# How to Improve at Trading: A 30 Day Plan · DT Academy

> The trading improvement loop: practise, trade small, review, and prove progress with a verified record. Plus a plan for your next 30 days.

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Day 26The loop that makes you profitable

Chapters done

# The loop that makes you profitable

Day 26 of 26 · 8 min read · By DT Terminal

Practise in the backtester, trade small with every trade synced from your broker, review, and check with a verified record whether you got better. This final lesson ties the course into one loop and a plan for your next 30 days. It makes improvement measurable; it does not promise profit.

Unlock the full lesson in the app

Worked examples, the quiz and the interactive tools are in the app. Free account.

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Chapter 1 of 7

## The loop, in one picture

Every lesson in this course has been one piece of a single loop. You **practise** a plan where mistakes are free. You **trade it for real**, small, with every trade recorded by your broker. You **review** what happened and find the one thing to change. Then you check whether you got **better**, with numbers rather than a feeling, and go round again.

The loop: practise, trade, review, prove, repeat [Replay in the app](https://www.thedtterminal.com/login?signup=true&redirect=%2Fjournal%2Facademy%2Fthe-loop-that-makes-you-profitable%3Fsection%3Dthe-loop%23the-loop)

Each turn of the loop ends with one change, and that change is what the next turn practises.

| Step | The lessons that feed it |
| --- | --- |
| Practise | [How to read candlesticks](https://www.thedtterminal.com/academy/how-to-read-candlesticks) (Day 2), [Market structure](https://www.thedtterminal.com/academy/market-structure) (Day 10), [Identifying supply and demand](https://www.thedtterminal.com/academy/supply-and-demand) (Day 11), [Identifying fair value gaps](https://www.thedtterminal.com/academy/fair-value-gaps) (Day 12), [Liquidity](https://www.thedtterminal.com/academy/liquidity) (Day 13), [Multi-timeframe analysis](https://www.thedtterminal.com/academy/multi-timeframe-analysis) (Day 14) |
| Trade small | [What you need to start, and the costs](https://www.thedtterminal.com/academy/what-you-need-to-start) (Day 1), [Types of orders](https://www.thedtterminal.com/academy/types-of-orders) (Day 3), [How to choose your risk](https://www.thedtterminal.com/academy/how-to-choose-your-risk) (Day 4), [Market sessions](https://www.thedtterminal.com/academy/market-sessions) (Day 5), [Key news events](https://www.thedtterminal.com/academy/key-news-events) (Day 6), [Placing your first trade](https://www.thedtterminal.com/academy/placing-your-first-trade) (Day 7), [Prop firms and brokers, and the costs](https://www.thedtterminal.com/academy/prop-firms-and-brokers) (Day 25) |
| Review | [The math behind trading](https://www.thedtterminal.com/academy/the-math-behind-trading) (Day 9), and the Week 4 lessons on discipline, emotions and reviewing your trades |
| Get better | [The math behind trading](https://www.thedtterminal.com/academy/the-math-behind-trading) (Day 9) for what a sample can and cannot tell you |

Week 3's lessons, from the entry model to backtesting your trades, are the plan you carry round the loop.

**The loop does not promise profit. Nothing honest does.** **It makes improvement measurable.** Plenty of traders follow a loop like this and still lose money; the loop is how they find out early, and cheaply.

Chapter 2 of 7

## Practise: many reps, no risk

Practice shows whether a plan has an edge, and whether you can follow it, before either costs money. Run one setup, written as rules, over history until you have **50 to 100 trades**, the sample [Day 9](https://www.thedtterminal.com/academy/the-math-behind-trading) suggested.

Go live when the sample shows a **positive expectancy after costs**, and you **followed the rules on nearly every trade**.

Run one setup for 50 trades

Start a session from a random date and take every trade your rules allow until you have 50.

**Go deeper**

Replay history bar by bar, **from a random start date** rather than one you remember, so you cannot cherry-pick a period with hindsight. Write down what you are testing and how you will know it worked before the first bar moves.

Come back to practice every time the review hands you a new rule: the next turn of the loop practises that rule first. In the backtester, use one instrument, write the setup in one sentence, and note the win rate, the average R and the longest losing run.

Chapter 3 of 7

## Trade it for real: small, and synced

The first live trades answer one question the backtester cannot: **do you follow the plan when the money is real?** Keep the risk at **your plan's smallest size**, on demo first if you are unsure ([Day 7](https://www.thedtterminal.com/academy/placing-your-first-trade)).

**Have the broker record every trade, not you.** A synced trade's prices, size, times, fees and P&L stay as your broker reported them, so nobody can edit them afterwards. Your notes and tags stay yours.

**Small and real beats big and imagined.** A small live record you followed tells you something true about you.

Connect the account you trade

Connect your demo or live account so every fill syncs in on its own.

**Go deeper**

A demo account syncs too, labelled Demo · Synced, so it **never counts toward a verified record**. A live account, or a funded prop firm account, is what makes the record proof.

Once connected, take your next ten trades at your smallest risk and check, on each one, that the Rulebook is ticked.

Chapter 4 of 7

## Review: find the one thing

Review turns a pile of trades into **one decision**. Ten minutes in the Daily Journal after each session keeps the record honest. Once a week, read the numbers: net R, win rate, expectancy, and how many trades followed the plan. Then **find the group of trades that leaks**.

The review ends with **exactly one change**: one rule a yes or no answers on every trade. It goes back into the backtester, and the loop turns again.

**Go deeper**

The weekly numbers also include average win and loss. Group the trades by setup, session, day and emotion to find the group that leaks. The lesson on reviewing your trades, in Week 4, walks through each of these in detail.

Do the Analytics read at the end of this week: net R, win rate, expectancy and trades by the plan for the last seven days. Those four numbers are **the baseline** the next month is measured against.

Chapter 5 of 7

## Get measurably better

**Better is not one good month.** It is the same numbers **compared over samples of a similar size**: more trades by the plan, a higher expectancy in R, smaller drawdowns. Real progress is steps up, with long flat stretches and drawdowns between.

DT Terminal Charts Sample account · D1 Illustration

An illustration, not a real account and not a forecast. Read it for the shape: steps, flats and drawdowns.

Worked example

### Example 01: Two months around the loop

The worked example, with every number walked through, is in the app.

[Continue in the app, free](https://www.thedtterminal.com/login?signup=true&redirect=%2Fjournal%2Facademy%2Fthe-loop-that-makes-you-profitable%3Fsection%3Dmeasurably-better%23measurably-better) Free account

**Go deeper**

In the illustration the balance starts at $10,000, falls to $9,827 during the first losing run, and spends most of its 120 days going sideways or down. The climbs are short, often after a rule is added. A trader who judged it by any one week would have quit more than once.

In the worked example, the rule was practised in the backtester before month 2. Trades by the plan went from 65% to 91%, and expectancy from −0.03R to +0.14R a trade. Month 2 still had a run of 3 losses in a row. Because every trade was synced, the trader can trust the comparison, and so can anyone they show it to.

Chapter 6 of 7

## Prove it: how strong is your record

The last step is improvement you can prove, to yourself first, then to a prop firm or anyone else. **A record proves as much as the trades behind it.**

| Level | What it means |
| --- | --- |
| Unverified | Trades you typed yourself. Your word, on your own record. |
| Demo · Synced | A demo account syncing from the broker. Fills the broker recorded, but on simulated money, so it never counts as verified. |
| Broker-Verified or Firm-Verified | Trades synced from a live account, or from an account at a recognised prop firm, challenge or funded. **One synced trade earns the seal.** |
| Payout-Verified | A confirmed payout from a prop firm, checked by a person on the team against the firm. |

The verification levels, weakest to strongest. A number counts as verified only when **every trade behind it is**.

Chapter 7 of 7

## Your next 30 days

**The loop only works if it turns.** Here is one turn as the next 30 days. Tick each step off as you go.

Interactive tool

### Your next 30 days

This interactive tool runs in the app, with your own numbers.

[Continue in the app, free](https://www.thedtterminal.com/login?signup=true&redirect=%2Fjournal%2Facademy%2Fthe-loop-that-makes-you-profitable%3Fsection%3Dnext-30-days%23next-30-days) Free account

The habit underneath it is turning up: log a trade, a journal entry or a backtest every trading day, and **protect the streak**, not the money, this month.

Quick review

## Check yourself

Quick review · 0 of 0

**That is the DT Intensive: 26 days, one loop.** You can read a chart, size a trade, write a plan, test it, trade it small, review it honestly and measure whether you are getting better. **None of that guarantees a result.** All of it makes your results something you can read, prove and fix. When a review points at a weak spot, come back to the lesson that covers it, and go round again.

[All lessons in The DT Intensive](https://www.thedtterminal.com/academy/courses/dt-intensive)

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## Prop firms and brokers, and the costs

Day 25 · 11 min read

## Try it on your own account

Connect a broker and DT Terminal verifies every trade against it. Free to start.

[Start free](https://www.thedtterminal.com/login?signup=true&from=academy&entry=closing_card&redirect=%2Fjournal%2Facademy) [Back to DT Academy](https://www.thedtterminal.com/academy)

DT Academy is education, not financial advice. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy or sell any instrument. Trading carries a high risk of losing money, and past results, examples and backtests do not guarantee future results. [Risk disclosure](https://www.thedtterminal.com/risk-disclosure)

---

Risk disclosure: Futures, forex and options trading contains substantial risk and is not for every investor. An investor could potentially lose all or more than the initial investment. Risk capital is money that can be lost without jeopardizing one's financial security or lifestyle. Only risk capital should be used for trading and only those with sufficient risk capital should consider trading. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. [Read the full risk disclosure](https://www.thedtterminal.com/legal/risk-disclosure).

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