Futures Day Trader: Peter Ku
🎙️In this two-part conversation, I sat down again with Peter — a long-time trader, friend, and thoughtful voice in our trading community — to talk about setups AND the parts of trading that aren’t just about the charts.
Spoiler alert: it’s not just about finding the perfect setup.
It’s about strategy, emotional mastery, and healing old wounds so they don’t show up in your trades.
After four years of grinding in the markets, Peter and I both admitted: we’re just now truly locking in our strategies. Not in theory — but in actual practice. That means knowing:
Exactly what market conditions you trade best in, and then identifying the day you are in as soon as possible in real time
The setups that align with your strengths that you can most rapidly capitalize on
What to filter out to avoid overtrading and only enter when you see clearly what you are looking for
We’ve spent countless hours learning from our mentors Jermaine and Seth, attending live sessions, phone calls, back-testing, homework, refining our processes — and we’re still iterating. This isn’t a quick mastery path. But it is doable with time, intention, and community.
🎧 Defining Your Edge & Sharpening Your Psychology with Peter
Peter and I share a unique bond: we've been growing side by side in a tight-knit trading community, learning the craft together and pushing each other toward consistency and maturity as traders. This episode linked above is a reflection of that journey — one that balances personal growth with technical precision.
🎯 The Power of a Well-Defined Strategy
Peter opens up about a key turning point in his trading: writing a highly detailed trade plan — pages long, with screenshots, entry/exit rules, and checklist-style conditions. One of his core setups is what he calls the “Rhythm Trade”, a strategy based on trending (imbalanced) market conditions. This was the main trading setup the two cover in this conversation.
“It’s not enough to say ‘the market’s going up.’ It has to make a high, pull back to a support level — like a VWAP band — and then make a new high with aggression. I wait for the confirmation — a candle wick away, or a close — before I enter.”
Peter emphasizes the importance of replicability: each trade must meet a strict set of criteria before he clicks the mouse. This structure has provided the guardrails he needed to remove randomness and reduce impulsivity — a common trap for newer traders.
Becky echoes this, praising the shift from the “I feel like this will work” mindset to a data-driven, rules-based approach. The message is clear: precision builds confidence.
📒 Journal Like a Pro: From Chaos to Clarity
One of the practical gems from this episode is how to journal trades effectively. Instead of vague reflections, Peter and I suggest logging:
Market conditions (imbalance vs. rotational)
The setup taken (e.g., rhythm trade)
Why & how the trade was entered
Screenshot of the chart with your annotations
Whether the outcome matched the thesis once the trading session was complete
Over time, this detailed journaling becomes the foundation for building a personalized trade plan — and eventually, intuition.
🙌 The Role of Community in Trader Growth
A powerful thread running through this episode is the importance of having a close circle of traders to grow with. Becky and Peter credit their development to learning from mentors like Jermaine and Seth Miller, and having peers who keep each other accountable.
Trading is both technical and deeply psychological. And it’s not something you have to do alone! As Peter says, “Even doing everything right, I can still be wrong. That’s the nature of trading.” But with a well-defined edge, a structured and purposeful journal, and an authentic trading support system, you can navigate this journey with confidence and clarity.
“When my inner child takes over and starts clicking the mouse, I can just kiss my money goodbye.”
~ Peter Ku
🧠 The Inner Game of Trading — Psychology, Healing, and the Real Work Behind the Charts
In the second half of our conversation on this particular day, Peter and I dove deep into a side of trading that rarely gets the spotlight: the emotional and psychological work required to become a consistently profitable trader.
Peter opened up about his early misconception — that all he needed was the “perfect strategy” to succeed. Like many of us, he later realized the truth: strategy matters, yes, but psychology is the real game. In his words, trading success is “99% psychology.”
📚 Doing the Inner Work
In our community, our small group meets weekly just to focus on trading psychology. This isn’t fluff work. It’s about inner healing, self-awareness, and emotional resilience. Recently, Peter has been deep into inner child work, inspired by their mentors and most recently by John Bradshaw’s book Homecoming. He describes it as profound and essential—not just for personal peace, but for trading consistency. (Get that book for yourself at https://amzn.to/47nFNh2)
He shared how emotional triggers from earlier life experiences — especially feelings of abandonment, fear, or loss — can get activated in the heat of trading. This can lead to destructive behaviors like overtrading, revenge trading, or what he calls "the manic trader" mode: “click, click... accounts blown.”
👶 The Inner Child at the Keyboard
Peter’s approach involves a daily morning check-in with his inner child. He asks two questions:
“How old are you today?”
“What do you need?”
Sometimes, the answer is as simple as "I want ice cream," or "Let’s go see a movie." Other times, it's deeper. But the point is: he listens, and he creates emotional safety before he opens his trading terminal. It's not about shutting down feelings — it’s about acknowledging them, making space for them, and not letting them hijack your trades. You guys! Most people are not as open and real with anyone on this type of work. So, this conversation, driven by Peter, is truly a rare glimpse into REAL psychology work that is literally changing his outcomes and his trading equity curve!
To quote Peter, “This is our life.” We get to choose how we live it. And if trading is part of that life, it deserves our full attention — strategy, yes, but also healing, discipline, and community.
We’re still learning, still evolving, even after four-plus years in the game. If you’re hitting a wall in your trading, maybe it’s not your system that needs work — maybe it’s time to look inward.
📚 Resources Mentioned:
Homecoming by John Bradshaw https://amzn.to/47nFNh2
Healing the Shame That Binds You by John Bradshaw https://amzn.to/3JFpPoF
Inner child work as a part of your pre-market routine
👉 Want more of these deep-dive convos?
Let me know what you'd like Peter & I to unpack in the next one — especially if you're navigating both trading and personal growth as we are. Please, shoot me your thoughts and requests at https://www.market-mamas.com/contact! And, you want to catch the full episode linked above if any of these topics resonate with you! Conversations with other traders are so valuable for me to have, and hence are such a gift for me to be able to bring to the public in this way! I really enjoy learning together from like-minded professionals and helping each other with tactics and tips that can help us all level up maybe just a bit quicker! If you find value too, please do like and subscribe to the podcast on whatever platform you caught this conversation on and let’s evolve together into the highest profitability!! Take care and happy trading!