Table of Contents
In this interview, Dave—yes, the same Dave who publicly flipped a $700 account into $89,000—breaks down his scalper’s mindset and why he treats price, not time, as king. Recorded for a trading audience, the conversation centers on his market-structure-first approach: top-down compass from daily → H4 → M15, execute on M1 (even seconds when needed), and let structure—not the clock—dictate trades. He explains points of interest (POIs) as prior ranges, insists on waiting for a sweep/manipulation before entry, and prefers the second swing after a break rather than chasing the first spike. It’s Dave at the screen, calm and clinical, showing how fractal behavior makes even the tiniest chart readable.
You’ll learn exactly how Dave builds his A+ setup: identify a quality POI (the prior range from break-of-structure to the originating low/high), count four-to-six swings into that level, wait for the liquidity sweep, then confirm and fire—managing risk tightly and trailing under swing/green-candle lows or a 21 EMA when price runs. Expect clear takeaways for beginners: why top-down context keeps you from chasing displacement, how to avoid the trap of the first New York hour, why partials at “prominent wicks” save P&L (and sanity), and how “compounded execution” turns intuition into an edge. By the end, you’ll have a simple, repeatable trader strategy you can backtest today and deploy tomorrow—without getting hypnotized by time.
Dave Playbook & Strategy: How He Actually Trades
Core Beliefs & Edge
This is the foundation: how Dave thinks about the market and where his edge truly comes from. Read this before touching a chart so the rules below make immediate sense.
- Trade price, not time: structure rules; candles only tell you where liquidity moved.
- One play pays the bills: specialize in a single A+ setup and ignore everything else.
- If context isn’t clear in 10–15 seconds, skip it—confusion is a position with negative expectancy.
- Never chase displacement; you participate only after the sweep and the confirmation leg.
- Losses are tuition; size them so you can “pay and play” tomorrow without tilt.
Fractal Map: Top-Down Without Worshiping Timeframes
Dave builds bias from higher to lower timeframes, but he treats them as zoom levels of the same picture, not different universes. The goal is to align a clean higher-timeframe narrative with a precise lower-timeframe trigger.
- Start D1 → H4/H1 for directional bias; refine on M15/M5; execute on M1.
- Bias = last clear break-of-structure (BOS) and where price sits relative to that swing.
- If higher-timeframe and intraday context disagree, you don’t trade—wait for alignment.
- No alignment within three scans? Stand down and protect focus capital.
- Mark only the most recent valid structure; delete old junk so charts stay surgical.
Points of Interest (POIs): Where You’re Allowed to Trade
A POI is the only place Dave will even consider a trade. It’s typically the prior range that caused the BOS, or an origin that trapped traders before the move.
- Define POI as: a range from the BOS candle back to the origin impulse that caused BOS.
- Confluence beats clutter: POI + liquidity pool (equal highs/lows, obvious swing) is enough.
- If POI is “in the middle of nowhere,” pass—your R is built at the edges, not the middle.
- Price must approach the POI in 4–6 swings; three or fewer = not enough fuel; >7 = decays edge.
- Require a stop-hunt/sweep into the POI; no sweep, no trade.
Trigger & Confirmation: The A+ Entry
This is the part most traders rush. Dave waits for the market to prove it, then hits it with intent. Your job: codify the trigger so it’s the same every day.
- After the sweep, wait for an internal BOS on M1 that flips the local structure.
- Enter on the first clean pullback into the newly created M1 POI (micro-origin or FVG).
- If the confirmation leg doesn’t break a meaningful micro-structure, skip—no momentum, no trade.
- Maximum two attempts per POI; if both fail, the level is invalidated for the session.
- If you miss it, you missed it—no “late fills.” Edge dies when you chase.
Risk First: Positioning, Stops, and Size
Dave survives by making the downside mechanical. Size is a function of the invalidation distance, not hope.
- Hard stop goes beyond the sweep’s extreme or the confirming swing low/high (choose one rule and never mix).
- Risk per trade: 0.25%–0.5% for normal conditions; halve risk in news hours or choppy sessions.
- If spread + slippage > 30% of the intended stop, do not trade that instrument right now.
- Use fixed fractional position sizing; never martingale, never widen stops post-fill.
- Two losses in a row → automatic cooldown (30 minutes or one full session rotation).
Management: Let Winners Breathe, Cut Losers Now
The art is to protect the open profit without suffocating the move. Dave uses objective trail logic, not vibes.
- First partial at 1R if volatility is normal; at the structure target if volatility is high.
- Trail behind swing lows (for longs) or last green candle low on M1 once price reaches 2R.
- If price returns to entry after 1R was reached, move stop to breakeven and let outcome play out.
- Kill trades that stall at prior prominent wicks or unfilled gaps—time is a cost.
- Maximum session exposure: 2 concurrent positions; anything more degrades focus.
Targets: Where You Get Paid
You don’t guess targets; you read where liquidity sits. These are the magnets Dave uses to exit cleanly.
- Primary targets: opposing liquidity pools (equal highs/lows), session highs/lows, or origin wicks.
- If HTF bias is strong, leave a runner to the next HTF liquidity pool; otherwise, flatten at 3R–5R.
- Cancel the runner if M1 prints a full reversal structure against your position.
- Don’t ladder targets every 5 ticks—pick 1–2 magnets and commit.
- If ADR is already 90% filled before your trigger, shrink targets or skip the trade.
Session Filters: When Not to Trade
Edge isn’t constant throughout the day. Dave removes the lowest-quality windows so the best ones stand out.
- Avoid the first 10–15 minutes of New York; let the sweep happen first.
- No new positions in the 5 minutes before or after tier-1 data prints.
- If the index futures are directionless (overlapping M5 bars for >45 minutes), stand down.
- Daily rule: if two high-impact events are stacked (<60 minutes apart), treat the gap as noise.
- One-and-done: after a clean 2R+ win, take the day if focus drops—protect mental capital.
Instrument & Execution Playbook
Trade the symbols that respect structure and your platform’s fills. Dave keeps a short roster and knows their personalities.
- Preselect 2–3 instruments (e.g., NQ/ES and one FX major); learn their average pullback size and ADR.
- Only trade instruments where your stop is ≥ 1.5× the typical spread during your session.
- Maintain a “POI watchlist” each morning with three annotated levels max per instrument.
- Enter with the limit-at-POI or stop-on-break method; never market-in on a spike.
- If slippage on the last 20 trades > 0.2R on average, reduce size or change broker/session.
Data Hygiene: Journaling That Actually Improves P&L
Journaling is a weapon when you track the right variables. Dave logs the ingredients that predict win quality.
- Record: POI type, number of approach swings, presence of sweep, entry pattern, R multiple, session time.
- Tag each trade as A/B/C quality; only A-setups are scalable—B/C are for study, not size.
- Weekly audit: delete any rule you didn’t follow; add one micro-rule you actually used.
- Track “decision latency” (seconds from trigger to click); rising latency often precedes drawdowns.
- Export 20-trade cohorts and compute hit rate, average R, and variance—scale only when variance shrinks.
Psychology & Cooldowns
Consistency is mostly energy management. Dave treats discipline like a checklist, not a mood.
- Pre-session checklist: bias, POIs, news times, max loss for the day. No checklist = no trade.
- After any impulsive action (revenge click, widen stop), take a mandatory 15-minute break.
- Cap screen time: 3 focused hours, then walk—fatigue manufactures “setups.”
- If you talk about a trade on social while it’s open, flatten—attention is now divided.
- End-of-day reset: clear charts, archive screenshots, and set tomorrow’s three POIs—then close the platform.
Scaling & Compounding
Growth comes from size discipline, not more trades. Dave scales only when the data says so.
- Increase risk per trade by +0.1% only after a 50-trade sample shows ≥55% hit rate and ≥1.8R average.
- Withdraw profits on a fixed schedule (weekly/bi-weekly) so equity swings don’t hijack decisions.
- If equity drawdown hits 5%, step down one risk tier until you print 10R cumulative.
- Never stack size and frequency upgrades in the same week—change one variable at a time.
- Treat funded accounts like a gym: practice execution rules, not heroics.
Size Risk First: Position Trades by Volatility, Not Wishful Thinking
Dave puts risk first because he knows the market pays professionals for survival, not bravado. He scales position size to recent volatility, so a normal swing never equals a catastrophic loss. If ATR or average pullback expands, his size contracts; when ranges compress, he allows a touch more size—never the other way around. He fixes a max daily risk and refuses to “average down” past the plan, because compounding mistakes isn’t an edge.
Instead of guessing outcomes, Dave prices uncertainty like a cost of entry. He sets stop distance based on structure and volatility, then backs into share/contract count so the dollar risk is constant. If slippage or spread eats too much of that budget, he skips the trade—edge doesn’t survive bad friction. The result is boring on purpose: consistent bet sizing that keeps him playing when others are blown out.
Diversify Smart: Underlying, Strategy, and Duration Work Together
Dave doesn’t diversify to feel safe; he diversifies to keep P&L drivers uncorrelated. He splits exposure across underlyings that don’t move in lockstep, pairing an index future with a currency or a commodity instead of stacking the same theme. He mixes defined-risk plays with directional structures so a single volatility shock can’t nuke the day. He also staggers holding time—scalps fund the day, intraday swings harvest the move, and occasional higher-timeframe runners catch the trend.
The rule for Dave is simple: never let one market regime decide your week. When equities chop, his FX mean-reversion edges still print; when FX ranges die, index momentum can carry the load. Correlation gets checked daily—if two positions start sharing the same driver, he cuts one and frees margin. And when volatility clusters, he narrows the roster and prioritizes the strategy-duration combo with the cleanest structure.
Trade the Setup, Not the Forecast: Mechanics Beat Prediction
Dave trades the setup, not his opinion of what should happen. His checklist forces the price to paint a precise picture before he risks a dollar. He wants a clean approach into a level, a quick liquidity sweep, then a micro break of structure to prove control. If any piece is missing, Dave does nothing—because incomplete mechanics equal negative expectancy.
Execution is scripted: confirm, place limit at the new micro-POI, stop beyond the sweep, size from fixed dollar risk. Missed entry means missed trade; Dave never chases because a late fill rewrites the risk-reward. He caps attempts to two per level and cancels the idea if momentum doesn’t appear within a few bars. The forecast can be wrong all day, but with these mechanics, Dave still ends the week green by letting the setup think.
Define Your Risk: Pre-Set Stops, Max Loss, and Exit Triggers
Dave treats risk like a shipping label—printed before the package moves. He places a hard stop beyond the sweep or the confirming swing, never mid-air, and sizes the position from a fixed dollar risk so emotion can’t hijack the trade. A daily max loss shuts him down automatically; hit the number and the platform closes—discipline by design. If spread or slippage bloats the effective stop by more than one-third, Dave cancels the order because poor fills destroy the edge.
Exits are equally mechanical. First scale comes at 1R when conditions are normal, then he trails behind structure once 2R prints, and he flattens into obvious opposing liquidity pools. Time is also a trigger: if momentum doesn’t materialize within a few bars, Dave scratches—capital and focus return to neutral. No moving stops wider, no “just this once”—the rules are the safety net that keeps him in the game.
Process Discipline: Daily Checklist, Session Filters, and One A+ Play
Dave runs his trading day like a flight deck. Before the open, he completes a short checklist—bias, POIs, news times, and max risk—and refuses to place an order until all four are set. He limits live screens to a few clean charts, sets alerts at his levels, and blocks out distractions so the only decisions left are yes/no at the trigger. Session filters keep him patient: he lets the first burst sweep liquidity, sits out five minutes around tier-1 news, and skips markets printing overlapping candles.
The “one A+ play” rule keeps Dave from diluting edge with B setups. If he books a clean win early and his focus dips, he clocks out rather than donate it back. After any impulsive mistake—widening a stop, revenge click—he takes a mandatory cooldown to reset. End of day, Dave journals inputs (approach swings, sweep, trigger) and outcomes (R, time-in-trade), then sets tomorrow’s three POIs so the plan is waiting for him at the bell.
Dave’s core lesson is simple: trade price, not time. He builds a top-down map (D1→H4→M15) and executes on M1 or even sub-minute because the structure is fractal; time just changes speed. He wants four to six orderly swings into a Point of Interest and a clean liquidity sweep before committing—no sweep, no entry.
From there, Dave confirms with an internal break of structure, places risk beyond the manipulation extreme, and lets management do the heavy lifting—trailing under swing/green-candle lows or using a 21 EMA to keep winners breathing. He sizes by plan, not feelings, averages two to three trades a day, and is happy to be “one and done” when a runner extends the R multiple. The takeaway is a mechanical, repeatable play: context, sweep, confirm, execute, and manage like a pro.
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