Finally I reached my 200 paper trades for my intraday trading in the US stock market, with my first paper trade on 20th March 2025 and it was a breakeven trade with AVGO. I first learned intraday trading in 15th March 2025 when I attended Dynamics Intraday Trading Essentials by Beyond Insights. It was a two days online live workshop with 2 online tutorials after that where we did the practice with the guidance from the trainer. After that I attended the Intraday Professional with 2 full day’s live workshop and 4 hands-on tutorial on 12th April 2025.
This is how it is when I first track my paper trades, I printed out a table with target of 100 paper trades, which tick means profitable trade, = means breakeven and – means losing trade. After I hitting my 100 paper trades on 12th December 2025 with GOOGL, it is a losing trade.
This post is for me to track my first 200 paper trades in intraday trading style. Below are what my honest learning so far. After 200 paper trades, I was down 11.60% in the paper trading account with the last 2 months in red. Below are my analysis with the help from Claude.
Monthly P&L – The Trend Story
This is the most revealing chart. Reading it left to right:
2025: Mar (-$220), Apr to May small wins, Jun small loss, Jul to Aug small wins, Sep (-$150), Oct to Nov small wins, and Nov to Dec small wins.
2026: Jan to Feb improving, Mar to Apr positive, May big win (~+$100), then Jun to Jul catastrophic collapse (-$350 in Jul, -$80 in Aug so far)
The critical finding: I were getting better through early 2026, then something went badly wrong in Jun-Jul 2026. Those two months alone likely account for most of my total -$1.1k loss. This isn’t a strategy problem spread evenly over 17 months and it’s concentrated in a few blow-up months.
R Result Distribution – The Hidden Truth
| Range | Count | Colour |
|---|---|---|
| < -2R | ~5 | Red |
| -2R to -1R | ~40 | Red |
| -1R to 0R | ~63 | Red (largest bar) |
| 0 to +1R | ~57 | Green |
| +1R to +2R | ~8 | Green |
| > +2R | ~22 | Green |
What actually matters from the R Distribution
The shape of the distribution is what tells the real story, and the shape is clear regardless of exact numbers:
Losses cluster heavily between -1R and 0R which means my stops are getting hit cleanly and frequently
Winners split between 0 to +1R (many small wins) and >+2R (fewer but big wins)
The +1R to +2R bucket is noticeably thin which means either stopping out or running big, with little in between.
That middle gap between +1R and +2R is actually interesting. It suggests my exits may be binary and either get stopped out, take a quick small profit, or catch a runner. A more deliberate partial-exit strategy (taking half off at +1R, letting rest run to +2R) could smooth that out.
Behavioral Violations – Where the Rot Is
Greed/FOMO is dominant at ~8 to 9% of trades. The others (No Plan, Fear of Loss, Fear of Mistake) are tiny slivers.
So roughly 16-18 trades were pure FOMO/Greed entries. These are almost certainly my worst trades. If even half of those cluster in Jun to Jul 2026, they explain the blowup months. FOMO tends to spike during volatile markets which is exactly when intraday moves are largest and most tempting.
Win Rate by Month – The Pattern
This chart shows the clearest signal of all:
- 2025-08: ~58% win rate – my best month ever
- 2025-10 to 2025-11: dropped to ~10-15% – brutal
- Recovered through early 2026 to ~30-40%
- 2026-07: crashed to ~10% – my worst recent month
- 2026-08: ~10% – still struggling now
The oscillation between good months (45-58%) and terrible months (10-15%) suggests I am not losing consistently as it is losing in clusters during specific market conditions. When the market suits my style, I win. When it doesn’t, I haven’t learned to step aside.
Avg Win vs Avg Loss by Month
The green line (Avg Win) is consistently above the red line (Avg Loss) most months, so my R:R is generally positive month to month. The purple Net P&L line crashing in Oct 2025 and Jul 2026 shows those weren’t R:R problems, they were frequency of loss problems (too many losers in a row during bad conditions).
The Real Diagnosis
I don’t have a strategy problem. I have a market condition recognition problem.
My stats show I CAN trade profitably (Aug 2025: ~58% win rate, May 2026 positive month). But when market conditions shift against my setups, I keep trading the same way instead of reducing size or sitting out.
The Jun to Jul 2026 blowup is the clearest evidence, it show something changed in the market (likely increased volatility, or a trending move against your typical setup direction) and I kept firing trades at full size.
The Three Changes That Will Fix This
1. Define my “market condition filter” – most important Before each trading day, classify the market: trending, ranging, or choppy. Have rules for which setups I take in each condition. If it’s choppy then I need to sit out or cut position size to 50%.
2. Monthly trade cap after two consecutive losing weeks If I lose 2 weeks straight, reduce to 50% size or paper-only for the rest of the month. This one rule alone would have saved me most of the Jul 2026 loss.
3. Fix my long-side setup or stop trading longs My shorts are significantly outperforming the longs. Either identify what’s wrong with the long entries specifically, or in the current market environment, prioritise short setups only until I diagnosed the long-side issue.
The data is telling a clear story: I have real skill that surfaces in the right conditions, but no circuit breaker when conditions turn against me. That’s the one thing to solve.
