Pro Day Trader vs. Amateur Head-to-Head CHALLENGE

In this video, I go head-to-head against a professional futures trader for 7 days – starting with the same account balance.

The Challenge

Now most hosts of YouTube channels present themselves as the pro in whatever niche they’re in, but while I am comfortable trading stocks and options, I am not a good futures trader. If you need proof of that, well, I made two videos where I try trading futures with $1,000, and I’ll link them here and here.

While I am certainly not a pro, I reached out to my friend Matt who is. He runs a great channel called Trades by Matt where he does a daily livestream trading Nasdaq futures.

So, I thought it’d be pretty interesting to go head-to-head with Matt – starting with the same account balance – for 7 trading days and compare the results.

Now, it’d be foolish of me to think I will outperform Matt – that’d be like thinking Jesse Pinkman can outcook Heisenberg.

That’s not the point of this video. Since I’ve documented my futures failures a couple of times, I want to show someone doing it well – who makes his living from doing it. And this is interesting territory because there are a lot of day trader haters – and the main reason is it is super challenging to become consistently profitable and most people can’t devote the time, energy, and discipline to become good at it. So you’ll see less of my sad attempts of trading and more of Matt.

Now, if you want to know about how Matt sets up his charts or what his strategy is, you can check out his channel to learn more about it, and you can watch him trade futures every trading day over there as well.

The rules of this challenge are as follows:

We both start with $2,000.

And, we’ll trade futures from December 2nd to the 10th.

That’s it. No more rules.

So I loaded my Tradovate account with $2,000 and Matt did the same. Matt, are you ready for this challenge?

Here we go.

Dec 2

The challenge got off to a decent start for me. I was up a modest 2% on the account, and then it all went wrong. I over-traded and got chopped up by the market. After fees and commissions, I ended the day down $313, which is just a horrible way to kick off this challenge.

Dec 3

Today actually went pretty well. I had lost some money trading globex the day before which PnL-wise it carries over to today, but I didn’t let that affect me. When the Nas re-tested the opening range low, I shorted it, looking for a break below. Even though it was just one micro contract, it was like a 50 point red candle, which allowed me to exit for a $61 gain. As per usual, I had a bit too many trades, but I was able to finish the day with about $60 profit.

Dec 6

This was another decent day for me. I really do need to limit my trading to only the best setups because I had another 25 trades which took a big bite into my profits. I closed out today with $73 in profit, but almost $55 in commissions and fees. Unfortunately, my account is still under the $2k starting point, with $1,741 remaining.

Dec 7

Look, if we could just skip the recap of today, that would be great. After spending 2 months trading exclusively micro futures, I got bored. I thought I’d do quick scalps on the minis and you know, I f’d around, and I found out. I know it was stupid and undisciplined and if I’m not good with the micros, I have no business with the minis. So uh yeah, I lost $718 and paid a whopping $206 in commissions and fees, knocking me down almost $1,000 on the day. That is how you blow an account.

Dec 8

I started working myself out of the hole I dug yesterday. $135 gross profit, but way, way, way too many trades, making my net profit only about $46. I can’t wait for this challenge to be over.

Dec 9

I think my brain broke. Just not good trading. 92 trades today. Maybe I’ll hire someone to sit next to me and slap me in the face when I’m about to make a trade just to make sure I really want to do it. So uhh, almost $400 loss on the day.

Dec 10

Look, my account balance is sad and I know it. I have no reason to expect my trading to improve when I’m still making the same mistakes I was in my last video. $15 gain on the day to close out this challenge.

Final Balance

Okay, so after 7 trading days, I took my $2,000 account and gave a whopping amount to my broker – you’re welcome – and am left with $487.42. So yeah, I think I’ll take a much-needed break from giving money to the futures market. Maybe I’ll try paper trading on a 15 minute chart limiting myself to 3 trades a day or so and see if that gives me the kick in the pants I need. But I think I’ll go back to the world of options where I feel much more comfortable.