One such strategy I use is titled Midnight Marauder. (I enjoy naming my strategies) It’s a strategy designed for trading the NQ during an overnight session from 0100 to 0600. I use a highly customizable template provided by DTB Traders. This article will discuss some of the optimization settings without discussing specific proprietary settings that may be used. It is a paid subscription, so we will skip over those items.

Working backwards, here are the results I arrived at through optimization. It’s a 30-day lookback. I start my optimizations with a 1-year lookback, then bring them forward. NinjaTrader will load my entire lookback period, so I keep it shorter when trading. When trading, I only load a whole week’s worth of data, always starting from Sunday.

I love equity curves looking like this. They are challenging to obtain and require considerable effort to optimize.

With this lookback period, we can examine and compare the actual results since I began trading this strategy on October 13th. Fortunately, it seems to be holding to the plan into November.

I mentioned this is a strategy that saved a month. During October, I only ran three strategies daily. In a normal month, I could run seven or so a day. Losing the Midnight Rider strategy file tripped me up a bit, as I spent too much time trying to recreate it. Not all of my strategies have performed as well as Midnight Marauder so far, but some do! We will talk about the Christmas Fund (GC) soon - the joy of a metals future turning into a meme stock.

I said I would cover the strategy development. I will cover that tomorrow. I’ve had a few things come up that I need to address today. I apologize, but I will address it tomorrow.

My agenda for articles also includes discussing the publication of results. I don’t care for it, but it seems to be the norm on the futures side of trading.

Enjoy, trade well.

I also mentioned I had a new strategy I would be publishing. Even saying “Midnight Marauder – as a companion to Midnight Rider, evoking a bolder, more aggressive revolutionary spirit for the NQ.”

I deviated from all my normal routines when doing this, starting a new strategy before I had published the current plan in a Discord server I use. I overwrote the file! I literally saved a new strategy on top of the strategy I just published. There was no getting it back. It wasn't an enjoyable feeling. I spent the next few days, not trading, but trying to rebuild that strategy. I had really gone deep in building it, changing the normal EMAs to SMAs among other key settings. There was no getting this strategy back. I wasted three days trying.

So, there are no results to publish for that Midnight Rider strategy. It was unfortunate and disappointing. I have not yet been able to optimize my approach to achieve those results.

I developed a new strategy. Midnight Marauder, the strategy that would save my month. No article about it, no build-up. I was nervous about it. It’s a monster, trading ten NQ. For me, ten NQ is a considerable risk, more than my account should be exposed to. (Maybe the account can, my emotions can’t - trading 10 NQ when I’m asleep) It was time to bring in the trade copiers, giving me the ability to trade a smaller size on my account and line up some PropFirm accounts to trade.

I will cover the Midnight Marauder strategy and what it did for me in the following article. I plan to publish it tomorrow. I will also cover some extreme changes I made to my trading style, again, using some of the podcasts I listen to for some great ideas.

More tomorrow!

I’ve been trading a particular strategy for seven months now. It’s a strategy derived from a template published by DTB Traders using the Baseline Wick Strategy. I started around April 15th, getting serious about Algorithmic Trading and relying less on Discretionary Trading.

A podcast I listen to has been the impetus for this article. Line Your Own Pockets by Dave Mabe and Michael Nauss. It’s a podcast you should follow if you are a trader wanting to grow. They are in the middle (or beginning, it’s a broad subject) of some good information on strategy building. Although much of what they review doesn’t apply to me, I still gain valuable insights from every session. I listen to many podcasts; this is the one I make a point to catch every session within an hour of being published. I watch for it every Monday.

So, this strategy I’ve been running, Midnight Rider, is a trading strategy designed for traders with small accounts or those trading prop firm accounts for futures contracts. It trades the MNQ. It’s been successful, maturing each month as I try different approaches with the settings. It took a jump after I listened to the podcast I mentioned above and adjusted my approach to the strategy based on the podcast discussions. The change was solving for the maximum number of trades I could get before tuning for results. Previously, I was solving for Maximum Percent Profitable without considering the number of trades that occurred during the lookback period. This one change opened a whole new world of results.

It’s been a bit of trial and error and learning on my part. With the above, you can see the growth of the strategy. In July, I began focusing on maximizing the number of trades, prioritizing small ones. In August and September, I wanted to boost the profitability of each trade by adjusting the Target Profit and expanding the Stop to allow for a larger profit per trade. The percentage of profitable trades suffered with this approach.

In October, I went back to the basics, returning to small trades, trying to grab as many as possible. I worked diligently to reduce the Stop Loss on the trades. I also worked to reduce the maximum daily loss and broaden the maximum daily profit. The strategy has only run for three days in October, making the month look promising. Remember, this is MNQ. Those aren’t bad numbers.

The Choices

This brings me to this week’s strategy optimizations and backtests. I have twenty choices and have narrowed it to two. All of my choices are pretty close.

The differencce in Total Net profit is negligible across the backtest period. The number of trades is close, with a difference of sixteen trades. But check out the Profit Factor. I consider this significant, a factor difference of almost 9. (I’m impressed I got past two total.)

Looking at this alone, it’s easy to say the second choice (line 2) is the easy pick. Let’s dive a little deeper.

The strategy summaries for each are pretty similar. I take note of the time to recover if the trades fail. One day versus three days is a tough call. The winning and losing trades are worth comparing.

The equity curves are great. Any better, and I would accuse myself of curve fitting. There aren’t many differences here. Both curves head in the proper direction.

Here is where the rubber meets the road, all coming down to a personal choice—the daily net results. What’s the song say, ‘Do you see what I see”? One of these trades every day, the other does not.

We have two strategies that trade four days a week. One option offers a higher return, while the other is slightly safer, boasting a higher profit factor and a higher percentage of profitability. Which do you choose?

Given that all the results are so close, I’m opting for the strategy that trades every day. I would rather trade every day and and add a small amount of risk than to wake up in the morning to find nothing happened overnight. This is what I will be publishing for others to use. Sometimes it’s not the numbers, but a personal choice.

Coming soon

Midnight Marauder – as a companion to Midnight Rider, evoking a bolder, more aggressive revolutionary spirit for the NQ.

You can find me here:

on X (formerly Twitter)
on the web at Appalachian Equities (not updated enough)
on YouTube at Appalachian Equities

and here on Substack B W Tharp - Appalachian Equities

VENDORS I USE:

DTB Traders - This level of strategy building is unparalleled.

Find them here:
on the web at DTBTraders
their Discord Server at DTB Discord
on YouTube at DTB Traders

Affordable Indicators - my Copy Trader and Chart Trader

Find them here:
on the web at Affordable Indicators
their Discord Server at Affordable Indicators Discord
on YouTube at Affordable Indicators

• Tuesday 10/7 - $375.80

• Wednesday 10/8 - $394.30

• Thursday 10/9 - $ 446.24

The trades aren’t spaced far apart, with the average hold time under two minutes. I’ve tried increasing the number of ticks for Take Profit. Any increase reduces the success of the strategy considerably. I’ve moved the Stop Loss as close as possible without reducing the success rate. Before this optimization, my Stop Loss was 250 ticks. It was quite a hit on a loss, so I spent considerable time optimizing this strategy to minimize its impact as far as possible, yet keep the Profit Factor and Percent Profitable high.

I look forward to running this next week with an updated optimization. I will try to have some of my other strategies back online. Computer time has become an issue due to the time I spend on the strategies.

Subscribe now

Vendors I use for this:

DTB Traders - This level of strategy building is unparalleled.

Find them here:
on the web at DTBTraders
their Discord Server at DTB Discord
on YouTube at DTB Traders

Affordable Indicators - my Copy Trader and Chart Trader

Find them here:
on the web at Affordable Indicators
their Discord Server at Affordable Indicators Discord
on YouTube at Affordable Indicators

You can find me here:
on X (formerly Twitter)
on the web at Appalachian Equities (not updated enough)
on YouTube at Appalachian Equities

and here on Substack B W Tharp - Appalachian Equities

Last night I ran the strategy as planned, pairing it with a trade copier. It’s a nice feeling to start your computer in the morning and log into your VPS, only to see a green screen. I had four strategies running last night, all of which were green.

The strategy this article focuses on, Midnight Rider, here are last night’s results:

There are hundreds of groups, influencers, and wannabe gurus you can follow online. Why not find a home where you have like-minded people who want to trade and make money without the hype, copy-my-trades mentality, or the 'I’m buying Lambos' attitude?

Visit DTB Traders and join the Discord Server. Look me up there. I’m willing to help get you started. Several users will.

The BWT template is one of the most popular templates among the approximately 18 strategy templates available in the system. BWT, short for Baseline Wick Trader, is a versatile template that can be optimized for any futures product. My goal was to optimize this template for users with small accounts who trade the MNQ. I wanted it to trade overnight in the less volatile market. All of this is done within NijaTrader and its Strategy Analyzer module.

A review of the Strategy Analyzer within NinjaTrader reveals the numerous customization options available. These variables are for the BWT (Baseline Wick Trader) strategy. Each strategy offers different options, but all share the same basic variables.

If you are not familiar with the NinjaTrader Strategy Analyzer, this is the basic setup provided by NinjaTrader. It provides the basics but is far from tradable without some customization. Some options are available by point and click, while more advanced ones require a good understanding of C# and the ability to convert your strategy into C# code.

Loading the Strategy Analyzer for the BWT strategy shows extensive customization choices available. Breaking the strategy into sections, this is page 1 of 3, covering the basics of strategy development.

The Strategy Analyzer is broken down into sections as set up by DTB Traders. As you can see in the above image, the DTB Traders Strategy is far more robust than the default. I find it far and above the offerings other ‘developers’ have. I say more robust because strategies are so much more than “above the VWAP, and the EMA crossed the SMA, and volume is increasing”. (I’ve seen that strategy sold at $190 a month). Having gotten my little dig at other developers, I’ve seen, let’s look at the choices here.

The basics remain, with sections titled General and Version. In the following sections, you will find the meat of the system. Settings A/B deserve a complete article and will be glossed over here. They also happen to be the Gold Mine of the whole DTB Traders system. Optimizing those settings to match the appropriate Stops and Targets yields a highly profitable strategy.

The following three sections are Entry Management - Tick Distance, Entry Management - Targets, and Entry Management - Stops. The BWT allows for four signals and four trade entries. Considering this strategy, I’m letting it take all four signals. Of those signals, I only take trades 1, 2, and 3. The tick distance is optimized, taking the first trade four ticks from the signal. The others have been set to the appropriate setting as the optimizer arrived at. The same is true with the Targets and Stops. Each was optimized as a standalone strategy; i.e., I optimized Entry 1 and one unit that optimized the Entry, Target, and Stop as a unit. If you are so inclined, you could also optimize the stops as a trailing stop by selecting the last checkbox shown.

Moving on down the form shows more maturity in the strategy. The Entry Management - Trade Size is just that, where you determine how many contracts you will enter for each of the four entries. In this strategy, I’m taking 4, 4, and 2 for a total of 10 contracts if all three entries are taken. Remember, in the prior selections, I’m only trading entries 1-3.

This is also where you choose your trading timeframe. This strategy trades from 0100 to 0600 EST. Your end time is used to determine when any open trades past the Stop Trading Time will close. I’ve chosen to close everything at 0600.

There are also three Blackout times available, allowing you to stop trading for user-defined periods. You can also close any open trades if you would like.

The NEWS Blocks are a great feature, allowing you to stop trading during High or medium-impact news events and determine how long to halt trading before and after the news. You no longer have to worry about missing news events with these selections. A great option when trading some Prop Firm accounts.

Moving on down, we run into the Signal Momentum. Beginners, don’t bother, the system is preset for the optimum value. More experienced traders can utilize the weighting of EMAs or SMAs.

The final section of the Strategy Analyzer for the BWT strategy moves to the Global Money Management. This is where your trading account settings are configured for loss management. Your maximum profit or loss, whether or not you want a trailing drawdown for the account, or add an unrealized PNL stop. It’s incredibly versatile for most trading styles. You can configure these for both the strategy and the account.

The remaining are self-explanatory. The data series you are using, the timeframe of the backtest, the commission choices, and your order handling.

This was a strategy I optimized last evening (October 6th, 2025) and ran overnight. Pleased with the results, I will be copy trading for the remainder of the week to my PropFirm accounts.

Anytime a strategy exits on Maxium Daily Profit, it’s worth keeping around.

If you are interested in learning more about this system, you can visit DTB Traders at their website or their Discord Server.

Feel free to follow me here at My Substack or find me on X.

This week, I coordinated the Game Plan. A rookie mistake I made was picking four strategies, all running MNQ. I can trade it across multiple accounts, but it did leave some members locked into trading SIM accounts due to the lack of multiple accounts.

The strategies today ran without incident, with some winners and some losers.

Template 1 is an MNQ strategy running from 9:35 - 11:00 EST. In was based on the Baseline Wick Trader (BWT) strategy from DTB Traders on a 50 DTB 30 bar. This strategy took no trades for this session.

Template 2 is an MNQ strategy that runs from 9:35 to 11:00 EST. It is based on the SI-1 strategy from DTB Traders. The bars are 50 DTB 25. The strategy netted a profit of $451.56. This strategy takes one trade a day. I closed it out early, fearing a market turnaround. It was a wise choice but the wrong choice for today.

Template 3 is another MNQ strategy that runs from 9:35 - 11:00 EST. It is based on the BWT template from DTB Traders. The bars are 20 DTB 15. This was one of my contributions for the week. It resulted in a loss of $214.00 for the day.

Template 4, another one of my contributions for the week, runs 9:35 - 11:00 EST. Again, it is based on the BWT template from DTB Traders. I kept the choice of 20 DTB 15 Bars. This strategy allowed for a profit of $146.94.

The fifth strategy wasn’t part of the weekly game plan. It is based on the Medina Wick Trader group of strategies by DTB Traders. It is not a strategy that can be optimized or backtested. It is a tick-by-tick strategy, preventing backtesting. It is by no means a set-and-forget strategy. Its runtime as I run it is 6:15 PM—4 PM, allowing me to start and stop the strategy as I have time. The strategy enables me to change most parameters as market conditions dictate. Today, I ran one trade of four NQs at a time. I have it set to take profit at 25 ticks. I run this strategy daily, trying to grab four trades daily. The morning allowed for one trade for a profit of $487.90. Since then, the report shows a second trade, allowing for a $975.20 profit. I will try for two more trades this afternoon, pending market conditions. I’m very cautious with this strategy. It is my bread and butter for income.

If you would like to know more or just see the results across multiple traders, join us at the DTB Traders Discord. There is no fee to join the discord.

I’ve been asked to coordinate the coming game plan again. Expect to see strategies for MES, MNQ, RTY, and NQ, and maybe even a PM strategy for GC and MNQ.
Come check it out.

First, the stop hit is followed by the margin call. Two losses back to back. I took a break for a couple of hours to shake it off.

I turned the strategy back on just after 10 a.m. It was doing okay. At about noon, I saw a drop in the chart I used to monitor the market while the strategy ran, so I paused it again.

After a break, I fired up the strategy again (I pushed the start button).

Towards 2 p.m., I was getting a bit uncomfortable, feeling as if I was pushing things a bit far. I wanted to keep trying, seeing my profits back from the drawdown and up over $5K. On the last chart, you can see I was up $10,625 for this session, which meant I recovered from the draw-down and the loss from the margin call, leaving me up $5,995 for the day. I wanted to push for $6K, but I know that feeling, greed, thinking, of course, I can get there. I just stopped, choosing to bank what I had.

This strategy is the “Medina Wick Trader” from DTB Traders. It’s fully customizable, including bar type and size, as well as the stops and take profit I chose. I can change most parameters on the fly from the control panel in the chart's upper left corner. Check them out. You can also visit their Discord server, where I hang out most days.

Monday evening was a little better. Again, two trades for a profit of $260.76

Tuesday evening allowed for one trade for a profit of $115.38

You are welcome to join the DTB Discord server. There, you will find like-minded traders sharing ideas and strategies openly. This is a trading group, not a call-out or copy-trade group. Look me up there.

You can find me here at Substack,
On X Appalachian Equities LLC (@AppalachianEqu) / X
DTB Discord Server

The strategy lookback period for optimization was March 2-14. The total draw-down for that period was $539.24, with a net profit of $5,372.10. During that period, it took 45 trades with 89.89% profitable. It’s pretty consistent in trading every evening.

The strategy uses DTB Bars set at 2 DTB 8. The trades for take profit are set at 12 and 24 ticks. The stops for both trades are set at 65 ticks.

I’ve included all the settings for your review.

You are welcome to join the DTB Discord server. There, you will find like-minded traders sharing ideas and strategies openly. This is a trading group, not a call-out or copy-trade group. Look me up there.

You can find me here at Substack,
On X Appalachian Equities LLC (@AppalachianEqu) / X
DTB Discord Server

The vertical lines on the chart indicate where the strategy placed order. Not all orders meet the target.

Sunday evening results were 25 contracts purchased and closed for a net profit of $432.00

Monday evening was a bit more challenging. A contract rollover popped up. I usually watch these events when planning the week, but I missed or forgot them. The dilemma was, do I reoptimize the strategy or run it as designed?
I chose to continue, knowing the volume might hurt for the evening. Yeah, I'm watching the paint dry!

Two solid trades started the session. The third group of trades closed out on a slight loss, following the strategy of closing all open orders at the end of the session.

Setting up for the overnight runs. More soon.

Moving on and pushing, it’s time to get back in the groove. We can start with evening strategies such as “Lunch Money.” It’s always a lovely evening strategy to work with. For those of you using prop firms, it can be a good fit for the correct account size.

Lunch Money for this week may be a little tricky. The market is in turmoil, and it's “Roll Over” week.

The strategy has progressed and matured as I spend time with it. AI is new to the routine. As usual, I developed the plan as I usually would. With the recommendations of a fellow group member in the DTB Discord group (c3computer), I am optimizing without stop loss limits. I feed these results into an AI system, asking it to identify appropriate stop loss limits and suggest alternate take profit levels. I then adjust and reoptimize the strategy with those suggestions for better results. This week is the first time I’ve released a strategy using AI assistance in optimization.

The strategy has seen adjustments to the run times and the contract purchase sizing through AI. Looking at the summary for this week, we have a net profit of $4,474.70 for trades from March 2nd through March 13th. The maximum drawdown is $532.40. There were 94 trades, with 89.36% profitability. The strategy takes two trades of five contracts each.

I have included all the strategy-building information below. I use the DTB Traders system for my chart display and strategies. If you would like to know more, I encourage you to ask questions or visit the DTB Traders website or Discord server. The server is open to reviewing all results posted by members. I post all my trades there daily.

A group I subscribe to (DTB Traders) has a weekly game plan designed for members, especially those new to automated trading. The “game plan” typically has three or four well-designed strategies. Additionally, more experienced members share the strategies they might be running.

The weekly game plan has started to include an overnight strategy that caught my interest. It is a conservative strategy to trade MNQ in 2- and 3-lot increments, with the first entry at three and the second at two. It is based on the Baseline Wick Trader strategies from DTB Traders.

The strategy runs from 1:00 AM EST to 8:00 AM, with all trades closed at 8:05 AM. The daily targets are conservative, with a target of $300 and a stop loss of $260.

The results are conservative but excellent for users stepping into the automated strategy arena with unsupervised runs. For most, taking a plunge into strategy trading without monitoring the trades is a significant step.

The daily trading results are below. They aren’t huge, but if you are new to automated trading or, like me, not entirely comfortable running a strategy unsupervised, this is a good place to start.

I can answer any questions you might have about these strategies or results. For more information about these strategies, I recommend visiting the DTB Traders website or their Discord page.

The lookback period is January 26 through February 7. This results in a net profit of $5,741.38 and a maximum drawdown of $864.62. Across that period, it took 56 trades, averaging six trades daily.

This strategy runs on a chart with DTB Bars set to a trending baseline 2-DTB-8. The bars allow me to see trends with possible problems as the strategy runs.

Trade history on the lookback seems consistent with the actual performance.

The strategy settings are below. This strategy involves some proprietary calculations. I have a daily stop and profit limit set at $1500 stop and $2500 profit. I put the stops for each trade at 85 ticks. The stops are limit set, whereas the daily limits are to execute at the bar close, so limits will not always agree with the set limit.

I will update the results; whether I update daily or at the end of the week depends on market conditions and my time. I run strategies from 1 A.M. through 10 P.M. each weekday. I monitor my daytime and evening strategies. The 1 A.M. to 8 A.M. strategy is not monitored and has significantly less risk than the other strategies.

Monday was a null day, with the strategy placing no trades. DTB Traders is putting significant backend work into the Baseline Wick Trader strategy, which this strategy is based on. It is expected to be completed on Tuesday morning.

On Tuesday, with some background adjustments, the strategy was reminiscent of what the last quarter of 2024 produced.

The Tuesday evening run resulted in six trades, two short and four long, with a net profit of $992.28

I started exhausted from Wednesday, hoping to repeat Tuesday's success. Knowing I shouldn’t trade tired, I bailed at 9:00 PM. I just shut it down for the evening, needing to set up for the overnight strategies that run from 1:00 AM through 8:00 AM.

The strategy placed eight orders during the short run, only executing the last order, a short at one lot.

The evening resulted in one trade for a $145.38 profit net.

I watched the paint dry Thursday evening as the chart slowly logged ticks. No trades were made this evening, though several orders were placed.

It's a slow week just getting back at it. The net for the week was $1,137.64 for seven trades.

Friday, I will optimize the strategy for next week. See you Sunday evening.

This is not a ‘call-out’ group or a ‘copy my trades’ group. It is an honest system for bettering your trading through training.

More here: Jump Start program from DTB Traders

3 months of a heavily subsidized membership, including a 4-week ‘Jump Start’ course — designed to set you up and on the path to long-term consistency.

A Full money-back guarantee (no ‘we’ll swap it for something else’ hocus pocus). It’s RESULTS or a refund!

The market still seems a little confused. This strategy normally has Net Profit for the lookback period in the 7 to 8 thousand dollar range. This year, we’ve been in the sub-six thousand dollar range. Still, it’s an acceptable strategy with the current results.

I’m looking for two trades an evening for a $300-night average. With all trading, losses are always possible. I try to mitigate them by monitoring the strategy as it trades.

The complete strategy settings are below for review. I will answer any questions readers might have.

This strategy is designed to take two trades per signal, one at a 50-tick TP (Take Profit) and one at a 60-tick TP. The Stop for both is set at 100 ticks. It trades long and short, though you can limit trading to one direction on the fly.

The strategy placed many orders that were not taken, as shown by the vertical lines on the chart below. The cyan, magenta, grey, and orange lines indicate different signals. The entry is often not filled, and the price never returns to the entry signal. The strategy then cancels the orders.

Specific times, such as news events, can be set to pause and resume the strategy without intervention. These are shown with vertical red dashed lines at the start and gold dashed lines when trading resumes.

At the top of the chart, you can see choices to start and pause the strategy and choices for trade direction. The direction choices are self-explanatory. Started is obvious: the Pause button will pause trading. If there is an open trade or open order, the Pause button will cancel them at the close of the next bar.

The “Pause All Linked” and “Resume All Linked” need to be addressed in a deep dive to describe the ability to intermingle with other running strategies.

The strategy performed well for a quick morning run. It reached the maximum daily profit at about 10:15 and closed out with a Net Profit of $449.20 after seven trades.

I will be running this strategy on Thursday morning. It is another nice addition to the quiver of arrows provided by DTB Traders.

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