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Today’s guest is John Kurisko—aka DayTrader Rockstar—the longtime host of DayTradingRadio and a full-time futures and stocks trader. In this interview, John shares how he went from blowing up an early account to building a durable, rules-driven approach that lets him trade live every day and teach a global community. You’ll hear where he started, why he matters to retail traders, and how broadcasting his sessions shaped his discipline and edge.
In this piece, you’ll learn John Kurisko’s high-probability methodology step-by-step—how he uses stochastics-based divergences across multiple timeframes, defines entries and stops, and treats trading like a real business with written rules and premarket prep. You’ll also see how he reduces overtrading, sizes risk, leverages alerts/algos without going fully hands-off, and stays patient through the learning curve so you can apply the same strategy immediately in your own routine.
John Kurisko Playbook & Strategy: How He Actually Trades
Core Approach & Market Focus
John Kurisko is a pattern-and-process trader who treats the market like a business: repeatable setups, strict risk, and daily routines. He focuses on liquid names and index futures, so execution is clean and fills are dependable. Here’s how he frames the edge and keeps it tight.
- Trade liquid instruments only (e.g., ES/NQ futures, high-volume stocks > 1M avg daily volume).
- Define one “bread-and-butter” setup and make it 70–80% of your trades.
- Always predefine risk in dollars before you think about profit.
- If volatility spikes beyond your plan, reduce size by 50% or stand down.
Chart Setup & Indicators
The charts are simple on purpose. John uses a minimal stack: price action, moving averages, stochastics, and clean trendlines/channels to find high-probability spots without clutter.
- Default timeframes: 1-min/5-min for execution, 15-min/60-min for context, daily for bias.
- Use 20 EMA and 50 EMA as dynamic support/resistance and trend filters.
- Stochastics (fast/slow) for momentum rotation; look for crosses and divergences at levels.
- Keep max three indicators on screen; if you can’t explain each in one sentence, remove it.
High-Probability Setup (HPS) Framework
This is the backbone: confluence between trendlines, EMAs, and stochastic rotation—preferably near a prior level where risk is obvious. You’re not predicting big moves; you’re harvesting repeatable edges.
- Require at least two of three: (A) touch/reject at 20/50 EMA, (B) trendline/channel test, (C) stochastic cross/ divergence.
- Only take the setup if risk can be tucked behind a nearby level (prior swing, VWAP, EMA).
- If the price is mid-range with no level, skip—no trade beats a low-quality trade.
- Grade setups A/B/C; trade A with full size, B with half, skip C.
Entry Triggers & Timing
Entries are mechanical: wait for the market to confirm your idea, then act without hesitation. The goal is to be late and right, not early and wrong.
- For longs: trigger = break back above 20 EMA + stochastic up-cross + hold above trigger candle’s midpoint.
- For shorts: trigger = break back below 20 EMA + stochastic down-cross + hold below trigger candle’s midpoint.
- Use stop-limit orders at the trigger; if not filled within two bars, cancel.
- No averaging in before the trade is proven; scale only after momentum confirms.
Risk, Size & Daily Guardrails
Pros know their downside before the bell. John boxes the day with hard stops, so one trade or one morning can’t wreck the week.
- Hard stop per trade: 0.5–1.2× ATR(14) of your execution timeframe or behind the last swing.
- Max risk per trade: 0.25–0.5% of account; max daily loss: 1–1.5%; max weekly loss: 3–4%.
- After two consecutive losers, size down 50% for the next trade; after three, pause for 30 minutes.
- Never widen stops; the only adjustment allowed is moving to breakeven when 1R is reached.
Trade Management & Scaling
The objective is to convert edges into paychecks. He scales out methodically and lets runners pay for the day when the tape cooperates.
- First target at +1R; take 50% off and move stop to breakeven.
- Second target at prior day’s high/low or the next higher timeframe level.
- Trail remaining size with 20 EMA on the execution chart or last swing pivot.
- If momentum stalls for three bars after entry, reduce position by one-third.
Multi-Timeframe Alignment
You want tide (daily), wave (60/15-min), and ripple (1/5-min) flowing in the same direction. If they fight each other, you’ll fight your P&L.
- Directional bias comes from daily + 60-min trend vs. 20/50 EMA slope.
- Only take longs when the 15-minute trend is up and price is above its 20/50 EMA; reverse for shorts.
- Counter-trend trades must be A+ grade with tight stops at a major level—otherwise, skip.
- If higher timeframe stochastics are pinned against you, cut size in half.
Premarket Prep & Watchlist
Preparation turns randomness into routine. John builds a watchlist around catalysts, levels, and the best HPS candidates, so he’s not hunting during the open.
- Mark prior day high/low, overnight high/low, premarket high/low, and key moving averages.
- Scan for clean channels/trendlines formed overnight; note where they intersect EMAs.
- Select 3–5 top tickers/futures levels with exact triggers and stops written out.
- If the open gaps are beyond your planned levels, wait 15 minutes for structure to form.
Opening Drive & VWAP Play
The first 30–60 minutes set the day’s tone. John uses VWAP and the 20 EMA to judge if trend-day conditions are emerging or if it’s a fade-the-extremes session.
- If price holds above VWAP and reclaims 20 EMA on pullbacks, favor trend-continuation longs.
- If repeated failures at VWAP with lower highs, favor shorts on bounces to VWAP/20 EMA.
- Avoid the first 2 minutes unless you’re trading a preplanned ORB with defined risk.
- If three failed breaks occur in the same direction, switch bias or step aside.
Divergence & Exhaustion Signals
Stochastic divergences at major levels can be the tell. Use them to refine entries or to exit into exhaustion before the crowd does.
- Long: higher low in price with a lower low in stochastic at a support/EMA confluence.
- Short: lower high in price with a higher high in stochastic at resistance/EMA confluence.
- Require a confirmation candle closing in your trade direction before acting.
- If divergence forms against your open position, scale out to lock gains.
News, Timing & Avoidance Rules
The best trade can become the worst around events. John time-boxes risk so randomness doesn’t tax the edge.
- No new trades 2 minutes before and 3 minutes after major scheduled releases (e.g., CPI, FOMC, NFP).
- If already in a trade pre-news, reduce to half size or flatten unless you’re already >1R and trailed.
- Avoid low-liquidity periods (lunch hour) unless the price is at a key daily level.
- On Fed days, cut size to 25% baseline until the post-announcement trend is clear.
Record-Keeping & Feedback Loop
A business needs books. He audits the process, not just P&L, so the edge compounds through iteration.
- Journal every trade with a screenshot: entry, stop, targets, reason (HPS tags), and outcome.
- Tag common errors (late entry, chasing, oversized) and cut their frequency by 50% in 4 weeks.
- Weekly review: top 20% setups by expectancy get more size; bottom 20% get retired.
- Create a pre-trade checklist and require 100% compliance before clicking buy/sell.
Mindset & Session Hygiene
Consistency beats intensity. John protects energy and attention so each decision reflects the plan, not the last candle.
- Limit concurrent charts to your plan; close unrelated tickers during execution.
- Stand up and reset after any max-loss hit—no revenge trades for 30 minutes.
- Use alerts at your levels; don’t stare the trade into existence.
- End the day at the scheduled time if your plan is complete—even if the last trade was a loser.
Playbook Examples (Plug-and-Play)
Turn the concepts into executable plans you can repeat tomorrow. Copy these, then tweak to your market and schedule.
- Pullback Long: Uptrend on 15-min; price pulls to 20 EMA on 1/5-min; stochastic up-cross; stop = 0.8× ATR below swing; T1 = 1R, T2 = next 15-min level; trail with 20 EMA.
- VWAP Fade: Range day; price extends 1.5× ATR from VWAP; stochastic divergence forms; short at failure candle low; stop above wick; cover 50% at VWAP, trail rest.
- Break-of-Structure Short: Lower high under 50 EMA on 5-min; stochastic down-cross; enter on break of pivot low; stop above pivot; T1 at prior low, T2 at channel base.
Daily Workflow (Start-to-Finish)
This is how a session runs when it’s dialed in. Keep the cadence; let the setups come to you.
- 60–30 min pre-open: mark levels, build top-5 watchlist, write triggers/stops/targets.
- 15–0 min: confirm bias with 15-min/5-min trends; set alerts; decide first two plays.
- Open–90 min: execute only graded A/B setups; enforce cooldowns after losers.
- Midday: stand down unless A+ level hits; review morning outcomes.
- Last hour: revisit morning levels for retests; avoid new trades in the last 5 minutes.
Upgrade Path & Sizing Plan
Growth is planned, not guessed. John scales only when the data says the edge can carry it.
- Baseline risk per trade (R) starts small; increase size by 25% after two consecutive green weeks and stable drawdowns.
- If max drawdown exceeds 1.5× your rolling 3-month average, drop size by 50% until recovery.
- Add one new setup only after 50 logged trades on your primary setup with positive expectancy.
- Quarterly: benchmark expectancy (win rate × avg win − loss rate × avg loss); size aligns with expectancy tier.
Build a repeatable setup: process over prediction every single day.
John Kurisko will tell you straight: prediction is entertainment, process pays the bills. He builds one high-probability setup, names it, defines the trigger, stop, and targets, and then runs that play like a franchise. That means the same timeframes, the same indicators, the same checklist—no matter what the market’s mood is. When the setup isn’t present, he doesn’t “force creativity”; he waits, because waiting is part of the setup.
Kurisko’s edge lives in the repeatability: identify the location first, wait for confirmation, then execute without second-guessing. He journals each trade against the same rules so improvement is measurable, not vibes-based. If the day starts messy, he shrinks in size or stands down until the structure matches his playbook, instead of inventing a new approach on the fly. By keeping the process fixed and letting the market come to him, John Kurisko makes consistency the strategy—and lets the P&L reflect the discipline, not the drama.
Size risk first, let reward take care of itself.
Before John Kurisko thinks about targets, he fixes the dollar risk—every trade, every day. He defines the invalidation level first, then sizes the position so a stop at that level equals a small, pre-set R. If the chart can’t give him a tight, logical stop, he skips it—because undefined risk is a business killer. Kurisko treats risk like rent: it gets paid upfront, or the trade doesn’t happen.
Once risk is boxed, he lets the market do the heavy lifting. Partial profits come at +1R to de-risk; runners only trail if momentum confirms—no moving stops wider, ever. If he prints two losses back-to-back, he halves the size until rhythm returns; three losses, and he takes a time-out. John Kurisko’s rule is simple: protect the downside with math, and the upside will show up often enough to pay the month.
Use stochastic confluence and EMAs to define entries and stops.
John Kurisko keeps it simple: price, stochastics, and the 20/50 EMAs do the heavy lifting. He wants confluence—a stochastic cross or divergence lining up with a touch or reclaim of the 20 EMA, ideally with the 50 EMA agreeing on trend. When that alignment appears at a prior level, he’s got structure for risk and a clear trigger. If the price is floating mid-range without an EMA or level nearby, Kurisko passes because there’s no place to hide the stop.
Entries are confirmed, not guessed. For longs, he looks for a reclaim of the 20 EMA and a stochastic up-cross that holds above the trigger candle; stops tuck just under the swing or the 20 EMA. For shorts, a clean break under the 20 EMA plus a down-cross does the job; the stop belongs above the failure wick or 20 EMA. If the 50 EMA disagrees with the trade direction, John Kurisko cuts size or upgrades the required signal quality. The result is mechanical, repeatable execution where the indicators define the trade—and the stop—before emotion ever gets a turn.
Trade volatility with smaller size, wider stops, and fewer attempts
When the tape gets wild, John Kurisko dials back size and lets the market breathe. He uses ATR to gauge expected noise and sets stops just beyond that range—wider than usual—but pairs it with a proportional cut in position size so risk in dollars stays constant. Kurisko caps the number of tries at a level: if two attempts fail in fast conditions, he walks away and waits for the structure to reset. He avoids chasing extended candles; if the entry bar is bigger than average, he either waits for a pullback to the 20 EMA or passes.
Volatility also changes his pacing. John Kurisko increases confirmation requirements—like demanding both a stochastic cross and a clean reclaim of the 20 EMA—before he clicks. He plans for slippage and uses limit or stop-limit orders where possible, but won’t babysit a bad fill; if the price doesn’t follow through within two bars, he trims or exits. After any sharp loss, he enforces a cooldown to reset—no immediate “make-back” trades in a runaway market. The theme is consistent: accept the noise, shrink exposure, take fewer but better swings, and let the big candles do the lifting—not your size.
Diversify by timeframe, strategy, and session to smooth equity.
John Kurisko doesn’t rely on one speed; he spreads his edge across timeframes so no single chop zone wrecks the day. He’ll frame bias on the daily and 60-minute, stalk triggers on the 15-minute, and execute on the 1- or 5-minute, letting each layer do its job. That mix turns one noisy candle into a small blip instead of a full stopout. He also rotates between a pullback continuation and a VWAP fade, so if trend days vanish, the range play can still pay. For John Kurisko, diversification means uncorrelated ways to extract the same theme, not a bag of random tactics.
He diversifies by session, too—opening drive for momentum, midday only at A+ levels, and power hour for retests or reversals—so risk lives where the liquidity does. If the open is sloppy, he delays and lets the 15-minute structure build rather than forcing early trades. Position duration flexes with context: quick scalps when ranges are tight, runners when higher timeframes agree. The result is a smoother equity curve because no single timeframe, setup, or session owns the outcome.
John Kurisko’s edge is built on discipline first, tactics second. He hammers home that not overtrading, building a real foundation, and mastering a few dependable techniques matter more than calling tops or bottoms. His playbook centers on clean, repeatable conditions—location at meaningful levels, price action that confirms, and a defined place for the stop—so every click is part of a business, not a bet. Stochastics-driven divergences are his north star: when momentum disagrees with price at a well-marked level, that’s the cue to prepare, not to predict. Pattern recognition, trendlines, and support/resistance give him the structure to hide risk; the trade either works from the right spot or it’s a pass.
Process turns those ideas into paychecks. Kurisko grades setups, waits for confirmation, and takes profits methodically, letting winners pay while losers stay small. He reduces size when conditions get wild, limits retries at a level, and steps aside when the tape is incoherent. Preparation is constant: building a high-probability watchlist, marking levels before the bell, and using alerts or automation to be ready without forcing trades. Teaching and trading live sharpen his focus—if a rule can’t be explained clearly to others, it probably doesn’t belong in the plan. Above all, John Kurisko treats trading like a craft: simplify the chart, respect location, define risk, and let the market come to you.
