyond the fakeout extreme.
- Range Edges Only: In balanced days, trade only at the extremes; no mid-range entries; target the opposite edge or VWAP reversion.
Risk Sizing: Stay in the Game to Let Math Work
Consistency comes from fixed risk and asymmetric payoff. Houston treats risk per trade like rent—non-negotiable and boring. Lock this in so one mistake never nukes your week.
- Risk a fixed fraction per trade (e.g., 0.25–0.5% of equity) regardless of “conviction.”
- Convert that risk into distance: position size = (account * risk%) / stop distance.
- If volatility doubles (ATR up big), cut size in half; your dollar risk stays constant.
- Never widen stops after entry; exit and re-enter if the level was early.
- Cap daily loss (e.g., 1–1.5%); hit it and you’re done—review mode only.
- Limit adds to winners to one add after new structure forms; no averaging losers, ever.
Entry & Execution: Turn Plans Into Clean Fills
The plan is great; the fill is where money is made or lost. Houston keeps entries mechanical: trigger, stop, target, then let it work. Use these rules to avoid hesitation and chasing.
- Pre-define trigger candles/levels; enter on break-and-close or limit at retest—never in no-man s-land.
- For fast moves, bracket with a stop order a tick beyond the trigger; cancel if context changes.
- First target at 1R; move stop to breakeven only after a higher low/ lower high confirms, not just because 1R hit.
- If trade stalls for N bars (e.g., 10 bars on your execution timeframe) with no progress, scratch at breakeven or small win.
- During news windows, you don’t trade, disable hotkeys, and flatten any stragglers.
Trade Management: Systematic, Not Hopeful
Managing the position is where discipline pays. Houston uses objective structure and session features to trail, not feelings. Follow these guardrails to protect winners without strangling them.
- Trail below/above swing pivots or below VWAP in trend; never use random pip/point trails.
- Scale 50% at 1–1.5R in choppy regimes; in trend days, consider 30% at 1R and let 70% run.
- If price returns inside your breakout base and closes there, exit—assume failure and re-assess.
- On trend days (higher-timeframe expansion), target measured move: range height added to breakout.
- Stop moving stops during consolidation; adjust only on the new structure, not every candle.
Daily Routine: Warm-Up and Cool-Down That Compound Skill
Performance is a habit. Houston bookends each session with a short warm-up to prime focus and a cool-down to bank lessons. Keep it light but consistent.
- Warm-Up (10–15 min): breathe 2–3 minutes, review bias and A-setups, write “If X, I do Y” scenarios, confirm risk caps.
- During Session: call out entries/rationale aloud or in a blotter to slow your click.
- Cool-Down (10–15 min): export screenshots of each trade with entry/stop/targets; tag reason codes (setup, context, mistake).
- Grade yourself on plan adherence (A/B/C), not P&L; one line on what to fix tomorrow.
- Shut the platform after cool-down; no revenge trades after hours.
Journaling & Review: Turn Trades Into Data You Can Trust
Progress speeds up when you measure the right things. Houston tracks only what changes behavior and expectancy. Keep this lean so you actually do it.
- Log setup tag, R multiple, MFE/MAE, time of day, and regime (trend/range/high vol/low vol).
- Review weekly: sort by setup tag; cut the bottom decile, double down on the top two.
- Build a “playbook page” for each setup with rules, examples, and common failure tells.
- If the expectancy of a setup drops below zero over 30 trades, pause it until new evidence appears.
- Track “error tax” (R lost to rule breaks); goal is <10% of weekly R.
Psychology: Confidence From Process, Not Predictions
Houston keeps the mental game practical: reduce uncertainty by narrowing choices, then accept variance. These rules keep you steady when outcomes wobble.
- Limit yourself to 1–2 instruments per session so patterns feel familiar.
- Decide before the open what you will not trade (e.g., news spikes, mid-range chops).
- Use a 60-second reset after any red trade: stand up, breathe, read your bias line, then reassess.
- No P&L window during open; show only R multiples and trade stats until the cool-down.
- When emotions spike (fear/greed), scale down size to “minimum viable risk” for the next trade.
Adding to Winners: Press When Structure Proves You Right
Compounding edge means pressing only when the market confirms. Houston adds methodically—never emotionally. Follow the structure or skip the ad.
- Add only after a fresh higher high (or lower low in shorts) and a clean pullback forms above the prior add.
- The new stop for the whole position goes under the latest structure, not under the original entry.
- Keep adds smaller than the original (e.g., 50–70% of initial size) to avoid over-gearing.
- If the add fails quickly and closes back inside the prior range, exit the add and keep the core until it stops.
Adapting to Regime: One Playbook, Different Gears
Markets rotate; your rules need gears, not reinvention. Houston shifts targets, size, and patience based on the regime, so the same setups still fit.
- High Vol Trend: widen stops to recent swing; target measured moves; take fewer trades with bigger R.
- Low Vol Range: trade only edges; take profits faster at VWAP/mid; no momentum chases.
- News-Driven: trade second moves only; first spike is for data, not entries.
- Re-label the day’s regime at mid-session; if the label changes, adjust management (e.g., tighten targets in emerging chop).
Building Your Own Version: Keep, Cut, Iterate
Steal the skeleton, fit it to you. Houston’s edge is clarity and repetition—not magic. Lock in a simple improvement loop so next month’s you is better than today’s.
- Choose two A-setups and ignore everything else for 30 trading days.
- Hard-code risk, daily stop, and one add-to-winner rule; no exceptions during the sprint.
- Review weekly stats; remove one friction point (e.g., late entries) with a specific pre-trade checklist item.
- Archive best/worst five trades with marked-up charts; rewatch before each session to prime pattern recognition.
Size risk first: fixed R, volatility-adjusted positions every trade
Risk comes before setup, and Houston Truong treats it like rent—paid on every trade without negotiation. Define a fixed R (like 0.25–0.5% of equity) and let that dollar amount drive your position size, not your feelings about the chart. When volatility expands, the stop gets wider and the position gets smaller, so the dollar risk stays constant. When volatility contracts, you can scale size back up, but R never changes.
Place stops where the trade is objectively wrong, then calculate size to fit your R; don’t cram a stop into noise just to trade bigger. Never widen a stop after entry—exit and re-enter clean if the read was early. Cap your daily loss in R (for example, four Rs) so one-off day doesn’t become a career talk. This is how Houston Truong keeps drawdowns shallow and gives winners room to express without blowing up the account.
Trade the structure, not predictions: context, levels, if-then playbooks.
Houston Truong builds a plan around what price is doing, not what he hopes it will do. He starts with context—trend, volatility, and prior session levels—so every decision flows from where value already is. A simple bias line like “bullish above X, bearish below Y” keeps him honest and stops the drift into opinions. From there, he writes if-then statements that turn market behaviors into triggers he can execute without hesitation.
Entries happen at structure: break-and-close, retest-and-hold, or rejection at a defined level; never in the mushy middle. If the price accepts above resistance and holds, he buys the first pullback; if it fakes out and closes back inside, he flips to fade with a tight stop. Invalidation is always a level, not a feeling, and it’s defined before the click. When the session flips from trend to range, he adapts the playbook—trade edges only, target VWAP, and avoid mid-range churn. This way, Houston Truong lets the market write the script while he just follows the stage directions.
Diversify by timeframe, setup, and instrument to smooth the equity curve.
Houston Truong doesn’t rely on one “golden” setup; he spreads risk across a few complementary edges. He pairs a trend-pullback play with a mean-reversion range tactic so one wins when the other rests. Timeframes get staggered—higher timeframe for bias, intraday for triggers—so he isn’t hostage to a single rhythm. He also rotates between a small basket of highly liquid instruments, reducing the chance that one product’s personality ruins his week.
In practice, Houston keeps correlation in check by limiting concurrent trades pointing at the same macro theme. He caps per-instrument risk, enforces a maximum number of similar setups live at once, and rebalances attention when volatility shifts. If trend days dominate, he dials back the range play; if chop returns, he flips the weighting. Review sessions highlight which combo carried the month, and he scales the winners without abandoning the bench. That blend keeps the equity curve steadier and his confidence less dependent on any single trade idea.
Let winners run with rules; never average losers, ever.r
Houston Truong treats winners like inventory that deserves shelf space, not souvenirs to sell at the first uptick. He sets a first target to bank some risk, then trails the rest under structure—swing lows, VWAP, or the most recent higher low. If momentum persists, he allows the trade to expand to measured moves rather than strangling it with fixed ticks. The rule is simple: scale strategically, move stops only when structure updates, and let price prove the exit.
On the flip side, he refuses to average losers because it converts a small mistake into a portfolio problem. When invalidation hits, he’s flat, journaled, and ready to re-enter on a fresh signal instead of fighting the last decision. He caps the number of retries per idea and keeps the original thesis written down so the chart can’t talk him into denial. This one-two—press the confirmed winner, eject the loser fast—keeps expectancy positive and Houston Truong emotionally neutral.
Daily warm-up, journaling, and review to hardwire process discipline
Houston Truong starts each session with a short warm-up that locks in his bias and risk caps before emotions show up. He writes one clear sentence for the day’s context, lists two or three if-then scenarios, and rehearses his A-setup triggers out loud. During the session, he logs the reason for each trade and tags it by setup, context, and error type so the data stays clean. He hides the dollar P&L and tracks only R to keep decisions from drifting.
After the close, Houston runs a quick cool-down: screenshots, markups of entry/stop/targets, and a grade for plan adherence. He highlights the first decision that broke rules and writes a single fix to test tomorrow, keeping improvement focused. Weekly, he sorts by setup tag, cuts the bottom decile, and doubles down on the top performers so the playbook evolves. This simple loop—warm up, execute, review—keeps Houston Truong consistent when markets get loud.
In the end, Houston Truong’s edge isn’t a secret indicator—it’s a stack of simple behaviors executed every day. He sizes risk first, lets structure dictate entries, and only presses when the market proves him right. He diversifies by setup, timeframe, and instrument so no single idea can hijack his month, and he refuses to average losers. The warm-up, the if-then plans, the fixed R, and the measured trailing keep him calm when volatility spikes and patient when it doesn’t.
Just as importantly, Houston turns trading into a practice. He journals with screenshots, tags each trade by setup and error type, and reviews weekly to cut the bottom performers and scale the top ones. Habits—early start, brief breathing, clear bias line, and a hard stop to the session—reduce noise so decisions stay clean. That combination of process discipline, deliberate review, and ruthless risk control is the real “secret sauce.” Follow those principles, and you’ll give your winners room to work while keeping every bad day small enough to forget.
