The Truth Behind My $120,000 Month
Big profits. Broken rules. The full January breakdown.
January is in the books.
I want you to look at the number at the top of my dashboard.
$120,764.24.
That is my profit for January 2026.
If you just look at that big green number, you might think I had a perfect month. You might think I just sat back and watched the money pile up.
But I promised you transparency. And transparency means showing you the messy truth, not just the highlight reel.
This month was a grind. It was a fight between my discipline and my emotions. While my bank account won, my process took some hits.
Here is the real scorecard for January.
The Good: The Flow State
Let’s start with what went right. Because a lot did go right.
1. The Consistency I finished the month with a 75% win rate. That is great. When you win 3 out of every 4 trades, it builds huge confidence. It means my read on the market is sharp.
2. The “Zone” Look at Week 2 on the calendar. From January 4th to January 9th, it was smooth. I made nearly $40,000 in one week without a single losing day. I wasn’t forcing it. I wasn’t stressed. I took my trades, hit my targets, and walked away. That is what trading should feel like.
3. The Comeback This is what I am most proud of. I took a hit in Week 4 (more on that in a second). Most traders would have quit. They would have been too scared to click the button the next day. I didn’t. I showed up. On January 29th, I locked in $34,000 in a single day. I clawed my way back.
The Bad: The $22,500 Mistake
Now, look at the calendar again. Look at the red box on Sunday, January 18th.
-$22,500.
That number hurts my stomach. But the dollar amount isn’t the worst part.
The worst part is the trade count. I lost $22k on only 3 trades.
Do you see what that means? It means I was stubborn. I refused to be wrong. I held onto a losing trade and “hoped” it would come back. “Hope” is not a strategy. I broke my rules that day. I let my ego take the wheel, and I let one bad decision wipe out two weeks of hard work.
I am also overtrading mainly due to the fact that I’m testing a new order flow strategy. Look at the end of the month.
Jan 21: 124 trades.
Jan 30: 100 trades.
Compare that to the start of the month where I made money with just 10 or 20 trades. Clicking the button 100 times a day is a sign of stress. It leads to burnout. This needs to get fixed in February.
The Verdict
Financial Grade: A+ ($120k is a solid month).
Discipline Grade: C (The big loss and the overtrading need to stop).
My Profit Factor is 2.33. This means for every dollar I lost, I made two dollars back. The engine is powerful, but the steering is a bit loose.
The Plan for February
I have three goals:
Cut Losers Fast. No more $22k losses. When I am wrong, I get out.
Trade Less. Quality over quantity. I want to get back to the calm focus of Week 2.
Thank you for being on this journey with me. It’s not always pretty, but it’s always real.
Let’s crushFebruary.
The elegance is in the execution.
— Brian