Trading without strategy ?

Yo, i’ve been trading for a year now and i’ve never made money from it, i don’t expect it to come soon since i know it’s a long process. But i’ve been backtesting a LOT of time to find a good strategy that suits me, and trust me i tried a lot of them, i even tried to make my own strategy. But something feels off, with the fact that markets always evolve and a strategy can become outdated, i feel like having a strict way of trading can sabotage the process. Throughout these months of learning i gathered different concepts, ways of seeing the charts and everything and i’ve been wondering, can i trade without a specific strategy? Can i take a trade because i spot an unfilled 1H FVG, or a bearish CHoCH that happens in a bullish trend, or ,i don’t know, a simple breakout? Do i have to trade only one of those if i want to be profitable ? I know the strategy doesn’t really matter, what matters is risk management and psychology, so that’s why i’m asking if there are traders who are profitable off trading purely based on their technical analysis knowledge and not on strict written rules

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u/Visible-Salary-8861 1 12 hours ago

Strategy does matter, it's just not all that matters. I also wouldn't necessarily say strategies become "outdated." Some may, but what you may be encountering could also just be normal shifts in market regime. No strategy will consistently profit month after month. A technique may profit for a few months, then go through a period of drawdown, but then may pick back up again after a while. As to your question, it's probably a good idea to have multiple setups anyway. It may depend on the trader. I trade principally two setups. They're related, and sometimes they even produce competing ideas, but on days when one tends to fail consistently, the other tends to perform better. So I look to trade them both.
u/Active-Cress-6375 OP 1 12 hours ago

I see, you’re right, loosing days happen. And i think that trading different setups is good depending on what you trade? If it’s things like high volatility day trading it might not be as good because it could turn into overtrading, but i swing trade forex, so it can take a long time before finding a setup.
u/jtquach 1 12 hours ago

What makes it work is knowing the instrument you trade well rather than having more concepts to pick from. The unfilled FVG, the bearish CHoCH in an uptrend, the breakout... those are all describing the same price doing the same handful of things in different languages. If you know the market you're in, you stop asking which one to use and start seeing what the day is actually offering. If you don't, three languages just gives you three ways to talk yourself into or out of a trade. The other thing I'd look at is how many of those strategies you traded long enough for the market to actually change underneath you. On the risk management and psychology part I think the first half is right. Risk is the one thing you control completely. The second half I tend to see differently. It's less about mindset in the moment and more about what internal state you're actually in when the trade shows up... and that often gets decided well before you sit down.
u/Active-Cress-6375 OP 1 12 hours ago

i definitely agree. Risk management is the key, but yeah it’s probably about knowing the market rather than knowing the concepts. Which i guess is good because i only trade eurusd. Do you think if i keep observing it i’ll get to know that market « better »? And then i’ll be able to take trades that are relation to the current conditions
u/jtquach 1 12 hours ago

Yes and no. Imo what makes it work is having a view before the move and then finding out whether you were right. Watching without a call in your head is just screen time. The thing you’re building toward is pretty specific too. Knowing a market means you stop being surprised by it. You know roughly how far it travels on a normal day, what it looks like when it’s quiet, how it behaves after news. That’s familiarity rather than just knowledge and it only comes from being in it over and over.
u/StretchEasy7303 1 12 hours ago

Trading without a strict setup is basically how most consistently profitable folks actually operate after a while, you just get a feel for when things line up right
u/SadIntroduction9410 1 12 hours ago

I think you can trade without a single “strategy” that you always implement as long as you have good risk management, but I guess that would be a strategy itself. For example, I take a lot of trades, but I survive by having good risk management and taking base hits. Most trades are a coin flip anyway… it is very hard to nail a perfect entry, stop loss, and tp. I scale in and out of trades. Taking break evens and keeping losers small, but also my winners aren’t that big either.