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The guest is TJR—a 23-year-old trader whose rapid rise from Puerto Rico to the global stage has made him one of the most-watched voices in retail trading. In this Dubai sit-down, he talks candidly about why he matters to new traders: he strips the craft back to a few fundamentals, focuses on the New York open, and keeps execution brutally simple. He’s open about mental health, the grind behind the highlight reels, and why he stopped livestreaming trades so beginners don’t copy him blindly. It’s an interview about skill, timing, and the human element—delivered by someone who’s actually doing it at size.
In this piece, you’ll learn TJR’s intraday playbook: read London’s range, trade the New York open move, hunt obvious liquidity grabs, and confirm with a fast lower-timeframe invalidation before taking profits with a high win-rate mindset. You’ll also get his blunt take on prop firms (use them as a tool, not a home), why most of his year’s P&L comes from short hot streaks, and how simplifying to a few core edges beats stacking indicators. If you’re a newer trader, you’ll come away with a clean framework you can practice tomorrow—what to watch, when to sit out, and how to replace FOMO with a rules-first strategy that actually fits real life.
TJR Playbook & Strategy: How He Actually Trades
Core lens: keep it stupid simple
TJR’s edge isn’t a kitchen-sink indicator mashup—it’s a simple playbook that leans on a few fundamentals executed well. He emphasizes focusing on the handful of things that actually move your P&L, not 0.1% tweaks that look smart but don’t pay rent. Your job: master the core behaviors of price around obvious levels and act only when conditions are right.
- Pick 2–3 setups you understand cold; ignore everything else for 90 days.
- Trade a single session (see below) until you have 30+ fully documented trades with clear stats.
- If a setup isn’t at your A+ location (prior high/low, session high/low, HTF level), don’t take it.
- Predefine what “A+” means: location + trigger + invalidation. If any piece is missing, you pass.
- Reduce decisions mid-trade: write your management rules before the open; execute without debate.
When he strikes: New York open windows
He doesn’t chase every candle. There’s a “time and place” to execute; most of his focus is around the New York session when liquidity concentrates and traps form. If the market doesn’t give him a look, he simply doesn’t trade.
- Core window: plan for 8:30–11:00 a.m. ET; avoid the first 1–3 minutes of chaos unless it’s a preplanned sweep.
- Map Asia/London highs and lows before NY; treat them as magnets for early-session stop runs.
- If NY opens inside a tight London range, stalk a raid of one side, then the reversal back through the range.
- If premarket already swept both sides and is trend-driving, stand down until a fresh liquidity pool forms.
- No setup by 11:00 a.m. ET? Close charts. The next A+ trade is tomorrow.
Bias first: 4H/1H context, then the trigger
The engine behind his entries is higher-timeframe context first, execution second. Build a directional bias from 4H/1H structure and levels, then drop to a fast chart to trigger. Don’t fade the HTF without a true sweep + shift.
- On 4H/1H, mark swing structure (HH/HL = bullish; LH/LL = bearish) and the nearest external liquidity (prior day/week high/low).
- Bull bias: only stalk longs after a downside liquidity sweep into an HTF demand/level; bear bias: the inverse.
- If 4H is choppy and compressing, cut size or skip the day; compression = fake signals.
- Predefine the day’s “killzones”: which side of liquidity should get raided first for your plan to be valid.
- No 4H/1H story = no trade. You can’t manage risk if you don’t know which side you’re supposed to be on.
The setup: liquidity sweep → displacement → retrace
This is the bread-and-butter sequence: price raids a clear high/low (sweep), shows a decisive shift (displacement), then offers a clean pullback to enter. You’re exploiting where stops just triggered and where smart money likely stepped in.
- Identify the pool: equal highs/lows, session extremes, or prior day extremes with obvious stops resting above/below.
- Wait for the sweep: a spike through the level that immediately rejects (wicks are fine; bodies closing back inside are better).
- Demand a shift: a fast break of microstructure (BOS) in the opposite direction within 1–5 minutes of the sweep.
- Enter on the first clean retrace to the displacement origin (last up/down candle or tiny fair value gap).
- Stops: beyond the sweep extreme (a few ticks/pips beyond the wick). Invalidation = the market revisits and accepts beyond the stop.
- First target: the nearest internal liquidity (range mid or last minor swing). Second target: opposite side of the range/trendline.
- If price chops at entry for >15 minutes without follow-through, scratch or reduce risk—momentum died.
Risk and trade management: fixed rules, not vibes
Risk isn’t a feeling. Size is set before the open, and management follows a small set of repeatable rules. You’ll win by being consistent in how you cut losers and harvest winners, not by “feeling” the next candle.
- Risk per trade baseline: 0.25%–0.5% until you have 100+ logged trades with positive expectancy.
- Move to break-even only after structure confirms (e.g., after the next BOS in your trade’s direction).
- Scale 50% at +1R if the market is choppy; in trend days, hold the first 1R and scale at the next liquidity pocket.
- One active idea per instrument; no hedging today’s conviction with the opposite side.
- Daily stop: -1.5R hard max. Hit it? Close platform—there’s always another session.
- News rule: if a high-impact release hits inside your killzone and you’re not already in, wait for the sweep after the print.
Capital & prop firms: treat them like tools, not casinos
Most beginners blow accounts chasing evaluations and “free” payouts. The odds are what they are—stack them by trading small, trading less, and only taking your A+ setup. If you use props, make them fit your process, not the other way around.
- Don’t buy an eval until you have 30+ demo trades with the exact rules above and a positive net R.
- Trade half-size on evaluations; asymmetric rules (daily drawdown, trailing) punish normal variance.
- One eval at a time. Pass/fail? Wait 2 weeks before the next attempt; review your stats in between.
- Never “force” trades to hit a target in the final days—skip the day if your setup doesn’t print.
- Prefer firms with non-trailing drawdown and transparent payout history; withdraw early to de-risk.
Psychology & routine: trade less, live more
He’s candid about mental health and the trap of thinking money solves everything. Build a routine that protects your focus, limit exposure to social noise, and permit yourself not to trade on off days. Environment matters.
- Pre-market: 20–30 minutes to mark levels, write the if/then plan, and step away before the open.
- During: alarms only; hide the P&L; execute the plan, or do nothing.
- Post-market: 10 minutes to journal screenshots and tag the day (trend, range, news, chop).
- No trade = win. Protect your decision-making capital; tomorrow’s session is another shot.
- Curate your circle and workspace; distractions cost more than you think over a month.
Journaling & data: turn patterns into probability
Your edge hardens when you see it in numbers. Track the setup, session, context, and management so you can size up what actually works for you and cut what doesn’t. If you can’t measure it, you can’t scale it.
- Log: date, instrument, session, HTF bias (4H/1H), sweep direction, BOS timeframe, entry type, stop (ticks/pips), targets.
- Tag outcomes: +/−R, time-in-trade, heat (max adverse), help/hurt (partial scale).
- Weekly: sort by session and setup; kill the bottom 20% performers; double down on the top 20% with slightly larger size.
- Build a “hall of fame” folder of textbook screenshots; trade only those looks next week.
- Write a one-page plan you can read in 60 seconds before the bell.
One-page checklist for the NY open
Print this and keep it next to your screen. It forces discipline and removes mid-session guesswork so you can act fast when your setup appears.
- 4H/1H bias marked? Key external liquidity labeled (prior day high/low, session extremes)?
- Asia/London range drawn? Which side is most likely to get raided first?
- News checked? If high-impact within 15 minutes of the open, wait for the post-news sweep.
- First trade only after: sweep → BOS/displacement → clean retrace to enter.
- Stop placed beyond sweep wick; size = preplanned risk; no moving stops wider.
- Manage per plan: scale at internal liquidity, leave a runner to the opposite side if trend day.
- Hard stop for the day is 11:00 a.m. ET passes without an A+ setup? Close platform.
Size Risk First: Fixed-R Discipline That Survives Losing Streaks
TJR drills this into every new trader he mentors: choose your R before you ever click buy or sell. By fixing risk per trade—say 0.25% to 0.5%—you turn randomness into math you can survive. That means the worst day and the worst week are capped before the bell, which keeps you in the game when variance punches you in the mouth. TJR’s point is simple: profits scale with edge, but survival scales with risk.
He also ties the fixed-R to market conditions instead of emotions. If the tape is choppy, TJR keeps the same R but cuts the number of attempts; if it’s trending, he still uses the same R but lets winners stretch to multiple targets. This way, ten losses don’t nuke the account, and two good trades can still make the month. The rule never changes: TJR sizes the downside first so the upside can actually matter.
Allocate by Volatility: Scale Position and Stops to Market Speed
Tyler Riches—known as TJR—adjusts exposure to the market’s actual pace, not his mood. When volatility expands, he widens stops and trims size; when it contracts, he tightens stops and nudges size up, keeping per-trade risk constant in R terms. This turns chaos into a controllable dial and stops a single fast candle from wrecking a good week.
TJR also ties this to time-of-day and instrument personality, so the rules aren’t random. If the New York open is running hot, he’ll keep the same R but use smaller contracts and let targets breathe; if tape is slow, he compresses targets and takes profits sooner. The result is smoother equity curves, fewer stop-outs from noise, and confidence to hold winners when the tape actually warrants it.
Prefer Defined Risk; Avoid Unlimited Tail Exposure on Choppy Days
Tyler Riches (TJR) builds every trade around a hard invalidation, so the downside is known before entry. On choppy days, he refuses “undefined” bets—no averaging down, no moving stops wider, no holding through surprise news hoping it “comes back.” He uses OCO orders so the stop and target live the moment he’s in, turning slippage risk into a manageable cost, not an account killer. If price accepts beyond his line in the sand, he’s flat—no heroics, no exceptions.
TJR also adapts the structure to the tape to keep tails contained. When ranges are messy, he reduces frequency and demands a sweep → shift → retrace sequence so the idea has structure, not vibes. He won’t short into fresh strength or long into fresh weakness without a clear liquidity raid first, because undefined tails hide exactly there. Defined risk keeps him alive; skipping undefined risk keeps him sane.
Diversify Edge: Underlying, Strategy, and Holding Time—Not Random Setups
Tyler Riches (TJR) spreads risk by mixing what he trades, how he trades it, and how long he holds, instead of spraying new indicators. He’ll pair an NY-open liquidity sweep setup on indices with a cleaner trend pullback on FX, so one choppy tape doesn’t sink the day. He also staggers holding time: quick scalps during the first hour, then selective intraday swings if the structure opens up. The key is correlated behavior, not tickers—if two markets move the same, he counts them as one bet. This keeps the equity curve from living or dying on a single personality.
TJR treats diversification like a ruleset, not a vibe. He caps “same-thesis” exposure across instruments, avoids stacking multiple trades that all need the same outcome, and won’t double down on mirrored signals just because they show up on different charts. He rotates priority to the instrument showing the cleanest sweep → shift → retrace and leaves the others alone. He logs results by underlying, setup, and duration to see what truly carries his P&L. The result is a smarter risk spread and fewer days where everything goes wrong at once.
Mechanics Over Prediction: Sweep, Displacement, Retrace, Then Manage Rules
Tyler Riches (TJR) doesn’t try to guess the day’s story—he waits for the tape to write it in real time. First comes the sweep: a raid of a clear high or low where weak hands puke. Then displacement: a decisive break in the opposite direction that proves control has flipped. Only after that does TJR stalk the retrace to the origin of the move, where risk is smallest and the invalidation is obvious.
From there, TJR runs the playbook he pre-wrote, not new opinions. Stops live beyond the sweep wick, first target is internal liquidity, and management only loosens after a fresh structure break in his favor. If the retrace never comes, he doesn’t chase; if momentum stalls, he scratches instead of hoping. Tyler’s edge is mechanical execution at an A+ location—zero forecasting, maximum discipline.
In the end, Tyler Riches (TJR) leaves you with a simple blueprint: protect the downside, trade the New York window where liquidity concentrates, and only act when price raids a clear level and flips decisively. He sizes by fixed-R, widens or tightens based on volatility, and insists on defined risk with hard invalidations—no averaging down, no moving stops, no “it’ll come back.” The focus is on mechanics over prediction: sweep, displacement, retrace, execute. When the tape is messy, he trades less; when it’s clean, he lets winners breathe. That’s how he avoids death by a thousand chops while still being around for the fat pitches.
Just as important is the human layer behind the charts. TJR is blunt about mental health, the trap of chasing prop-firm dopamine, and the discipline it takes to say “no trade” by 11:00 a.m. ET. He diversifies by underlying, strategy, and holding time—not by stacking correlated bets that need the same outcome. He journals ruthlessly, tracks expectancy by setup and session, and treats content as service, not spectacle. If you boil the whole interview down to one rule, it’s this: survive first with strict process, then scale the few edges that keep proving themselves.
