Experienced Trader vs. Advanced Trader Program – Which FTP Challenge Should You Take?

Experienced Trader vs. Advanced Trader Program – Which FTP Challenge Should You Take? 4955

Funded Trading Plus came onto the prop firm scene with one of the biggest benefits to taking a successful prop trading challenge: they removed the challenge time limit. 

This post contains affiliate links. I have personally chosen to promote Funded Trading Plus because I firmly believe they are a professional, realistic, and helpful prop firm with reasonable challenge rules. I am not asked to post these reviews but do so out of my own choice. 

Many firms, like FTMO or MyForexFunds, offer challenges with 30-day time limits – including full days when trading isn’t possible. 

Frankly, this is an unnecessary pressure – you’re not necessarily a better trader because you can capture profit quickly. It’s a challenge rule that typically benefits the prop firm (rather than the prop trader) because most people buckle under the pressure of needing to perform fast. 

So Funded Trading Plus offered the kind of challenges they would also want as traders, themselves – challenges without a time limit. 

Under this model, you can take as much time as you need to profit. For many traders, this means being able to risk a responsible amount per trade (closer to 1% or less, rather than the 2% standard encouraged to traders who are risking their own money). It also means that you won’t necessarily have to fail a challenge and retake it again in order to get through a less-than-stellar month for your strategy. An (unnecessary) added pressure is removed from a challenge that is already difficult, as it is. 

[Want 10% off of your Funded Trading Plus challenge? Use DFX10 at checkout!]

Funded Trading Plus’ Challenge Offers

Now that you want to take on a prop firm challenge with FTP, you have a couple of options. The firm offers three programs: Experienced Trader, Advanced Trader, and Master Trader program. 

This article is focused on the first two options, as they are very similar yet come with different rules that may be more or less appropriate depending on your style of trading – we’ll talk about these distinctions soon. 

The third option, the Master Trader program, was recently updated as a program that offers instant funding with a 70/30%, trader/firm, profit split. This is a more expensive program than the others and does not come with any initial challenge phase. The major rule is to keep above the 5% trailing drawdown in order to maintain the account.They allow for weekly withdrawals above $50. It’s a fantastic arrangement for anyone with considerable trading experience, evidence of consistent profitability, and enough expendable income to float the initial fee.

For those who do not wish to spend more than $999 (Or $909, with a DFX discount – you can use DFX10 at checkout!), there are two other challenge options to choose from. While they may appear vastly similar, each has its own benefits for different stylese of traders. Let’s explore!

Experienced Trader Program vs. Advanced Trader Program

Seeing is believing – to start, let’s look at each program’s features, as they are displayed on FTP’s program pages, to get an idea of their similarities and differences.

Below is the Experienced Trader Program:

Key Features:

  • Single Phase, no verification phase required
  • Daily drawdown: 3%
  • Maximum Relative Drawdown: 6%
  • 10% Profit Target for scaling-up the funded account
  • No stop-loss required
  • Able to hold trades overnight and overweekend
  • Additional $12.5k option

 

Below is the Advanced Trader Program:

advanced trader program funded trading plus

Key Features:

  • Two-phase: Assessment #1 (10% target) and Assessment #2 (5% target)
  • Daily Drawdown: 5%
  • Maximum Relative Drawdown: 10%
  • 20% Profit Target for scaling-up the funded account
  • Stop-loss required for each trade
  • Do not hold trades over weekend

Both programs cost the same for their individual account sizes. Both offer MT4/MT5 accounts, offer an 80/20 profit split, allow for maximum 1:30 account leverage, and allow EA bots.

However, there are some distinct differences as well. With only one phase to complete, only a 10% profit target for scaling, and the option for over weekend trades, Experienced Trader Program seems to offer the better deal. And if that’s what you’re thinking – you’re probably right!

Let’s face it – challenges are overwhelming. Undergoing two phases, even when one has a smaller profit target, is still more challenging than undergoing only one. There are a significant number of traders who fail their second challenge with firms like MyForexFunds and FTMO. Granted, those are time-limit-based challenges, but the risk is all the same. On a psychological level, sometimes trading a prop challenge feels more stressful than trading a funded account. Perhaps it’s better to deal with only one phase.

But before we completely write off the Advanced Trader Program, let’s consider its one key benefit: The maximum and daily drawdowns are 1.66x the size of those offered by the Experienced Trader Program. 

That means for every 1% you can risk with the Experienced Trader, you could be risking up to 1.66% for Advanced Trader. 

If you’re risking 0.5% per trade, this allows you 3x the number of trades or opportunities.

So with this understanding, we can now see who might benefit from the Advanced Trader program – either individuals who are comfortable risking more per trade in order to capture bigger wins (this works best when your take profit targets vary in size with unlimited potential) or for traders who scalp multiple trades a day and would like the extra wiggle room for safety.

The Verdict: Experienced or Advanced?

Now that you understand that the one key difference between these two programs is the drawdown allowance, you should be able to discern whether this added benefit is worth the trade-off of missing out on a single-phase challenge, over-weekend trades, and half the target for scaling.

For most people, I believe the Experienced Trader Program is the better option of the two.

There are too many additional benefits that outweigh the allowances of the Advanced Trader Program. 

[Want 10% off of your Funded Trading Plus challenge? Use DFX10 at checkout!]

Remember, you don’t need to rush the challenge by taking bigger risks on your trades or over-leveraging your account. If you want to be able to have more opportunities to scalp or trade each day, you can always cut down on your risk per trade. Risking 1% or less per trade for this challenge option is optimal. If you take more than 2 trades per day, cut that down to 0.75% or less. 

Overall, Funded Trading Plus is a professional and reliable prop firm for achieving realistic results with funded account trading. They are the only firm I go out of my way to promote, not because they sponsor my posts (they don’t), but because I firmly believe this is one of the most professional, trustworthy, and reasonable firms out there.

Sadness, Loss, and Grief: Trading During Times of Illness and Deatth

Sadness, Loss, and Grief: Trading During Times of Illness and Deatth 2982

Hey there folks,

It’s been a good while since I last posted and I want to take a moment to let you in on what I’ve been up to the last few months.

Sadness, Loss, and Grief

At the start of September, my 89-year-old grandfather passed away. He was a very easy-going man, with a hankering for good humor and good deli. He died from late stages of bone cancer as it mestastesized to his liver. Losing him was tough, but the countless videos and photos of family dinners with him telling silly stories make it nearly impossible for him to ever be forgotten.

Also during September, I was paid out a nice +$5,000 from my My Forex Funds account and took a little trip up to the Pacific Northwest to scout out apartments outside of the Portland area. I’ve been meaning to move to this part of the continent for some time, and in the coming months, this will become a reality.

Trading during September wasn’t anything to write home about. I sat through a handful of losing weeks. The daily strategy I’d been using lost some of its rigor. I intended on turning this strategy into a more advanced course, but as I made more money breaking its rules than actually following the plan, I realized there were holes in its theoretical assumptions and strategic approach. Thus, I moved back to the lower time frames again and took some time studying market structure and movement.

Then, during the week of my grandfather’s memorial, my partner and I got Covid-19. My symptoms were unusual and likely arose out of an added flaring to my already existing chronic illness. My hands and feet were in so much pain, the nerves in my fingers felt like they were on fire with pain and ache, and I couldn’t do much except hold them close to my body and lie still in bed. This was in addition to the other standard symptoms of this infeciton: coughing, fever, fatigue, and nasal drainage. Luckily, the pain eased up over a matter of days. But the flu-like symptoms persisted for weeks. Even now, I still carry a light cough, although everything else, for the most part, feels back to “normal”. A few of my friends who have also experienced Covid mentioned that it can take weeks to feel on par. They were not wrong.

Just as this burden was easing up, death greeted my family once more.

Only a few weeks after my grandfather’s passing, my grandma died as well. You might think it was from a broken heart, as this can happen among elderly couples, but she had no knowledge of his death. Those last few weeks, she didn’t really have much knowledge of anything that was happening around her. My grandma had slowly wasted away from late stages of dementia and a rare autoimmune condition, bullous pemphigoid, which caused her to experience severe itching and bleeding lesions. I came by to help be with her during those last few weeks, mostly to give her medicine, some water, liquid food, and massage her arms and hands.

I can imagine I’m not alone in writing this – some of you have firsthand experience with losing a loved one to dimentia, Alzheimers, or any other memory-degrading condition. It is harrowingly sad to no longer be recognizable by someone who was such a source of love and meaning in your life. She was in severe pain and confusion, crying out “help me, help me!” every few minutes during her waking hours. I had to explain to her one night that my mother and I needed to leave in order to get some sleep. It broke my heart to hear her pleading response of, “Please, please don’t leave me!” In some ways, the hardest part of her death wasn’t her passing – it was witnessing this long, drawn out suffering with not much help or relief to offer.

And then, one day, she died – her relief finally came. 

I didn’t expect to cry, but seeing her small, still body inspired sobs from my own. My grandparents were a big part of my and my sibling’s lives. Our dad wasn’t really apart of the picture growing up, but my grandparents were there for everything. Their love was unconditional and they were accepting of the diverse lives we’ve led, even if they looked so different from the world they once knew. Losing them meant an end of an era of loud, boisterous family gatherings and loving visits. 

It also reminded me of my own aging and life progression – My own struggle with memory loss as I wade through a difficult and complex illness. (If this is how I feel in my 30’s, then what will 50 be? How about 80?) For all the myriad of ways our bodies are designed to strive and survive, they are also so vulnerable and ephemeral. 

The week of her death, there were a few days when I completely forgot to trade. I didn’t remember the day of the week. It didn’t even occur to me that I had charts to look at. I was preoccupied with the details of change. And when I did think about trading, I just didn’t want to – the drive wasn’t there. I felt no desire, just sadness and a need to be quiet, still, and reflective.

Then, with each passing day, I felt more at peace. The tears ended, I began to spend more time on my own responsibilities instead of being involved in my family’s. I started trading again and doing some work with my own trading education and refining a new trend trading approach.

Facing Sadness and Grief During Your Own Trading

There will be times during your trading experience when major life events unfold. You may be able to prepare for some, but for others, you will be completely vulnerable. Death will make its rounds and visit people you know and love. People you care for will get sick and you will get sick as well. Your own death, too, is also a spot on the horizon that grows closer each day. 

I don’t write this to sound macabre, instead, I want to speak to the real experience of human life – one that includes a permanent finale. It is so easy to imagine ourselves always available to trade, to be in total control of our psychology at some distant future, but the reality is that there will be times when you may not be able to trade or even want to trade. Sadness, loss, grief – these are emotions that you may have to sit with when you trade (hopefully only temporarily) and if you can’t sit with them in front of the charts, then you’ll need to stop trading for a short period of time. 

During those periods, I encourage you to take space for yourself to feel sadness. When feeling sad, it can be hard to feel motivated – you might not even want to take a trading opportunity should one present itself. Be mindful of how you, individually, experience sadness and grief, and the ways you deal with it. Some people, like myself, need a pause in order to be with the emotion fully. Other folks like to dig deeper into their work or their hobbies in order to disconnect from the feelings of sadness. That’s okay too, it’s helpful to do things that help invite moments of joy, satisfaction, or rest. 

My parting advice: be familiar with your own style of grief, sadness, and loss, and have an idea of how you can plan your trading around it (or expect to not trade altogether). Be cautious, however, of wanting to trade so that you can get some kind of overriding pleasurable emotion from trading – this may entice you to break rules or make emotional choices. But most importantly, address your feelings. You are not a hero by avoiding your feelings and tears. When you can feel your own emotions, you open yourself up to the ability to empathize with the suffering of others – you open yourself up to love. All of these qualities make for a more meaningful life, one that is at peace.

 

DFX Student Peter Passed His Funded Trading Plus Challenge!

DFX Student Peter Passed His Funded Trading Plus Challenge! 68

Funded Trading Plus is one of the few prop trading firms that offer a no-time-limit challenge model. That is, you are required to hit their profit target without hitting the max daily loss or max drawdown, but you are allowed to complete this objective with as much, or as little, time as you need. Compared to popular firms, like FTMO, which require a hefty 10% profit target reached within 30 days, a challenge without a time limit helps prevent feelings of overwhelm or the need to over-leveraged on each trade.

<<If you’d like to receive a 10% coupon for your Funded Trading Plus challenge, be sure to use this affiliate link and the coupon code DFX10 at checkout!>>

Peter, one of our Disciplined FX Scalping Course and Strategy students, recently passed his first-ever prop firm challenge using the strategies and lessons taught in the modules. 

As with many other traders I’ve spoken to who have acquired prop firm funding, Peter has been trading in Forex for some considerable time – just about 5 years. (I’ll note that I’ve yet to meet a trader who has passed and maintained a funded status with less than 1.5 – 2 years experience)

Prior to coming to trading our scalping strategy, he has experienced both profits and losses, although the latter would tend to outweigh the former. 

Peter, who has been in correspondence with me since he first joined DFX, kept me up to date on his outcomes. He’s one of the most active community members in our Discord and always provides so much kind enthusiasm and critical thinking to analyzing trades and market conditions. 

He takes the strategy seriously and prioritizes process and system over meeting targeted profit outcomes. Oddly enough, this plays a big part in staying consistent. In many ambitious endeavors, like trying to become a NFL football player or an elected politician at the presidential level, focusing on numbers can help design a strategy. With trading, however, oftentimes there is a lack of control over meeting a specific, measured target, like a 10% profit return each month. Instead, as the saying goes, if you focus on the routine/strategy/following your plan – the results will take care of themselves. 

So, to get a better idea of what led Peter to this milestone success, I e-mailed him to find out what his prop trading experience was like. 

In his own words, Peter explains what’s worked for him and why a mechanical scalping strategy has been useful in passing the Funded Trading Plus challenge. 

What has your trading experience been like before trading the DFX Scalping Strategy?

Over the years I have had mixed results, overall losing money though.

What do you like about the DFX Scalping Strategy?

There’s a number of things I like both, directly and indirectly, related to the system.

* Firstly, I like that it works. Goes without saying, but 60% roughly win rate with >1:1 risk to reward means the system will make money.

* I like following a mechanical system with clear rules to follow. Though I do apply some discretion as to when I take trades. Having clear rules to follow allows for simplicity and consistency when trading and is quite simple to back-test.

* Further to the previous point, being able to back test the system and my chosen parameters/nuances, gives me confidence that a loss is irrelevant and I know across a week I will be profitable.

* Having a specific small set of currencies and specific windows means I’m focused and not monitoring charts and not jumping across 28 pairs plus other markets. I trade 2-3 pairs at the start of London and NY, which I have back tested so I know they work. I think this is a major retail trader mistake to have too many markets on the radar. I have all my 3 markets visible in one window and can easily see the status of a setup.

Can you describe what your trading routine is like?

About 10 minutes before London and NY open I open the charts and watch for setups. I do also have some alerts set to let me know when certain things line up. If a trade opens, I do generally monitor the trade to completion. On the weekend I backtest the week just past and compare my trades taken against the backtest results.

Have you traded a prop challenge before? What led you to decide to trade with Funded Trading Plus?

This is my first attempt at a prop challenge. I wasn’t aware of this at all until I followed the discussions in the DFX Discord. As Andrew and some of the others have experience with it I went off their advice on choice of company and to even decide to do it at all.

Describe your prop firm experience in as much (or as little) detail as you like!

I have passed the first two evaluation phases and now into a live account with FTP. 

What do you think helped you the most with passing this challenge?

As with my trading in general, confidence in the system and my implementation. Consistency in taking the correct entries as they come. Patience in waiting for entries and also waiting for the trade to complete – though occasionally I do step in.

What are your long-term trading goals/lifestyle goals you hope to achieve with trading?

My goal is to retire from 9 to 5 in the next 3 years and trade full time. My thought with the prop firm concept is to build the account(s) big enough that I can live off and build wealth through the profits.

What do you think traders need to consider or know before taking a challenge? What advice would you give to someone who has never passed a challenge before?

Ensure that you can be consistent with your trading execution and results with a personal live account with real money. Gain confidence and get used to your system(s) of choice. Then do realise there are constraints with prop firms that you could impose on your personal account to start with.

Additional note: Every weekend I backtest the past week and compare the backtest results with my trade log. It should take about 5 min a pair for two sessions a day. This has a few benefits: You can see what mistakes you may have made on trades You can see what trades you missed and why The results will give you confidence for the next week’s trading that if you follow your plan, you will get good results Be unemotional about lost trades Most importantly is to be consistent. Follow the same processes and rules every day.

——————————

Peter shares some highly insightful and cogent points on the matter of routine and execution. Like I mentioned before, he’s highly consistent in being committed to the process of planning, executing, reviewing, and tweaking anything that can help keep the machine working smoothly. Patience and simplicity lie at the root of this system.

I’m so proud of the discipline and consistency Peter embodies and I can’t wait for his email, one day, telling me he’s experiencing the financial freedom he envisions!!

If you aren’t enrolled already, I welcome you to join us on your Forex journey by signing up for the Disciplined FX Scalping Course today! It would be an honor to provide you with a simple system and framework for your success in these turbulent times! 

 

 

 

5 Discipline Hacks You May Be Scared to Try

5 Discipline Hacks You May Be Scared to Try 97

Hey there traders, Andrew Bloom of Disciplined FX here.

August 2022 Update

July and August have been fantastic months for trading with the daily chart strategy that I am using, as I was able to pass and profit (+$5k!) from a 200k MyForexFunds account. I am currently awaiting payout and will make a comprehensive post with all the details next week. So be sure to subscribe to get notified when that content is released.

Taking Care of Your Trading Psychology

For today, I want to talk a bit about some of the less common trading discipline and psychology tools that are 100% available to you but you may be afraid to give a try.

If you’ve been in the day trading world for a hot second, you’ve probably come to the conclusion that your strategy isn’t necessarily the reason you’ve lost money or failed challenges.

How you manage your risk is another important factor that can lead to ultimate success or failure in these endeavors, but there’s another aspect of trading that dominates nearly all of your trading outcomes.

And that factor is your trading psychology.

By psychology we mean the way you feel about your trading experience, the way those feelings turn into actions, and most importantly whether you are able to experience non-attachment from your feelings while still being able to follow your rules and make logical decisions.

I believe your trading psychology is the #1 reason you are either doing very well and staying profitable or staying stuck in a series of weekly and monthly losses.

Some examples of psychology getting in the way of your trading include:

  • Getting anxious about a trade and closing it too early before it hits your profit target or stop loss
  • Feeling uncomfortable about losses and therefore giving up a solid strategy in search of one that you believe will help you avoid losses
  • Feeling greedy and breaking your rules in order to chase every setup
  • Holding out for more profit past your take profit target.

When these feelings go unexamined and therefore unmanaged, your trading can feel like a rollercoaster and while you may behave according to your rules one day, on the days you’re out of control you can completely destroy your account.

The purpose of this lesson is to share with you a few solutions to help better understand what you’re feeling, be able to see your emotions in the moment and act on them with logic instead of impulsivity, and literally change the way your neurochemistry works so that you are more stable and grounded as you trade.

The five tactics that I’m going to share with you may seem completely unrelated to trading and may not even change your outcomes significantly at first, but there are long-term solutions that will help you grow exponentially over weeks and months rather than hours or days.

This is partly why they may seem scary – because they require a desire to want to change the way you think and feel over the long run.

Each will require further research and a daily or weekly commitment, so if all are new to you, just pick one or two to start with and focus on slowly building long-term habits.

There are no quick fixes here.

Furthermore, they may feel scary because a lot of people, especially men, may have been raised with stigmas against these acts of self-nurturing and care, but I promise you that they all work very well and have the power to change not only your trading but also your own happiness and ability to stay resilient in life.

So without further delay, let’s go over five seemingly scary tools you can use to improve your trading psychology!

5 Seemingly Scary Discipline Hacks to Save Your Trading

#1: Keep a Daily Meditation Practice.

The art of meditation is literally the practice of observing what you’re thinking without getting caught up in your feelings.

The aim of meditation is to be able to create some space between a typical flurry of thoughts and the part of your mind that is capable of observing and making logical choices. Meditation won’t stop you from feeling your feelings, you don’t want to be a complete robot – instead, it serves as a tool that helps you see yourself clearly and be able to stop a spiral of thoughts before they take over your mind.

This is useful for trading because there are so many moments that require snap judgment and an unaware mind can easily let fear or greed make a decision.

When I was in college I became deeply interested in Buddhism and have kept a meditation practice ever since – I believe this practice alone has made the learning curve of trading bearable. Meditation helps us create space in our minds because we’re able to notice when there is anxiety, fear, greed, and excitement.

In that pause, we can go against an impulsive thought and stick to the trading plan.

Since the early 20th century, after many leaders of eastern religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism started migrating and teaching in European and North American locations, eastern philosophy and various styles of meditation have become more commonplace and better understood, particularly for therapeutic and spiritual benefit. In the 1960’s an American would have had to find a local ashram or sangha in order to learn to meditate, but nowadays the number of resources available for learning is so widespread.

A quick youtube search can provide guided meditations and there are lots of apps, like Calm and Mindspace which can help you not only start your meditation practice but stay accountable over the long run.

If you’re interested in starting a practice, I recommend using one of these apps or finding an audio or video course so that you are taught what to do while you meditate and can be held accountable for a longer period of time.

#2 Work with a Therapist

Next, the second tactic is to work with a therapist.

Of everything I list here, this may be the one that most people will feel the strongest resistance. And I completely understand why – therapy can be expensive, especially if you seek to go regularly.

It can also take a while to find a therapist you like.

You may need to have a couple of introductory sessions with different practitioners in order to find someone who has a style you like and you find trustworthy.

Some folks are afraid of therapy because they don’t want to unearth painful memories or past experiences. Others may be afraid of having to change who they are.

Like meditation, a lot of stigma around therapy is finally falling by the wayside. Since the beginning of quarantine, many individuals are seeking out mental health help from a practitioner for the first time in their lives. This isn’t a shock – we live in a pretty stressful global situaiton right now!

I speak from experience. I’ve worked with different therapists throughout my life, usually for only a few months at a time due to cost and moving. However, I always feel better for processing my inner fears and concerns with someone who is trained to guide and help teach coping mechanisms.

Yes, it can feel difficult to start, but it is a service that is completely life-changing. A good contemporary therapist is able to teach you coping mechanisms and emotional skills to help you better navigate your life.

Talk therapy, which is what most people think of when considering therapy, is kind of old hat, and honestly, unearthing one’s past over and over again may not even be very beneficial if there’s no real action or change in thought that comes from it.

Rather, Finding the right therapist is key – there are other forms of therapeutic practice that may be more beneficial to changing trading behaviors – for example, I recommend checking out cognitive-behavioral therapy, which emphasizes focusing more on what you think than what you’re doing since all action begins with a thought.

Humanistic therapy is another solid approach, which focuses on helping the individual grow into a higher self with the client acting as an authority on their own experiences, rather than a therapist trying to tell them what they should or shouldn’t be doing.

But nowadays you’ll likely find most practitioners to be integrative therapists – that is, they use a blend of therapeutic styles to help serve the needs of the patient.

If you’re looking for an easy and convenient way to get started with therapy, I highly recommend checking out the app and service BetterHelp, which allows you to have weekly video or audio sessions with your therapist, who you can select based on your interests and needs, and is available for texting throughout the week.

This is the cheapest way to get the most intensive and frequent therapy. They also offer financial aid, depending on your income level. My partner and I just signed up with BetterHelp a few weeks ago and we love the service. I particularly like that my therapist will send homework, which are just worksheets that either help me write out some thoughts or teach me exercises to help cope with anxiety and depression.

The last thing ill say about this is to do your research and go slow if you need to, this is meant to be a long-term, ideally lifetime, commitment, and it should be treated with the same level of care as finding a spouse.

#3 Study Psychology and Consume Self-Improvement Content

Third, especially if you aren’t able to afford therapy or make the time for it, I highly encourage you to self-study psychology and make a habit of reading self-improvement or personal development books.

If you don’t like to read, then find audiobooks or podcasts that serve a similar purpose.

Like everything I’m going to mention in this list, the goal of this activity is to help you better understand your feelings.

However, when choosing your content, leave psychology textbooks to future therapists, there are far better options for individuals who want to learn personal coping skills.

There are also plenty of therapist-written workbooks that can help you focus on and develop skills around an area of your choosing, such as with anxiety, addiction, PTSD, and self-actualization.

Two resources I recommend for reading or listening as an audiobook are Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy by Dr. David Burns and 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do by Amy Morin.

It’s worthwhile to make a habit of reading a bit of a self-help book each day, and it can even be a great way to spend time in front of the charts while you’re waiting for a setup.

I imagine you’re already a committed learner, seei

ng how you’ve independently sought ways to learn how to trade. Psychology and personal development are a subject you can learn on your own, too.

#4 Eat Healthy and Exercise

Fourth, take care of your nutrition and exercise daily.

We currently live in a world where humans like to cleanly organize different subjects as separate containers. When you go to a doctor, if you have a stomach ache, they’ll send you to a gastroenterologist. If you feel depressed, they’ll send you to a psychiatrist. The body is treated as a bunch of separate systems that seem to connect together like lego blocks of different colors.

trading hack

However, this is a limited and outdated way of perceiving health. You cannot separate bodily systems – just think about how when you find out about the death of a loved one or an accident, your stomach may drop, your palms can turn sweaty, or perhaps the muscles in your shoulder tense up.

When you take a moment to feel your own body, you know that it is one solid entity, its individual parts work together to protect you and attempt to survive. Thus, how you take care of your body also affects your mind.

If you eat unhealthy, processed foods and lots of sugar, you’ll notice that your brain feels foggier, your moods may swing as your blood sugar spikes and drop, and you lack energy – this is a disadvantage when you’re demanding your body to act in the moment during a trade!

But it’s more than just being overweight or eating too much sugar. On a biochemical level, your body needs nutrients to be able to perform essential tasks.

For example, your body creates enzymes to break down food, to break down pathogens in the blood, and to create neurotransmitters. Many of these enzymes rely on vitamins and minerals like vitamin C, E, magnesium, B6, and folate to complete the process.

On a neurobiochemical level, each neurotransmitter depends on vitamins and minerals as cofactors for their creation. Dopamine, the reward-seeking and attention-focusing neurotransmitter require the amino acid tyrosine, which you get from eating protein, as well as vitamins B6 and folate, which are found in meats, vegetables, and fruits, as well as the mineral zinc among others.

The best way to get these nutrients so that you can create these neurotransmitters that help you focus, stay calm, and remain alert, is through eating a healthy diet that is based on consuming whole food items, so anything that is a single ingredient, like an apple, a chicken breast, almonds, etc.

When you combine a healthy diet with exercise, the effects skyrocket – you feel more energized, you get more oxygen in your body, and not to mention you feel better about yourself when you like the way you look.

Some commonly enjoyed forms of exercise include weight lifting, jogging, biking, playing a sport like tennis or basketball, and yoga.

However, I’m not a doctor or professional in this area, and I highly recommend seeking out the help of nutritionists, functional doctors, and fitness trainers in order to learn more. I recommend looking up the work of Dr. Mark Hyman and Dr. Susan Blum. Mark’s book the Ultramind solution was the first resource that got me deep into functional medicine and nutrition a few years ago.

#5 Consider Medication or Nootropics

Lastly, our final mental health tactic is to consider medication and/or nootropics when necessary.

Many people believe that taking medication to help depression or anxiety makes you somehow a broken person or a failure. There has been a stigma against medication for a long time.

However, I believe this stigma is changing. More individuals are willing to work with a doctor to determine if such a resource is appropriate when facing chronic depression or overwhelm.

I will be candid with you and say that I’ve been using the antidepressant Zoloft for a few years now and it’s been a key medication for helping with some of my chronic health issues, particularly insomnia. A nice side-effect is that it also helps me stay calm while trading.

While this is by no means a solution, it is a support while I seek to heal my body so that it can sleep on its own.

There are always side effects when taking medication, such as some weight gain, slower digestion, and inhibited libido, but for me the mood stabilization and added sleep are worth the trade-off.

Most medications are bandaids and will not solve the underlying issue, but they can also be lifesavers when you have to select and prioritize how to work on your health and circumstances.

If you feel like you are struggling with depression or a mood disorder, especially when you’re already committed to multiple other mental healthcare habits like a healthy diet and meditation, then it may be worthwhile to seek the advice of a psychiatrist or general practitioner to continue to address the issue.

There is nothing wrong with you for wanting to have this support.

Taking medication can be a profound act of self-care!

Another area worth exploring, especially if medication doesn’t feel like a viable option, is to use nootropics or supplements to help balance your mood or even increase your concentration and focus.

As with our earlier discussion on nutrients, you may have nutritional deficiencies that are preventing your nervous system and body from operating optimally.

Working with a functional doctor or nutritionist who specializes in mental health nutrition is the best way to test for and accurately identify what supplements to take.

There are also cool at-home tests available, like this one from 5 Strands, which can tell you if you’re deficient in certain nutrients or have sensitivities to certain foods.

Many supplements are available for purchase on Amazon or in local stores, so once you know what you need, you can seek out trusted, safe, and ideally organic supplements to address any deficiencies or areas to optimize.

Again, I am not a medical doctor or licensed therapist, so as with any of these suggestions, I highly recommend doing further research and working with professionals who can provide individualized suggestions.

Conclusion

Today I’ve listed just five ways you can prioritize your mental health in order to improve your trading psychology and discipline.

Any of these habits and actions can give you an edge in your trading over the long run.

Whether starting a meditation practice, signing up for therapy, purchasing a good self-help book, looking up a whole food diet you can commit to, or signing up for a consultation with a nutritionist, I encourage you to take action today.

Hopefully, you’ve already thought of one that you’re going to start researching after this video, but do come back and watch again when you feel like you’re out of ideas for ways to improve.

I genuinely wish you the best of strength and luck on your trading journey. Let me know your thoughts on what you decide to do, and I’ll see you all in the markets. Take care!

My Trading Plan for a $200k FTP Retry

My Trading Plan for a $200k FTP Retry 746

I want to share with you my plan for my Funded Trading Plus Retry using a very short-term Swing Trading strategy, what it’s like using their new Trading View platform option, and how my challenge is going so far as I am 3 weeks into the challenge. 

After failing my first Funded Trading Plus challenge, I stepped back and took a good hard look at what I needed out of a trading style and routine.

I’ve been a scalper for the majority of my three-plus years trading both Forex and stocks, but I’ve finally come to the conclusion that higher time frames and longer holding periods for trades are far less stressful, much more convenient for my personal schedule, and often more consistently profitable over the long run.

Taking a Funded Trading Plus Retry

So a few weeks ago, after taking some time off to reflect and learn a new approach to swing trading, I decided to sign-up for my next FTP challenge.

A cool benefit about this retry is that it coincided with FTP’s release of their Trading View platform option so I signed up for a 200k account with a 10% discount- (BTW, if you also want a 10% discount off of your FTP challenge, be sure to use “DFX10” at their checkout).

Set up was very easy.

They emailed me the login info, which I could instantly use in my Trading View account. I’ll note that I have a Pro+ account with them so features like multiple partitions, saved layouts, alarms, and other benefits are already available to me. It’s possible to use Trading View’s free service with this challenge, at the very least to access their intuitive and easy-to-calculate order forms, but I personally believe it’s worth the extra cost to access more of trading view’s features and benefits.

Once logged in, the login info was saved, so I can connect without having to type in my password each time I log on. Because this password is saved to my Google Chrome, I can log on to any of my laptops or devices that access TV’s web platform.

A Daily Chart Strategy + Plan

So with this new challenge, I’ve decided to use a daily chart strategy that I’ve put together. This strategy depends on a couple of tools, like price action, Bollinger bands, fib retracement, support/resistance, among others to help me make a discretionary trading decision after the NY close of the daily candle. Let me tell you more by showing you my trading plan for this challenge:

funded trading plus strategy

Using Funded Trading Plus’ Trading View Option

Next, let’s talk about Trading View.

I am just in love with being able to directly trade off of the Trading View platform!

Nothing pisses me off about MT4/5 more than how difficult it is to use quick, pips-based order forms and install other tools and indicators.

With Trading View, everything is available in one place. The charts are clean, easy to adjust, or change the appearance of the chart, and overall it’s a pleasant experience.

My saved templates and previous markups on the charts are already there even once I signed on to the 8-cap account.

funded trading plus trading viewHowever, funded trading plus uses 8-cap as its broker, so you need to be sure to select 8-cap’s chart before setting an order on it.

Luckily, Trading View will notify you if you attempt to trade on another broker’s charts, so this is more of an annoyance than it is a problem to watch out for.

But, as with any difference in brokers, I’ve noticed that 8-caps charts often look different from Oanda’s, which I still use for my first look at the charts for the day and overall trading decisions.

As someone who is trading at the close of the NY session, I have to wait a bit after the 5 pm EST close before setting a trade, otherwise, my order will be rejected. Its markets open up again usually within 5 minutes later. The spread is sometimes good but can also be nasty, depending on the instrument, so with my strategy, I’m mostly looking to stick to major pairs or popular minor pairs in order to avoid costly spreads in the afternoon.

My First 3 Weeks

Lastly, I’m going to show you my current progress going into my fourth week of trading this challenge. I’m happy to report that it’s been a continuous upward drive the whole way through!

I’m currently up 4.22% with 10 trades overall and a 70% win rate (image was taken a day after).

funded trading plus challenge

The average win and the average loss are close to one another as I’ve chosen to close a few trades early due to a lack of evidence for continuation on certain trades.

I will say though that I am also a little trigger happy when it comes to closing trades early, and will swiftly close the trade early if there’s even a slight sign of a turnaround, so there’s a possibility that I’d have a higher balance and higher profit to loss ratio should I have held out to profit target on all of my trades. This is something I can go back to test and see if such is the case.

I will say, overall, that emotions play far less of a role in my trading now that I’m taking more relaxed and long-term trades.

The majority of my trades close within 24 hours but some will take two or three days to hit their target.

I’m spending less than 2.5 hours a week trading and it feels amazing to see such profit with very little effort and time.

I’m looking to formulate this strategy and package it up into an informative trading education course, so be on the lookout over the next couple of weeks for further updates!

Overall, I highly recommend considering Funded Trading Plus, particularly if you’re a swing trader, but really for any trading style because having no time limit on your challenge is a wealth of stress relief that could literally save you from making hasty and irresponsible trading decisions!

If you’re looking to take a FTP challenge or are already in one, please let us know how it goes, and I wholeheartedly wish you nothing but the best of strength and luck in your trading.

I’ll see you all in the markets, take care!

Making the Switch: From the 15m to Daily Time Frames

Making the Switch: From the 15m to Daily Time Frames 90

Last month, I failed my Funded Trading Plus challenge. This was due to making too many changes during the challenge (such as no longer being able to get up at 5am to trade the NY session and attempting to scalp trending strategies off of Asia instead) and also fumbling over my own discipline (pulling winning trades too early and taking trades that didn’t fully match my rules). 

It was time to take a step back and evaluate what was going on.

Since I first started learning how to trade stocks and onwards with learning to trade Forex, I’ve always sought out scalping strategies. I liked the focus that came with partitioning a set amount of time each day to watch the markets and know that my account was cleared and safe at the beginning and end of the session. It was tough to learn to scalp from the outset, as many professional traders will tell you, yet in time, I was able to make a profit. 

That is, until the last few months. 

I’m a big believer that your psychology and discipline are the most important edge in your trading success. And while most traders seek out a holy grail strategy and will spend endless hours researching ways to optimize their trading rules and analysis (to be fair, there’s merit in having a strategy that works), ultimately it will be your ability to make calm, responsible decisions that will determine your success or failure in the markets. 

So once you have a halfway decent strategy, the leg work that will improve your trading isn’t necessarily watching more YouTube videos on technical analysis. Instead, spending time strengthening your relationship with your emotions, taking care of your mind and body, and ensuring that your trading regiment is sustainable with your lifestyle will play a greater role in helping you rise in the ranks from beginner to intermediate-level trader.

Over the last few months, I fell out of sync with my trading regiment. 

Suffering from insomnia for many years, I was running into issues with waking up late in the middle of the night, or not being able to fall asleep until the next day. I started missing my 5:00am NY trading sessions or would wake up foggy and exhausted just to make mindless mistakes, like trading in the wrong direction or miscalculating position sizes. These may seem like silly mistakes, but their costs are severe when they add up over a consistent basis.

Even worse, when one doesn’t sleep well, it’s far more difficult to stay disciplined. Consider how often you’ve made naughty food choices when you didn’t sleep well the night before. The same thing can happen when facing your trading rules. 

I was forcing my lifestyle to my trading routine. 

To do so, I was muddling with my health and my ability to get enough hours of sleep at night.

This impacted other areas of my life as well, as I had to take naps in the afternoon and miss work sessions or class in order to get enough rest.

I forced my lifestyle to accommodate my trading under the assumption that I only knew how to scalp the markets and that New York was the only session that would fit my approach.

This is a big mistake.

You should never have to bend over backward to make trading work for you. 

Remember, this is more of a psychological game than a tactical one. 

Your trading style needs to fit your lifestyle, not the other way around.

Doing otherwise can lead to built-up stress, and other areas of your life going unnurtured, which come back full circle to compromise your ability to make calm, rational choices with your trading account.

Like a pro athlete taking every chance possible to ensure optimal recovery, your trading routine, and your lifestyle need to synergistically work together. If one becomes suboptimal, the other will soon follow. 

So this is all to say that after losing my Funded Trading Plus challenge, I realized it was time to make a change. My trading approach did not work with my life.

Thus, taking a hard look at my geographical location, my health symptoms, my inconsistency with following scalping rules under stress and lack of sleep, I decided that it was time to shift my trading style.

It was time for me to move to higher time frames and find a time of day to trade that wouldn’t impact my sleep.

What I’m Leaving Behind: Scalping

Even though it’s commonly encouraged for beginners to avoid scalping and start with longer-term time frames, I believe there were a few benefits to taking the contrary route. 

  • Lower time frames don’t require an understanding of fundamental analysis – learning how markets move and the kinds of data that impacts them is a heady task. Being able to focus on technical analysis helps prevent information overload when first starting out
  • Scalping requires you to create a trading routine – You need to show up every day to evaluate setups. This helps you create a trading routine that comes with quick feedback. If you are organized about scalping, you should be getting into the habit of writing up a trading journal nearly every day. This immediate data and practice is useful and will help you grow more quickly as you reflect on the role your emotions play in your trading.
  • You can get plenty of practice in a short amount of time. Each session is an opportunity to work on your discipline.
  • You can focus on the movement of the charts during the session. You’ll get more exposure in a shorter amount of time compared to waiting another day to evaluate the next candle. 

While the chances of failure during your first and probably second years of scalping are nearly 100% (Sorry, I just want to be honest with you!), the experience you gain is priceless. 

I believe you learn far more from your trading mistakes than you do your successes. Sure, you will need to invest in trading income as partitioned between different trading courses, mentors, or other learning resources, but another form of tuition is paid through your losses as you gain experience. 

This type of trading tuition is mandatory, there is no avoiding it.

Even if you demo trade (which is highly encouraged!), you will still need to learn how to manage your decisions and emotions when your own money is on the line. Demo trading helps minimize the costs, but it cannot teach you the lesson that comes with feeling the pain of irresponsible losses.

So instead of trying to avoid the storm, sometimes I think it’s appropriate to head right into it and prepare yourself to focus on learning from the experience. Just be sure to do enough prep to avoid killing your account over it.

In this way, I have no regrets about learning how to scalp the markets first. It eventually helped me pass time-sensitive prop firm challenges and make money. The strategies I developed from learning to scalp have made money for my students, as well (many of which are lucky enough to live somewhere that allows them to do so at a preferable time!)

I believe scalping can be a worthwhile, although tricky endeavor. Nonetheless, at this time such a style is no longer appropriate for my lifestyle and trading goals. 

What I’m Moving Towards: Day/Swing Trading the Daily Charts

During the last couple of weeks, I’ve started researching different ways to trade the Daily chart. I’ve bought a couple of courses that focus on using the higher time frames to minimize the time spent in front of the charts while focusing on high probability setups. 

I decided that a 4H or daily chart would be my best option because the NY markets close at 2:00pm PST, in my location. I use charts that follow the NY close on the daily chart, which lets me use the most recently closed candle in my analysis.

This is an optimal time for me to trade because no matter how late I get to bed or how late I sleep in, I’m almost always awake at 2:00pm. 

Another benefit of moving to a daily chart is that there is no rush to take a trade. I have enough time to evaluate the technicals, look at the fundamentals, and pinpoint whether I want to set a limit order or act on the recently closed candle. This dramatically lowers the stress that comes with risking money on a trade. 

I also suffer from pretty severe brain fog, with my thoughts stopping and starting like an Autopia car at Disneyland. When using the daily charts, I can type out my trading ideas and better organize my thoughts about my strategy before taking the trade.

But most importantly, this approach drastically reduces my time in front of the charts. I was in the routine of spending upwards of 3.5 to 4 hours a day with scalping. 

I think it’s pretty common for traders at the 3+ year level to seek to spend less time trading. Trading can be exhausting when done too often and it can feel boring when done right. Taking on longer-term charts usually means less time in front of the screens. This means you can have more time to focus on more important areas in your life and reduce the pressure to act quickly.

Now that I’m focusing on daily candles, I can analyze and set (and forget) multiple trades in under an hour. This is huge – so much time is freed up to better take care of myself and meet the demands of all my other responsibilities. 

My initial impression?

I wish I made the shift sooner! This feels so much more appropriate for my health and living situation than waking up before the sun and grinding out quick trades. 

For a long time I believed the only way to pass a challenge would be through scalping or watching the charts all day. I thought it would be a waste of my experience (and a hit to my profitability) to attempt to learn a whole new approach. 

So too, I was afraid of using discretionary analysis. I didn’t trust myself to learn how to use multiple analysis tools to decide on an optimal setup. I feared that many tools, like trendlines and candlestick patterns can lean subjective. There are so many options that I didn’t know what to choose. I thought I had to be available for every movement. I thought the daily charts only held opportunities for long-term swing trades – some that wouldn’t complete in time for, say, a prop firm challenge or monthly account withdrawal.

Long-time trading professional and educator, Dr. Van Thorpe, always says, “You don’t trade the markets. You trade YOUR BELIEFS about the markets.”

My own beliefs about what I was capable of and what was possible held me back from trying an approach that is utilized by professional traders and investment firms.

And my first week of putting money on the line with a daily chart strategy resulted in a 1.3% profit! Not bad after nearly five weeks of continuous losses!

daily chart strategy

If only I could have let go of my fears and trusted the process, accepted that my condition and my lifestyle may not be appropriate for scalping, I may have been able to better prepare myself BEFORE taking my Funded Trading Plus challenge.

However, there’s always another trade – as long as I continue to succeed in my demo trading and small account trading with the Daily charts, I can attempt this challenge again in the coming months. 

I share this all with you to remind you that you have options. If you are continuing to face drawdowns each month, perhaps it’s time to evaluate your situation and determine whether you’re trading with a style that fits snuggly in your life and accommodates your trading experience. Whether that means going up or down a couple of time frames, or moving away or towards discretionary strategies, sometimes making a big shift is the answer. 

No one is going to be able to tell you what works best for you. You’ll have to learn what approaches are profitable and select those that match your personality and availability. Luckily, there are multiple roads to Rome – many strategies and styles of trading will get you to your profit goals. Keep your mind open and always stay reflective!

I Failed My Funded Trading Plus Challenge – Lessons Learned

I Failed My Funded Trading Plus Challenge – Lessons Learned 3029

I Failed My FTP Challenge – Here’s What I Learned

As of last night’s Asia trading session, I failed my Funded Trading Plus challenge. 

How do I feel?

Actually, after almost two months of battling a drawdown, I feel pretty relieved. 

My challenge was a mess, to put it bluntly. During that time I developed worsening symptoms of my chronic illness and could no longer wake up to trade the NY session (I’m located in Southern California. The NY/London crossover officially starts at 4am here). 

So instead, I tried to trade an end-of-NY-session crossover strategy that I had used in the past but hadn’t fully backtested for post-Covid volatility. That was a dud and further drained my account. 

I also made a switch to trading during the Asia session. I tried using the trend-following strategies I teach in the Scalping course during this time and the results didn’t quite match the preferred London or NY sessions. 

Do you see the pattern in this? 

funded trading plus failed

I made far too many changes during a challenge. Shifting too quickly left me feeling a bit chaotic and I failed myself in my own discipline as I made a few trades that broke my rules amidst feelings of anxiety.

The ideal is to run your challenge with a strategy and system already in place with your discipline well intact. You should have evidence that this process is profitable before starting your challenge.

My experience with this Funded Trading Plus challenge ran against that simple formula.

So when I say I’m relieved, I imply that I feel like I received the outcome that my trading choices deserved. I’m at peace with this result. In the truest sense of the word, this was my karma for behaving like a trader going through retrograde. The way I traded over the last few months was not reflective of the practices of a responsible trader. 

Given my life circumstances, I did the best with what I had and it wasn’t enough to merit a win. 

So now that this first challenge is over, I can take time and space to reflect on the process and decide what to do next.

I intend on taking another Funded Trading Plus challenge, but not necessarily right away. FTP gives you 30 days to “reset” your account. At this time, it seems you get about 20% off of the initial fee for a retry. 

Even if I am not ready to trade right away, because there is no time limit to the challenge, I can sign-up again and wait to start the new challenge. I want to be sure I have evidence that I can be profitable with a new approach before attempting to take it live.

For this entire year, I’ve been thinking about taking my trading to another level. For most of my time as a Forex trader, I’ve depended on mechanical strategies and short time frames to execute scalping trades. 

While this approach helped me to develop a routine, make money, learn to follow my rules, and be procedural about trading, I’m no longer able to maintain the daily routine of a mechanical scalper. With 3+ years in the market, I feel like this next step is appropriate should I prevail as a successful trader over the long-run.

The Next Step: Learn to Trade Like a Professional

As I do more research on the kinds of trading practices kept by professional traders who have decades of experience behind them, I’ve found that about 90% of these individuals:

  • Utilize discretionary trading styles on higher time frames, such as the 1H to Daily charts. 
  • Utilize both fundamental analysis and technical analysis that accounts for the way big money hunts order flows and responds to news
  • Apply a variety of technical analysis tools to understand where to position themselves for high-probability returns: candlestick patterns, trend lines, supply and demand zones, Fibonacci retracements, etc.
  • Mostly use indicators to understand the overall market structure, not necessarily to trigger entries or exits
  • Use multi-timeframe analysis and top-down approach to understanding directional cycles
  • Apply conservative risk management standards (For example, most will risk less than 1% per trade)
  • Are buoyant and can apply analysis to any market setup

At this watershed moment, with a failed long-term prop firm challenge in my peripheral view and a vision for more consistent profitability in the future, I think it’s time to take the next step and dive deep into professional-level trading skills. 

The Beginner’s Mind

Becoming a “Beginner” again is far different 3 years into trading rather than starting out completely fresh as a new trader. There are many things that I intuitively understand from experience, such as dealing with losses, drawdowns, winning streaks, emotions while trading, etc. I’m also comfortable with trading platforms, submitting orders, reading charts, and have a general understanding of nearly every technical tool and trading approach out there.

When you’re first learning to trade, when every concept you come across is new, information overload is common. You don’t know how to prioritize information. It’s easy to decide not to learn something that feels uncomfortable.

The beauty of “starting over” when you already have experience is that you have more situational awareness and knowledge to help conceptualize difficult topics. You’re not exactly starting over, you’re merely adding more information to mental categories that are shallow in depth. 

For example, I may not know how to apply fundamental analysis to my trades just yet, but I am familiar with many economic events that drive markets, such as interest rate decisions, non-farm payroll, retail sales, etc. If I was just starting out and attempting to learn fundamental analysis, these would all be new words and concepts to learn. Instead, at this stage, I am familiar with the terms and their basic meaning – now I want to learn how they all fit together and go deeper on what their numbers entail for market sentiment. 

It’s kind of like when you’re learning a new language and you more easily remember vocabulary that sounds similar to words in your own native tongue. It’s far easier to associate already-known concepts than have to drill an entirely new concept into your head. 

So this is all to say that learning how to trade like a professional is a process. It’s not one that you can Bootcamp in six months. There’s far too much information to acquire and too many processes to practice. Dealing with your psychology is also something you can only master with experience and time. 

It’s not embarrassing for me to say that I’ve failed this challenge because I’m still relatively young in my career as a trader. I share this with you so that you can reflect on your own time in the markets and give yourself some slack if you’re not where you thought you would be by this time. Trading is not easy. If it was, more people would routinely profit. I also hope that some of you will be influenced to join me on this learning adventure, as long as you’re ready to scale your knowledge. 

My Trading To-Do List for the Next Few Months (and Even Years)

  1. Daily read books and take courses offered by professional-level traders who have a solid trading record. Some possibilities include:
    1. Anna Coulling (“Three-Dimensional Approach to Forex”)
    2. Kathy Lien (“Day Trading and Swing Trading the Currency Market”)
    3. Brent Donnelly (“The Art of Currency Trading”)
    4. Karen Foo (“Fundamentals of Currency Trading”)
    5. Research other traders who have a solid track record, are professional not only in their trading style but the way they hold themselves and conduct their Forex education business. Academic background in finance is preferred but not necessary.
  2. Find a trading approach that compliments my lifestyle
    1. Trade 1H – Daily charts for entries so I can limit my trading session to about an hour a day, in the afternoon when NY closes and I am certain to be awake
    2. Mixes fundamental analysis with technical analysis – I actually enjoy reading the news. Having a sense of why the markets are moving helps build confidence in a trade idea
  3. Find a trading mentor who I trust
    1. Ideally, this is someone who can regularly review my trading decisions and pinpoint flaws and strengths in my thinking process
    2. Is someone who has a lifestyle and approach that mirrors my own ideals (Calm, genuinely kind, values financial freedom over materialism, enjoys the art of teaching and mentoring – isn’t in it just for the money)
  4. Be more scrupulous in tracking not only my trades but also what I am doing to develop my education as a Forex trader.
    1. Sometimes it’s easy to “do more” without really learning from the experience. I want to make sure what I am learning is directly connected to trading improvement and actually has an impact on my trading over the long-run
    2. Sometimes it’s easy to not do enough or to avoid the difficult work. I want to be sure to go slow with topics that I don’t immediately understand and give myself enough time and patience to work on the tough stuff. I anticipate this being an issue with learning fundamental analysis
    3. My tracking tools can include: Trading journal (trade stats, overarching trading idea, emotions and thoughts that arise while trading, etc.); Weekly reflection of best/worst trades, what I researched and learned that week; Forex education journal (Jot down a few lines in a log each day as to what I studied, what insights I had, and how I spent my time learning)

This is merely the blueprint of what my game plan will entail as I begin again and learn new Forex strategies that may push beyond what I was comfortable doing in the past. I hope to document this process and share it with you all. I don’t doubt that some of what I come across will also benefit you in your own trading. 

Sometimes it’s the big failures that act as kindle for the fire that will light you up and motivate you to reach a new level. Whether it’s blowing up your account, failing a challenge, experiencing a major life change, or facing a long drawdown. Sometimes big problems help us open up to solutions that we might have rejected in the past, out of fear or laziness, or even the belief that we’re not capable of learning.

In the aftermath of a serious problem, one option is to stay caught up in emotions. Another is to use it as a springboard to learn deeply from the experience and make new choices. Don’t forget, you can always get value out of your failures by reflecting upon what happened, taking responsibility for your role in the outcome, and using that knowledge for your improvement. 

Help Protect LGBTQ Traders Online!

Help Protect LGBTQ Traders Online! 10

[TLDR: You can help put an end to homophobic and transphobic harassment of LGBTQ traders by calling out, flagging, and standing up to hateful comments and slurs in trading forums, groups, chats, etc. If you run a trading group and support the LGBTQ community, please let it be explicitly known in your group rules that you do not tolerate homophobic and transphobic commentary. Allies can help make a major difference!]

June is Pride Month Across the World

Some of you may or may not know that June is officially Pride Month for the LGBTQ community.

This is a month, when all across the world, anyone who identifies as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer celebrates together through parties and local festivals on different days of the month.

It is a very public celebration in part because it’s an opportunity to reaffirm that LGBTQ people will no longer hide or quietly be subject to violence or persecution.

Just this year, the treasury building in the US raised a pride flag on its mast to signify this special month.

Janet Yellen raies pride flag over treasuryJanet yellen raises pride flag over treasury

Now, some of you may have been wondering for some time now (perhaps even a minute or two since clicking on this post) whether I’m gay.

To answer your question: No, I’m not gay.

Am I bisexual?

Yes!

[Oh sorry, I mean YASSS.]

Personally, for my entire life, I have found certain people attractive regardless of their gender. I won’t say something so resolute as “I’m only attracted to a person’s personality” because that’s not true, I have physical preferences and tend to be drawn to people due to a mix of physical and emotional reasons, most importantly where their heart is and whether I can trust them. (Like most people do!)

I’ve been in serious relationships with both men and women, and am currently in a deeply committed relationship with a dude.

lgbt pride financial

Two Important Points

Whew.

You have no idea how hard this is to share, knowing I’m releasing it to the most heterosexual and male viewership that is the greater trading community.

Which also helps me segue into the core reason why I decided to write this post. 

The thing is, and you may have already seen or experienced this in the world of trading forums and groups, is that there are many traders out there who are homophobic and transphobic and often use those feelings to belittle or attack other traders or just spew hateful reactions into trading forums.

day trading homophobic

It is difficult to learn from a trading course or group when you feel unsafe and uncertain about communicating with other traders.

So I have two main reasons for making this video instead of focusing on business as usual.

What I want to emphasize today is that if you are an LGBTQ trader, you are not alone.

There are plenty of us out there and please reach out to me if you know of trading forums or groups where we can better connect and maybe build a private group if there aren’t any that are longstanding. I’d be more than happy to do that through the Disciplined FX platform, so please let me know if I can be of help in any way.

WE NEED YOUR HELP!

Second, and more importantly, I am crying out for help to any trader who is not part of the LGBTQ community but feels supportive to make an effort to call out and flag homophobic and transphobic comments on trading boards, and in trading chats. If you are someone who runs your own trading community, please monitor and remove these hateful posts in your own group.

Also, If you run a trading community and support the LGBTQ community, please be vocal about this, and explicitly state in your group rules that you do not tolerate homophobic and transphobic comments.

This is something I’ve included in the Disciplined FX group, as well.

We don’t know if we’re safe or welcomed if it’s not said.

While I am here to mostly talk about LGBTQ issues in trading communities, I also want to note that this runs true for women traders as well, who are often belittled or a target of unwanted sexual attention just by way of being involved in trading groups.

Please be an active ally because you are often one of our greatest sources of safety and support.

I want to end this post on a note of hope and elation for how far we’ve come, how amazing younger generations seem to be at accepting LGBTQ people and being able to feel more secure in exploring sexuality and gender. (Y’all amazing!) And also how amazing it is that some older generations seem to finally come to a place of acceptance and peace as past societal biases are let go of.

This is not to say that there isn’t still progress to be made. Over 375 transgender individuals were killed last year solely as an intended hate crime. Gay and lesbian marriages and even the right to be LGBTQ is not recognized in many countries still.

A global arc towards peace and loving acceptance will only continue to progress when allies and LGBTQ folk work together to continue to influence and change the minds and hearts of those who weaponize belief systems out of hatred.

It is both exciting and terrifying to say this publicly but I hope I am just one of many traders now and in the future who can help democratize trading resources and education for everyone.

I wish you all a happy pride month, paint your ema’s rainbow for the next four weeks, and I wish you all nothing but the best of strength and luck. Take care!

Sean Passed with the DFX Strategy!

Sean Passed with the DFX Strategy! 182

Sean came to Disciplined FX in 2021 with trading experience (both as a trader and a Forex educator) extending back to the 1990’s.

At this point in his trading, he had seen it all: 

  • Strategies with too many indicators
  • Strategies with unclear price action rules
  • Strategies that focused only on the London session

But while working in IT and needing to manage the duties of a full-time job alongside a trading account, he ran into issues following the majority of strategies that require spending hours of the day or night looking for set-ups. 

He was looking for a strategy that was consistent, sturdy enough to grow an account or pass a trading challenge, but only involved one or two trades per day, if that. He also wanted to be able to trade during the New York session, which better suited his schedule.

Sean tested and went live with the Disciplined FX Scalping Strategy with the intention of becoming a funded trader so that he can eventually leave the corporate world and have an independent life.

What Sean likes about the DFX Scalping Strategy and trading methodology:

  • The strategy is simplified, focuses on basic pairs
  • The trading rules are clear
  • He could continue trading the 5m chart, the timeframe he’s used for years
  • The strategy works
  • The Discord group is friendly and helpful

In the Spring of 2022, Sean signed up for his first prop trading challenge with Fidelcrest. This included a two-part challenge, with the first part requiring a 10% profit and the second part requiring another 10% profit, before becoming fully funded. 

Using the once-per-day DFX Scalping Strategy on the AUD/USD (plus a couple of trades off the EUR/USD), Sean not only passed both the challenge and verification round for his first $50k funded account…

He also passed a SECOND challenge. 

We were so excited to see his post in our Discord group:

fidelcrest challenge passed

After a very enticing and fun 2-hour video chat together, Sean shared with me some of the most important factors that led to his passing multiple prop trading challenges. While prior experience and long-standing discipline with trading helped him follow the strategy to a “T”, he also mentioned these important points that ultimately led him to become a funded trader:

Tips for Becoming a Funded Trader:

  1. Be patient – It’s not helpful to try to force something, be it a trade or a strategy. It’s far better to wait and let the process unfold
  2. Be stable – Stick to the strategy and process. If a signal is missed or if you’re in a hurry, don’t take the trade. (Insight: Stable trading feels boring! Shouldn’t be flying off the handle, on edge, etc.)
  3. Make your own decisions – Trading needs to be about you and your decisions, as well as your confidence and preferred setup. You don’t need to listen to someone for your trades or get caught up in what other people are doing. Stick with what works for you.
  4. Be consistent – If your strategy requires you to be in front of the charts at a certain hour each day, you need to make sure you show up every day. Don’t miss a session.
  5. Don’t waste time licking your wounds – Never get caught up in one trade, short losing streaks can turn around. Just make sure you’re coming to the next session when you’re rested and have a new mindset.

Trading for profit is no joke. Trading to pass a challenge is an even greater feat. Yet not an impossible one. Sean is an exemplary trader and his results are a reminder of the payoff that comes with persistence and patience when trading over the long term. We’re very lucky to have him in the DFX community!

 

Tips for Passing a Funded Trading Plus Challenge

Tips for Passing a Funded Trading Plus Challenge 137

A few weeks ago, I started a prop trading challenge with Funded Trading Plus.

I am an affiliate with this firm, and made the decision to help increase awareness of this prop firm, because I think it’s one of the most realistic prop trading models for both the trader and the firm. The trader is given minimal rules while drawdown rules protect the firm from losing money on funded accounts. It’s a win-win for both parties.

[Use code “DFX10” to get 10% off of your challenge with Funded Trading Plus]

Unlike most prop firms, Funded Trading Plus’ challenges don’t come with a time limit.

This is huge!

A lack of time is one of the reasons why so many traders fail their FTMO or MyForexFunds challenges. When you need to meet a quota (and a large quota at 10%, mind you), suddenly you’re dealing with psychological challenges that exceed the mere feat of trading for profit.

I speak from experience, having both failed and passed 30-day prop trading models. The strategy I used gave signals maybe two or three times a week (which leads to a better win rate, but perhaps not at a speed that will meet the profit requirement in 30 days) – In order to pass I bumped up a more conservative 0.50-1% risked per trade to 2% or more.

I believe many 30-day challenges force traders to trade recklessly or change the way they trade in order to meet a quota that most investment firms would be overjoyed to hit in 6 months.

Thus, many traders fail. Some pass, but most return to more conservative trading styles in order to stay funded.

Now Funded Trading Plus is pummeling the prop trading industry to make challenges more realistic.

With no time limit or minimum time requirement, you can hit the 10% profit target in as much or as little time as you like, so long as you commit to avoiding the (currently) 3% daily drawdown and 6% overall relative drawdown.

Thus, my trading plan for this challenge is to take very small positions at a slow pace. (If you want to trade my strategy with me and be able to chat with me through your journey, join the DFX Scalping Course)

Whether it takes two months or a whole year, I don’t mind waiting to achieve a funded account because instead of letting the prop firm dictate my trading plan, I can trade in a style that I know is responsible, strategic in how much is risked per trade, and lets the market decide when I will profit.

With this model, I don’t need to pray that this month’s market will fit my strategies and preference for trend-following. I can stick around for the better months and survive through the ones that aren’t a fit for my style.

So here I am, three weeks into trading this challenge, and as I evaluate what’s working and not working, I have a few tips to share with you that you’ll want to keep in mind when trading with this particular prop firm’s challenges.

5 Tips to Pass a Funded Trading Plus Challenge

1. Trade according to a strategy that works for you, not what will offer the quickest return

As I mentioned above, Funded Trading Plus offers unlimited time to pass your challenge.

In this way, you don’t need to change your style in order to pass. If you prefer to wait for perfect day trading setups, you don’t need to force yourself to learn how to scalp in order to meet a deadline.

If you like trading the London session more than New York, then focus on that, you don’t need to stretch yourself to do both.

The key is to trade in a way that’s familiar and comfortable for you and doesn’t pull on your heartstrings much when you lose.

From there, use statistics from the strategies that work for you to help you decide what strategy you’ll use for this challenge.

Note: It’s important to remember that this firm offers 1:30 leverage, so if you’re scalping, you may need to risk less than what you’re used to in order to avoid using too much margin or accumulating too many commission costs.funded trading plus

2. Don’t worry about finishing according to a schedule

Let me repeat – let the market decide when your strategy will let you win.

Adding a time limit only frustrates and causes stress. This stress may inspire you to break your trading rules in order to speed up the process.

We don’t want that. It’s a recipe for disaster (again, speaking from experience).

Some of my best trading occurs when I get into a tempo – for me, this means getting one or two signals a day, at least 3 out of 5 days a week. When I try to break this tempo, by adding more strategies or instruments to trade, it throws me off.

You shouldn’t need to change how you trade in order to meet a challenge. Ideally, you want to go into a challenge with your strategy all laid out, with no surprises.

Be prepared to let the market guide you – be okay with passing in one month or five. Your strategy and risk management tactics will help you be able to predict how long you’ll need, but stay flexible in the event it takes longer than planned.

A relaxed trader can make more rational trading decisions than one that is stressed and feels rushed.

3. Download the MT4/MT5 tools specifically created for the 8-Cap platform

Funded Trading Plus has options in the FAQ section to download a position size calculator that you can use on your demo account.

Even if, like me, you depend on a Trading View chart or some other charting service to make your trading decisions, you’ll want to be able to quickly execute orders on the MT4 or MT5 platform for the challenge.

funded trading plusA position size calculator is a magnificent tool for minimizing the number of inputs you need to type before submitting an order.

The firm has instructions on how to install and use this and other tools found in their FAQ section.

4. Make sure you completely understand the rules for both the challenge and the funded account that follows.

While we’re on the topic, just go ahead and read the whole FAQ section. Study its contents like a final exam that’s going to pass or fail your senior year of high school. Neither a year of high school nor a prop trading challenge is enjoyable to repeat, you might as well do it right the first time.

If you need to wait to prepare for your challenge, that’s a smart move, too.

Funded Trading Plus has account rules that are slightly different from most of the popular prop firms available. You need to make sure you understand when and how their relative drawdown works.

It may take a few times to understand exactly how their relative drawdown and withdrawal rules play out, but I think I summarized it properly in this article.

If anything seems unclear, reach out to Funded Trading Plus’ support team. They’re friendly and can give you the most accurate answers, better than anything you’ll hear second-hand from myself or other traders.

5. Risk less than you think you should

Assuming you are using a profitable strategy (which you know works because you’re already comfortable trading it live), you probably have an idea of how it performs on a day-to-day basis.

While you’re trading a small account, let’s say $5,000, you may be comfortable risking 2-3% per trade. While professional traders recommend risking less, it’s understandable to risk $150 on a trade. It’s far easier to find a way to make back $150 in the real world than it is $6,000, should you trade the same 3% on a $200k account.

However, while time gives you freedom, Funded Trading Plus doesn’t want you to go nuts – they have a strict 3% daily drawdown rule, which is far tighter than FTMO’s 5% or MFF’s 6%.

 

My advice: risk up to half of what you think you need.

So if you think you’re comfortable risking up to 2% per day, see if you can get it down to 1% or less. And that’s if you’re taking only one, maybe two trades.

I suggest this because this prop firm is asking you to think long-term. Their rules are set up to filter the profitable traders from the one-hit wonders and irresponsible ones. You’re going to need to prove that your discipline and your strategy are profitable over the long run. If you combine small risk per trade with the bonus suggestion below, you’ll be golden.

If you’re scalping or trading in a way where you can get multiple signals in one day after many days of nothing, you may need to risk 0.75% per trade or less.

In my ideal model of 1-2 trades a day occurring over 3-5 days per week, I would risk no more than 0.75% per trade.

BONUS: Use strategies that let you maximize your profit return.

This is why I like trend-following strategies – because you can take partial exits at fixed points and then let the rest run with a trailing stop. Or with a rule, like closing the rest of the trade after it pulls back and closes over a moving average.

By maximizing your return per trade, you can risk as little as possible and still hit the profit target in a reasonable amount of time. You won’t be stressed out like traders who are using the small-account rule of 2% per trade.

Final Thoughts

There are prop firms out there that are making bank off of the human desire to make money fast.

You can avoid this trap altogether by not prop trading.

However, prop trading can also be a really great way to make income comparable to a salary without having to amass a ton of equity. It can be a bridge to building up your own large account.

I believe Funded Trading Plus offers one of the most realistic structures for a trading challenge that you can find. If you are responsible, patient, and willing to navigate the expedition with courage, a funded account is waiting for you out there in your future.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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