AutoPilot Trader V3.3: Smarter Risk, Cleaner Exits, and a Live Track Record
Now about eight months live and fully automated, AutoPilot Trader has been green every month of 2026. January was essentially flat. February and March were solidly positive. Then April came in at +$19,327.32 net across 86 trades with a 74.42% win rate, and May closed at +$12,779.60 net across 79 trades with an 81.01% win rate. That is approximately $49,500 net year-to-date, fully hands-free, zero intervention.
That is the live record. That is what this is.
APT is my Two Hour Trader framework, the same price action methodology I have been trading on NQ and ES futures for over a decade, built into an algorithm that runs without me. No discretionary decisions during the session, no second-guessing, no screen-watching. The same entries, stops, and profit targets I would take manually, executing automatically through TradingView alerts into your own brokerage account.
V3.3 did not change the strategy. What it did was close three gaps that showed up from running this thing live with real capital for eight months. That is the right way to improve a system: let it run, watch where friction appears, fix it with data, not gut feel.
Why V3.3 Exists
Every meaningful improvement to APT has come from the live forward test, not the drawing board. V3.3 is no different. Three distinct friction points surfaced over the past several months: a risk ceiling that was pricing certain contracts incorrectly, an exit behavior on small positions that was giving gains back, and two edge-case session scenarios that were allowing trades when the conditions were structurally poor. Each one has been addressed.
None of these are dramatic overhauls. They are the kind of precision work that separates a system that has been genuinely battle-tested from one that has only been backtested.
Smarter Risk Control
The risk ceiling in V3.3 now prices risk correctly across all eight supported contracts: NQ, MNQ, ES, MES, YM, MYM, RTY, and M2K.
On earlier versions, the dynamic sizing logic was referencing the wrong per-contract dollar value for ES, MES, RTY, and M2K. In practice, this meant the risk ceiling was not functioning as intended on those instruments. It would either suppress trades that should have been taken at full size, or allow sizing that did not reflect the actual dollar risk of the position. Not catastrophic, but not precise either, and precision is the entire point of running a systematic approach.
V3.3 corrects the math across the board. Every contract now calculates its own risk correctly before the system sizes the position.
Alongside that, the contract selector is now a dropdown. You choose your execution contract from a list instead of typing it manually. This removes an entire category of setup error. Typos happen, and on a live execution system a typo in the contract field means a misrouted alert. The dropdown eliminates that.
Cleaner Exits
The second improvement involves how the system handles small positions.
On versions prior to V3.3, a 1 or 2 contract position would exit its final unit with a trailing stop, the same way a 3-contract position trails its runner after hitting Profit Target 2. The logic was consistent, but the outcome was not always clean. On a 1-contract position, there is no partial exit to lock in before the trail begins. The entire position is trailing, and a single intraday sweep of the recent high can shake the whole trade out before it reaches its natural target.
I want to be direct about how this was evaluated. We looked at more than 15 months of trade-by-trade data. The result was neutral-to-better with the same drawdown profile. It is not a profit claim. It is a consistency improvement: small positions now exit cleanly at Profit Target 2 instead of trailing into a potential reversal. For traders managing 1 or 2 contracts, particularly on micros, the experience is smoother.
Also in V3.3: Profit Target 2 now locks at entry. The level is fixed when the trade opens and does not adjust afterward. This means that when a trend develops, the trade has a clean path to its full target without the target shifting against it.
As Kyle described the challenge of trail management in a recent session: "it's always a dance with trailing. You want to protect your open profits, but you don't want to choke the trade." V3.3's exit logic for small positions leans toward letting the trade breathe to its full target rather than trailing it into an early exit.
Better Protection
Two edge cases that quietly cost older versions are now addressed.
First, APT V3.3 stands down on CME equity-index half-days. These sessions, typically around major holidays, carry reduced liquidity and compressed ranges. They are not the conditions APT was built for. Rather than taking trades during a session that structurally favors neither side, the system does not participate. A position opened on a half-day in a prior version could ride into a midday halt with no clean exit. That scenario is eliminated.
Second, no new entries are opened once the end-of-day exit window begins. Any trades already on are managed normally to their exits, but fresh entries stop. This prevents the system from opening a new position with insufficient time to develop before the forced end-of-day close.
Chart visuals were also cleaned up in V3.3. Profit target and stop lines now stay visible through the exit bar, which makes post-trade review significantly easier. If you are auditing your daily performance, the levels you need to see are there.
What This Means For You
If you are trading for a prop firm: Long-Only mode is specifically suited for evaluation accounts. The NQ Long-Only backtest over approximately 17 months shows a 78.2% win rate with a profit factor of 2.41. The disciplined drawdown control built into V3.3 is directly aligned with the daily loss limits prop firms impose. APT has passed multiple funded evaluations. The trading bot that passed a $50K prop firm evaluation in 18 days is worth reading if you are considering this path.
If you are running a smaller account: APT supports all eight CME contracts, including micros. MNQ, MES, MYM, and M2K are fully supported with V3.3's corrected risk ceiling math. You can run the system on accounts as small as $10,000 using micros. The cleaner exit logic for 1 and 2 contract positions was built in part for this segment.
If you have a career and limited screen time: This is the core use case. APT runs from 8:30 AM to 4:30 PM ET on every regular trading day without you watching. You maintain oversight of the account, you monitor for unusual conditions, but the emotional decision-making and constant chart reading are removed entirely. It is not passive in the sense of being unmanaged, but it is hands-free in the way that matters: you are not the one making the trades.
The Proof: Live, Not Hypothetical
The backtest context first, because it is real and useful for understanding the system. Over approximately 17 months from January 2025 to June 2026, the NQ 2-Way configuration on a 3-contract base produced $179,495 net with a 70.5% win rate and a profit factor of 1.57. NQ Long-Only produced $146,050 net with a 78.2% win rate and a profit factor of 2.41. YM functions as the modest diversifier in the portfolio. These are labeled as backtests because that is what they are.
The live record is different and more meaningful.
Five months of real forward performance on the 3 NQ plus 6 YM portfolio, fully hands-free:
January 2026: essentially flat
February 2026: green, up modestly
March 2026: green, up solidly
April 2026: +$19,327.32 net, 74.42% win rate, 86 trades
May 2026: +$12,779.60 net, 81.01% win rate, 79 trades
April included a roughly $17,000 peak-to-trough drawdown that the system rode through without a single manual intervention. May took a roughly $7,365 loss on the last day of the month, having already run clean through an FOMC week untouched, and still closed strongly positive.
That last-day May loss is actually one of the more instructive data points. A discretionary trader who had a great month and saw a significant loss develop on the last day would be tempted to intervene, to shut the system off, to protect the month's gains. APT did not. It executed the trade because the setup was there, the loss was within the system's parameters, and the month's result was what the system produced. That is the discipline a systematic approach is supposed to create, and it held.
Every monthly result, including the drawdowns, is published. Transparency is the product.
For the V3 historical reference and earlier backtest dashboard, the V3 performance results remain published for context. The current live system is V3.3.
How It Works
Three steps.
First, you purchase a license through the AutoPilot Trader product page. The license is annual, and the price increases as we approach capacity. There is a hard cap on how many traders can run this simultaneously, which is not artificial scarcity. Market impact testing shows performance degrades when too many accounts execute the same signals at the same time. The cap protects the system for everyone running it.
Second, we configure everything together on a live Zoom call. White glove setup means exactly that: we build your TradingView chart with the APT - THT Automation V3.3 indicator, configure your alerts, connect to your execution platform, and verify the whole chain is working before we hang up. Average setup time is around 35 minutes.
Third, it runs. You monitor your account the way any responsible trader monitors a live system. You watch for unusual market conditions, manage your account sizing, and review performance. The system handles the trades.
Supported brokers include Tradovate, TradeStation, NinjaTrader, and TastyTrade.
Honest Expectations
This is a professional trading system built on a real strategy with a real live track record. It has drawdowns. It has losing trades. It has losing months in the backtest. Nothing in this article is a guarantee of future performance, because no such guarantee exists in trading. Past results, whether backtested or live, do not predict what the market will produce next month.
What APT gives you is a systematically executed, consistently applied strategy with full transparency on every result. That is a meaningful advantage over discretionary trading for most people. It is not a shortcut and it is not passive income in the set-and-forget sense. It is a professional system that requires the same respect and oversight you would give any live trading account.
"I've been trading for the past 3 years, I've been in 9 different chats, I've seen everything. The value I found when I joined the PTG team was unparalleled. You won't find anything like this." - Christopher
Frequently Asked Questions
Do my funds stay in my own account? Yes. APT connects to your existing brokerage account through TradingView alerts. You own the account, you control the funds, and nothing moves without your broker executing the trade in your account. PTG does not have access to your money at any point.
How is this different from other trading bots? Most retail trading bots are built by developers who have never traded professionally. APT is my actual trading strategy, the same Two Hour Trader framework I have traded daily for over a decade, encoded into an algorithm. The backtest and forward-test results are published with full transparency, including losses and drawdowns, not just the winning months.
Which brokers are compatible? Tradovate, TradeStation, NinjaTrader, and TastyTrade are all supported. Setup varies slightly by platform, which is why we do the configuration call together.
Can I use this for a prop firm evaluation? Yes. Long-Only mode is the recommended configuration for prop firm challenges. It operates with the disciplined loss control that evaluation accounts require. The NQ Long-Only backtest shows a 78.2% win rate and a 2.41 profit factor over approximately 17 months.
How much capital do I need to start? APT works with accounts as small as $10,000 using micro contracts (MNQ, MES, MYM, M2K). Full-size contracts on NQ and ES are typically recommended at $25,000 or above. The position sizing and risk calculator guide walks through how to size correctly for your account.
Is there a trial or money-back guarantee? There is no standalone APT trial and no money-back guarantee on the annual license. The closest thing to a preview is APT Signals, the manual-trading indicator that plots the exact entry, stop, and profit-target levels the automation executes. APT Signals is included free with every Trader's Thinktank membership. You can watch the system's signals fire on your own charts in real time before committing to the automation.
I am an existing APT member upgrading to V3.3. Do I need to do anything? Yes. After you update the TradingView indicator to APT - THT Automation V3.3, you must delete your existing alerts and recreate them. Alerts do not automatically update when the indicator version changes. Missing this step means your old alerts are still firing from the prior version.
What ongoing support is included? All future strategy updates and optimizations are included in the annual license at no additional cost. Priority email and chat support, access to the private trader community, and access to In our Trader's Thinktank community for context and analysis are all part of the package.
Ready to Run It
If you want the full picture on current pricing, available capacity, and whether APT fits your account size, start at the AutoPilot Trader product page. The position sizing calculator is on that page as well.
If you want to see the signals before you commit, join the Trader's Thinktank, pull up APT Signals on your charts, and watch the same entries APT automates appear in real time on your own data. That is the most honest preview I can offer.
Eight months of live performance. Every result published. That is the pitch.
