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.

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.

A 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.

This seems to be the year to be a prop trading firm.

Nearly every other week, a new firm comes out with trading rules that seem to surpass the industry standard set by FTMO and the 5%ers. Prop firms can be a blessing for responsible and profitable traders who seek to quit their jobs to make a living from their skills yet lack the capital to make such a lifestyle shift.

As firms compete with one another to provide better returns or more lenient rules to us traders, they still need to craft ways to sift irresponsible and costly traders from responsible ones who are capable of making a profit for both themselves and the firm. Therefore, each firm’s funding model will come with trade-offs – perhaps in lieu of a higher profit split return to the trader, there may be requirements to trade a minimum number of days each month or pass a challenge with a strict drawdown requirement.

It’s likely that whatever firm you trade with, there will be aspects of the arrangement that feel suboptimal. You’ll have to decide which trade-offs are worth the benefits in order to return a profit from a funded account.

Keep this in mind as you seek the best prop firm structured for your trading style and strategy – it’s likely that certain models will fit certain strategies and risk management approaches better than others. You may need to research a number of firms before selecting your first challenge.

For the purpose of this article, I want to share with you a (relatively new) prop firm that has recently caught my attention.

Note: I am an affiliate of Funded Trading Plus. I personally chose this arrangement because I believe this firm has tremendous potential for offering a realistic prop trading challenge that people can more comfortably pass than other reputable firms like FTMO or MyForexFunds. 

<<I’m excited to be able to offer you a 10% discount on your Funded Trading Plus challenge – Just be sure to use DFX10 as a coupon code at checkout!>>

I’ve taken time to chat with both of the owners of the firm and hope to arrange an interview in the future – they are both retail traders who understand the kinds of difficulties retail traders face. One of them mentioned to me something along the lines of, “We’ve built the prop firm that I would personally want to trade with.” 

As I’ve mentioned in another YouTube video where I compared FTP to FTMO and the 5%ers, this firm is like the best of both a challenge-model and a long-term model. You’ll understand why in just a moment, as I list 5 pro’s and 3 con’s that this firm exhibits. It’s up to you to decide whether the benefits of this firm outweigh its trade-offs. I hope this simple list can help you organize your thoughts on the matter.

Let’s begin!

5 Pro’s of the Funded Trading Plus

1. No time limit or time requirement – FTMO has set the standard for requiring traders to hit a 10% profit target within 30 days. If you’ve been trading for some time, you’ll probably realize that earning 10% in only a month is quite an accomplishment. JP Morgan would come knocking down your door to hire you if you were capable of returning 120% per year. 

A professional trader working for a firm usually aims for something closer to 20% per year. That comes out to 1.6% per month, on average. So if you’re looking to make sure you hit 10% in a single month you’ll likely need to risk more than you’re used to or use other risk management strategies to ensure a pass. (I passed both of my FTMO accounts by using a range of risk % per trade, from 0.5% up to 2.5% – this was not easy to stomach some days)

So, when I first saw that FTP was removing all time-related requirements, I didn’t believe it at first. It was such a relief to see a firm remove time from the already difficult challenge of aiming for a profit target while avoiding a drawdown. Without a time requirement, you can aim to pass the challenge as fast or as slowly as you like. This is an added benefit for swing traders or part-time traders with a day job who may need a few months to hit the target. 

2. Option for a 1-Phase Challenge – Funded Trading Plus offers a couple of different account options, one of which, the Experienced Trader, only requires one phase to pass and achieve a funded status. This can be beneficial, as starting over with a second account can be surprisingly difficult for traders when you can’t use the capital you’ve already earned to mitigate future losses. However, I believe that this firm still has its own way to include a verification stage – I’ll explain why I believe this when I list the cons.

3. You can use EA’s, Algo’s, Trading Bots, and Trade Copiers – this is a boon for traders who aren’t available to trade high probability setups but depend on technology to assist in making these trades happen. Many firms will deny the use of these tools, but FTP invites you to trade with them, so long as you are still the architect of your trading decisions (and not some bloke who you paid to do your challenge for you).

4. They Accept Crypto – It seems more traders are utilizing crypto as a regular-use currency or investment. You can pay the challenge fee (which is refunded when you receive your first split) using Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin, Tether and USDC.

5. Trading View to come – Most firms only offer MT4/MT5, which have been the industry gold standard for decades (personally, I think they’re outdated) but when it comes to UX, Trading View is likely the best platform currently available. Most notably, their order forms are practical and easy to use to set up stop losses and take profit targets. FTP is working with Trading View to be able to offer this as a platform soon, but the date for launch is TBD.

BONUS: This firm is relatively inexpensive, especially when considering how quickly you can scale your account. Since #5 is still in the works, I’ll give you another solid benefit that is already true to the firm. FTP offers affordable options for a variety of funded accounts and will double the account size for every 10% profit made on the account. FTMO is currently charging about $600 USD for a $100k account. FTP is charging $499 (or $449 if you use the code DFX10!). 

These are just a handful of the reasons why I think FTP is a remarkable prop firm and possibly one of the best firms you can trade with, given what you deem reasonable for trade-offs. I recommend checking out their site and reaching out to their customer support to learn about more than what I’ve listed here.

The Cons of Trading with Funded Trading Plus

Now that we’ve covered some of FTP’s perks, let’s talk about a couple of cons that have stuck out to me as potentially difficult roadblocks to staying funded with or profiting form this firm. I’ve noticed that a lot of firms are pretty responsive to customer/user feedback, so there’s always a possibility that some of these rules will change in the future or be mitigated with the addition of greater perks.

1. 1:10 leverage only – If you’re a scalper, like me, leverage can be your friend when you are taking 5 pip stop losses. It helps abate some of the commission fees and boost profits with these trades. I don’t take trades every day, and often only have one or two signals, so sometimes I lean on leverage to hit certain profit targets. 

HOWEVER – as I was going over their prop firm model, I remembered something important about this firm – there are no time limits. Thus, instead of rushing to hit a 10% target in one month, it’s better to take smaller trades and hit the target when your strategy lets you, not because of some abstract cutoff time. In this way, we don’t need leverage – we can risk less % per trade and practice the responsible trading styles of institutions (using usually less than 1% risked per trade). 

We need to remember that we need to evaluate each firm within its own context. As much as we want to compare apples to apples, the parameters of each firm can change whether it’s useful or not to have more or less leverage, time, drawn down, etc. So having a 1:100 leverage isn’t as crucial for a challenge without a time limit, when compared to something like FTMO, where you’ll need every boost you can get to finish within 30 days. This concept applies to the next cons, as well.

2. Complicated Drawdown Rules – Instead of using a set and easy to remember, fixed drawdown (such as FTMO uses, requiring funded traders to stay above a 10% drawdown from the initial balance), FTP first requires a relative drawdown (this means that the drawdown increases as profit on the account increases) for the first 5% of profit. After that amount, the drawdown is fixed and will stay set as your initial balance. This also means that you cannot withdraw all of your profit from the account. This leads into the next issue..

3. Withdrawal is Affected by Drawdown Rules – Here’s the example that FTP shares on their website:

Remember how I said I believe FTP has a way to include a verification stage (see Pro #2)? This is it. It’s my understanding that this is meant to motivate you to keep the first 5% of profit you make in the account. This feels like a verification stage to me since you’re forced to keep profit in the account and won’t be able to withdraw it without penalty. From the firm’s point of view, having the trader leave profit in the account helps offset any future loss on their part – you’ll only be risking money that was won. It’s pretty smart as a business model and if you can accept this trade-off, recognizing that you would have to trade an extra 5% on most 2-phase challenges anyways, then you’re not really being deprived of anything. 

Nonetheless, this greatly put me off the first time I read the rule (with brows furrowed and head hurting). It only made more sense to me after sitting on the information for a while and having an insight while making a review video. Most people won’t take the time to do the math, though – there’s a saying in business that “If you confuse – you lose”. I think most traders will look at these rules and psychologically put up a wall. It could even be a deciding factor to avoid trading with the FTP in lieu of another firm (even though they’re signing up for the same setup in another 2-phase challenge). So I think it’s probably in FTP’s best interest to eventually change this rule or find a way to make it easier to understand and accept.

As with the theme of this article, your choice of firm will always come with a series of trade-offs. To access a benefit that better suits your trading style – such as needing more time to hit a profit target – you may need to learn how to maneuver an initially confusing withdrawal ruleset. I hope that the pro’s and con’s listed here can help you discover whether Funded Trading Plus is your best prop firm choice. I know for myself that I hope to trade an account with them soon. (Just waiting on Trading View!)

Again, if you can see how the added benefits of this firm help it stand apart from what’s currently available, and that its cons are actually realistic and fair for the industry, then be sure to use the coupon code DFX10 for 10% off of your challenge!

I wish you nothing but the best of strength and luck.

And always do your due diligence!

See you in the markets 😉

I want to bring forth a question that a friend of mine brought to me.

He’s an options trader who just got started trading this past year.

He asked me a question that I’ve asked myself, too, and that you may be asking yourself, as well.

He looked at me and said:

“How do you keep going?”

Like, it’s tough when you’re first starting out.

You’ve probably made some great wins, which is why you’re like really into trading now, because you know there’s money to be made. It’s possible that you’ve experienced this, but then you’ve also experienced losses. You’ve experienced days where you had an idea of how you were going to trade that day and you made a plan to yourself that you were going to follow all your rules…But then in front of the markets, you just lose it.

This happens. Over and over again.

This is the point on your journey that I want to address.

<<Want to read a FREE excerpt from “The Seven Habits of Successful Day Traders” on how to fix 8 Common trading mistakes? CLICK HERE>>

How do you keep going?

There are going to be plenty of times in your trading career where, because you either made mistakes or because your strategy is failing, you’re going to question whether this was even a good choice to get into the market in the first place. Usually, this question comes with feelings behind it – there’s a lot of shame, maybe guilt. And fear that, “what if I just wasted a couple of thousand bucks for on something that’s just never going to happen?”

I want to share some research on leadership that I just read for one of my courses in my Ph.D. program. The study was on optimism, as it is experienced by business leaders, CEOs, and entrepreneurs.

It turns out that – no surprise, here – business leaders tend to be far more optimistic than those who work for them.

This can be frustrating when you’re working for someone who may think very highly of where the business can go and yet if you’re the one doing the work and crunching the numbers you know the reality is far more unpredictable and messy than anything that person can envision.

The text talked about how sometimes having an optimistic leader is very important because that optimism can help pull the business along, especially during tough times.

So if you think about your trading as your business – you’re the CEO! You’re also the CFO, the Chief Financial Officer, you are the technician – you’re kind of a little bit of everybody wrapped into one.

But most importantly, you lead your own trading business. No one else.

I want you to stay optimistic.

That’s the answer I gave my friend. I told him that, basically, you have to be a little bit delusional to keep going and to assume that you’re going to make it.

I  bring up the leadership studies because I see this in other areas of leadership, too – people who are religious leaders, people who are politicians, they kind of need a little bit of ego and a little bit of self-certainty despite the evidence, in order to plow through, keep going and not lose faith when things go wrong.

Try This Instead

So my recommendation is to keep returning to the part of you that believes in yourself – that part of you said, “I’m doing this! I’m going to make this happen!” which was so enthusiastic when you first started trading.

I want you to return to that mindset, but with a caveat – I want you to also keep asking yourself, “How do I improve? how can I learn more? what are the people who have what I want – the traders who are passing challenges, running big accounts-  what did they do to get to that place?

Of those things, what can I also do as well?

So have confidence in your ability to learn. Have confidence, trust, and faith in your ability to figure it out over the long run. You might not get immediate results tomorrow on your next trade  – you might not even get immediate results by next month. Instead, think big picture and trust in your ability to keep going.

Lastly, I’ll say that I don’t have faith without action – I’m not going to believe in myself as becoming a better trader if I just keep doing the same things over and over and over again. I want to do research, I want to learn more, I want to always be reflecting and learning from myself and my own experiences, too.

Don’t lose hope – you’re going to have a mixed range of feelings about your trades and this process, the whole way through. Even now, a couple of years in, I still have some days when I just want to have a steady paycheck, but, in the end, it’s worth it.

I have faith in you, I encourage you to keep trying, to go learn something new if you’re feeling bad about your trading (right now!)

Go out and learn something new that can give evidence to yourself that you’ll be a different trader next time with this new knowledge.

<<Want to read a FREE excerpt from “The Seven Habits of Successful Day Traders” on how to fix 8 Common trading mistakes? CLICK HERE>>

Okay, I have a question for you.

Let me preface this by reminding you of the kinds of risks you probably take just to make it in the markets.

Maybe you’ve already lost hundreds of dollars through day trading, or even thousands of dollars. Or maybe even hundreds of thousands of dollars. My guess is that you’re trading for a purpose since no one intentionally seeks to lose money for no good reason. 

Whoever said money can’t buy happiness has probably never had to pay 6 figures in student loans, raise kids as a single parent, or try to make ends meet below the poverty line.

A lot of us got interested in trading because we’re looking for a way out of financial struggles.

We’re willing to put up with drawdowns because we believe we’ll be able to make it over the long run.

But let me ask you this – Would you wagger your life to pay off all of your debts?

While you may automatically say no, the characters of the 2021 South Korean drama Squid Game beg to differ. In this blood bath of a psychological thriller, Squid Game follows the story of contestants who are so desperate to pay off significant debt that they are willing to sign up to play children’s games in order to win their freedom. The catch, though, is that if they break any rules of each game, they are automatically killed on the spot.

This is by far one of the most jaw-dropping and binge-worthy shows I’ve watched all year, and if you haven’t seen it yet, I recommend checking it out on Netflix. Also, if you haven’t seen this show yet, I recommend that you pause this video now, and go see the entire first season because there are some mega spoilers in this post.

Repeat, this is a spoiler alert, please stop now if you want to enjoy the suspense of watching this show without knowing what’s going to happen next.

The element of curiosity and surprise is what makes this show so enticing.

5 Lessons from Squid Game That Apply to Day Trading

Okay, now that you’ve been thoroughly forewarned, let’s go over some of the most important lessons from Squid Game, a game with the odds against them, that can help us become smart and savvy traders as we attempt to survive a game where the odds are against us.

I’m going to draw connections from five different aspects and moments from this show and will explain how they relate to day trading situations, while also pointing out practical applications for your own trading.

Let’s get started.

1) General Tactics and Strategies

So I want to begin with a very general observation of the kinds of tactics and strategies that competitive players use to survive from game to game.

This was apparent in the first game of red-light greenlight but confirmed with the second Dalgona sugar cookie game.

As long as you’re following the rules, you can get creative by using other players or tricks and uncommon strategies to beat the game. A mix of creative strategy and luck often kept a player alive. Brute force alone left one doom to the fate of a black box. Other traits, such as being cunning, creative, connecting with one another, and always, always staying alert of opportunities helped the main characters make it to the final rounds.

Day trading can be similar.

Just showing up and putting on a trade without a plan and thinking you’ll be okay if you just watch it and hold through is going to drain your account fast. If you want to survive as a day trader, you need to have a plan, that is, a strategy and a system for reflecting on your trades, such as the one I teach in the Disciplined FX Scalping Strategy Course, and you’ll need to think on your feet in case that plan fails.

Thus, you need to be diligent about your risk management. This means that you should focus on a strategy that uses a specific set-up or combination of indicators to highlight high probability trades. You don’t need to catch every move, you just need to focus on performing that strategy right.

You can’t take twenty trades a day in order to brute force your way to profit. You have to prepare a creative plan and be willing to choose risk management over impulse, predefining how much you’ll risk per trade, as well as where you’ll set up your stop loss and take profit targets.

2) Be Mindful of Who Influences You

It’s also beneficial to have a community you can connect with while you trade, so long as those traders aren’t bullies and actually know how to learn from mistakes with humility.

Speaking of good connections, the second trading lesson comes from witnessing the wackadoo audacity of Han Minyeo.

This intense gal is coy and abrasive, she hooks up with the big gang bully Jang Deok-Su, who thinks he can use her as a pawn but ultimately ends up losing his life when she gets her revenge during the glass bridge game.

From this experience, we can reflect on the importance of not getting mixed up with untrustworthy brokers, toxic forums, scammy social media traders, or too-good-to-be-true offers from unreputable prop firms and signal providers.

Be choicey about who and what influences you.

It’s important to have high standards for the resources you seek to learn to trade from.

You should be able to trust that a person or a firm genuinely wants to help you, especially if you’re looking to do business with them.

Furthermore, be mindful of the people you choose to tell about your trading experiences. There are some friends and family that may not be supportive of your choice to learn to trade and will feed you demotivating discouragement that can trip up your trading psychology during a drawdown.

Ideally, after you explain the learning curve that comes with developing trading skills, you’ll have people in your inner circle who trust you and support you in your decision, but this isn’t always realistic.

Again, it’s better to share your experiences with a few chosen people who are positive and supportive rather than shout it across your personal social media platforms and hope someone will care.

3) Wait for Confirmation

Next, our third example is from the glass bridge challenge.

This is more of a technical analysis axiom than general trading advice, but the point is that you don’t want to be the first person on the glass bridge.

The more people who test the steps, the more likely you’ll make it across because the path will be shown to you. This can be a metaphor for following a trend or a breakout area.

You don’t want to be the first one in there – you should wait for confirmation before entering a trade.

Whether it comes from breaking and retesting a support zone in a trend or waiting for a confluence of multiple indicators with price action, you’ll likely want to have a few tools that can test the pattern and tell you if it’s clear to go.

Responsible traders are patient and will wait for the perfect setup before entering a trade.

4) Don’t Forget Who Runs The Show

Fourth, we couldn’t run this video without talking about some of the bigger picture structures that control the games in the first place.

You should know, that if you are involved with any financial market, be it stocks, forex, crypto, real estate, you can assume that somewhere some very rich men are betting on your failure.

So it comes as no surprise in Squid Game that the entire system of games runs on the desire of rich sociopaths who are so disconnected from society in their own self-grandeur and disregard for the care of living people, that they find amusement and joy out of betting on who will live and who will die through playing a series of children’s games.

As retail day traders, we should never forget that we are merely Remora fish swinging alongside great big sharks who control where we are heading.

There are big banks and investment firms that have large stakes in every single market and it’s basically up to them to decide which direction the market is going. As retail day traders who trade in a whole year a very small fraction of what those institutions trade in a single hour, we do not want to go against their choice of direction.

It’s often advised that new and novice traders stick with a trend as these are high probability moments where all the big players are in agreement.

We also need to be mindful of black boxes, the algorithmic trading that these big players use to make automatic trades based on the other positions in a market, and therefore stay away from ranging and low volume markets. 

Okay, now for our last comparison. I’m giving you one final warning that this is the ultimate of ultimate spoiler alerts for this show.

If you haven’t seen the series, stop right now, because I’m going to give away the ending to the first season of squid game.

This is your last chance to stop now!

Okay, you’ve been warned!

5) Know Your Goals

So I think this one is a bit more meta than the others and involves genuinely reflecting on why you want to make money in the first place.

At the end of this first season of Squid Game, the big reveal is that the jovial, light-hearted, likeable old man in the game is actually the number one sociopath who put the whole kitten-kaboodle pay-per-murder-view show together in the first place.

(I mean, we should have seen this coming, he did a pretty good job position sizing his way through the marble game, that sly ol’ fox. )

He explains that after making so much money, he lost joy in life and couldn’t find excitement in the risk and reward of common experiences. It took having his life on the line to actually feel something again.

And I think this is a great reminder to us as traders to have an end-game in mind.

You need to routinely ask yourself why are you trading and what amount of money do you need in life to meet basic needs, to finally get out of debt, to have a comfortable lifestyle, to be able to invest in the future of humankind, to leave a legacy, and to live out your dreams.

By actually sitting down and calculating the cost of your dream life, you may discover that you don’t need millions of dollars to be happy. A lot of people can live what they believe to be a millionaires lifestyle with under $300k a year.

Achieving your financial goals to get to a place of security and comfort requires even less.

I recommend setting targets for account size and profit targets that reflect your budget and goals while risking conservative amounts per trade.

But that’s not even the point. My purpose in bringing up this comparison is to draw attention to the moral failing of pursuing money just to have more money.

There’s a saying that money makes you more of who you already are.

If you’ve resented people your whole life, you’re going to feel more comfortable openly resenting people and being disrespectful to others. Those who stick around for you will likely only do so because you now have money.

However, if you are a considerate and nurturing person, you can use your wealth to solve your own problems and help people solve their problems too. You can also use your money to influence change so that systemic issues can be properly addressed.

My point is that money should serve a purpose in your life and the life of others, and not be pursued just for the sake of hitting a higher and higher networth status.

Making this distinction can help you make better risk management choices since the end goal isn’t to constantly be making more and more money but rather hit a healthy and reasonable target.

Using targets like this can help you create a trading system that fits your needs.

We’ve now reached the end of this quirky little review of what are really risk-taking skills that were employed in the plot of squid game but are also highly relevant to our experience as day traders. Life involves making decisions based on probability and risk every single day. This is true all the more so for day trading.

Never forget that the lessons you learn from movies, stories, and your own life can teach you about behavior and markets. You can always develop yourself as a trader by maintaining a mindset of endless learning.

I wish you nothing but the best of strength and luck in your own trading. I’ll see you in the markets. Take care!

I have a very special treat for you today!

This past week I had the opportunity to interview Rubin, one of the team members of the 5%ers, who has both run their marketing and is now involved in heading their risk management and trading desk.

Rubin came to the 5%ers from trading options with a group in Tel Aviv, and is very knowledgeable and experienced in risk management practices and trading psychology.

So why am I interviewing the 5%ers?

After hearing about a few of my students in the Disciplined FX Scalping Course either taking or preparing to take a challenge with this firm, I decided to do some research.

Even though there’s a lot of information about the 5%ers advice for passing their prop trading challenges on their own blog, I wanted to talk to someone, face to face, to find out what separates the traders who pass and stay with the firm for the long term from those who are stuck in a cycle of challenge failure and retries.

I’m not exaggerating when I say that this interview with Rubin completely hit home for me on some of the key risk management principles and by the time we were down chatting, I felt so much clarity on what successful risk management looks like for their specific prop trading model. (Hint, it has nothing to do with whether you’re a scalper or a day trader). But I’m going to stop right here and let Rubin’s ideas tell the story.

Hope you enjoy!

With the holidays upon us, tis’ the time for our usual routines to get a little..jumbled!

Whether traveling for family or friends, dealing with setbacks to diet intentions or drinking limits, or fighting some of the winter blues, life can feel both exciting and overwhelming right now.

Nonetheless, unusual schedules and plans can sometimes offer atypical opportunities to carve out some space for yourself. Many folks are able to get some time off work during the next week, and even if your social life is about to get ramped up, it’s possible to make time to take a break and do some personal development work.

As day traders, this means we get to take a few days off of trading, or even a whole week or two, while markets are lower in volume and volatility.

However, just because we’re not trading, doesn’t mean we can’t use this opportunity to reflect on where we are on the learning curve and do something to educate ourselves on new trading tactics and discipline skills.

Learning can be a very joyful and enriching experience! It’s far easier to get engrossed in learning a skill when you know you have time and space to go as deep as you like! Activities like reading and watching YouTube videos about trading (like those on the Disciplined FX YouTube channel) can be relaxing and inspiring with the right mindset and environment.

Thus, here are some ways you can develop yourself as a trader this week while also giving yourself some respite and rest!

<< WANT A LIST OF RESOURCES TO USE FOR ANY OF THE FOLLOWING ACTIVITIES? CHECK OUT OUR FREE STUDY GUIDE! >>

5 Activities for Productive and Relaxing Ways to Develop Yourself as a Day Trader

1. Grab a trading book or personal development book (great for developing discipline!) and go to your favorite coffee shop, cafe, or even a pub. Get your favorite holiday drink. Sit down with your book, a notebook, and pen, as well as headphones for playing a soothing playlist (I recommend calm jazz!), and allow yourself the time and space to enjoy the experience of reading and learning for an hour or more. 
2. Grab your favorite holiday treat (or drink), go somewhere you can wrap up in a blanket and get cozy, like your couch or bed, and watch trading videos on your phone, tv, or computer. Keep a notebook nearby to jot down good ideas!
3. Take a soothing bath, with music, bath bubbles, and spend at least fifteen minutes visualizing your trading goals for the coming year. Imagine what it would feel like to make money from prop trading or build your account to a size that lets you quit your day job. Think about what you need to do to get there. After the bath, write some of your ideas down in a journal or electronic note.
4. If you’re flying for the holidays, be sure to bring a trading resource or download a video you can study during your flight. This is one of the best environments to focus on with less distractions! Some of my most powerful insights and journaling experiences were from reading during international flights. This is prime learning time!
5. Similar to #3, you can go for a long walk, jog, or run, and listen to audiobooks, YouTube videos, or just reflect on your trading goals while getting fresh air and moving oxygenated blood throughout your body! 

Almost all of these activities can be performed even if you’re not at home for the holidays. If you need to, make a hard boundary with family and friends for at least ONE HOUR of time for yourself! (#1 and #5 are particularly good for “getting away”)

If you’re as determined to succeed with day trading as I think you are, you’re going to want to make the most of your time, even when you’re on break from trading or from work.

Furthering your personal development and trading education are prime activities during periods of rest and reflection. I hope you can use these sample experiences to make time for yourself this week and prepare for a new trading year ahead! I want this to be the year for you when you accelerate and make it in the markets!

Happy Holidays, everyone!

If you haven’t already, be sure to subscribe to the Disciplined FX newsletter to get posts like these sent to your inbox each week! 

Hey there folks! Andrew Bloom from Disciplined FX, here. Heads up, this post contains affiliate links to products that I have selectively chosen to help you meet your trading goals!

Why I Decided to Learn to Day Trade

For those who are new here, I’ll give you a little background – I first started learning how to day trade after developing a chronic illness and watching the months of unemployment accumulate as I was not able to work. I needed to find a way to pay for medical care and to cover my bills. I first started with day trading stocks, and after some time, gravitated toward the world of Forex scalping. 

One thing I appreciate about Forex over stocks is that I can focus on one or two currency pairs that have reliable volume instead of needing to scan for and select the most opportune stocks from thousands of choices. 

It is my goal to make my day trading style as simple as possible with as little time in front of the charts as possible, so as to minimize frustration and to be able to free up the rest of the day for more meaningful activities, such as exercising, resting and doing research and writing for my Ph.D. 

Once I became profitable, I decided to start a business that could help teach traders how to hone trading discipline in order to achieve profitability while also creating a safe space that honors and protects diversity without feeding into some of the more toxic culture that tends to dominate day trading social media.

Just recently, I also started getting into prop trading and passed the FTMO $200k challenge last month, so I want to share that experience with you all and do what I can to help you pass prop trading challenges, as well. 

Lessons From Failing a Prop Trading Challenge

That said, let’s dive into today’s topic, which covers the more lothable experience of what to do when your prop challenge fails. 

Let me start off by saying that I only passed the FTMO challenge after failing my first two. 

Here’s what happened. 

My very first FTMO challenge was a loss due to my own misunderstanding of the challenge rules. 

I was under the impression that the 10% and 5% loss limits were for closed trades, not open ones when in fact your running equity always needs to stay above that 5% daily and 10% overall limits. 

What really sucked was that I was up 8% on that account and was booted out of the challenge because my SL hit 5.5% on the day. Doh! 

Feeling a bit anxious about this major loss, I immediately signed up for a second challenge. 

This one turned out to be a dud too, as my strategy at the time depended on the early wins from the beginning of the month to withstand some of the string of losses that occurred in the middle of the month. 

As my account dwindled, my percent risked dwindled as well, and the wins that eventually came weren’t enough to keep the account afloat. 

Within a few weeks, I failed that account as well. 

This second experience, however, taught me two things: 

1. It made me think more deeply about the monthly cycle of my trend following strategies. Something about the setup of my strategy showed better performance at the beginning of the month and worse experiences near the end. I needed to be able to adjust my strategy for a better distribution of wins and losses that spread out over the course of the month. 

Keep in mind that when you trade a challenge, you will start with a new account during your verification stage. Thus, your strategy needs to be able to perform and hold during any time of the month. 

2. I realized that I needed to pay a bit better attention to how I used risk to achieve these goals. Normally, I would risk a set 1.5 – 2% per trade, with a strategy that gave only one or two signals a day, but I considered some of the benefits of adjusting this risk to help with the ebb and flow of avoiding loss limits and reaching towards profit targets. 

Someone who writes extensively on the importance of risk management is Dr. Van K. Tharp. His books Super Trader, and Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom, were both incredibly useful resources I studied when I first started to learn how to trade. 

By the way, I’m going to give you all a little tough love and say right now that if you only try to learn about markets through videos, you’re missing out on one of the most cost-effective ways to learn by way of reading books. 

Think about it from the author’s perspective. 

There’s a certain level of introspection and room for editing that comes with writing and publishing a book that might get passed over when creating quick, social media-based content that’s meant to drive views and likes. 

If you don’t already, I highly recommend reading at least one book on trading each month while you’re still searching for your footing in the markets. 

Passing the FTMO Challenge

For my FTMO challenge that landed in success, I had both the benefit of starting at the beginning of the month, but also adapted my strategy to flex with the inevitable ebbs and flows that came with some losses later in the month. 

I also started out by risking more on the trades at the beginning of the month than those that occurred in the middle. 

This ultimately led to my success with passing the challenge. 

So this reflection on my experience gives you some context for what I’m going to recommend next. 

What to Do When Your Prop Trading Challenge Fails

When you find yourself staring at those painful red words and numbers that confirm the failure of your challenge, consider doing these three things. 

1) Take some time off

Whether it’s a week, a few weeks, or a month, give yourself first the room to grieve a little, reflect on what led to this loss, and begin to sit down and dissect both your trades and your strategy. 

This is something I wish I did so as to avoid the failure of my second challenge. 

Even FTMO recommends taking a break when they e-mail you regarding your failed challenge.

2) Conduct a review process

You’ll want to ask yourself some questions that can lead to creative inspiration, epiphanies, and lessons learned. 

Some questions that can be useful for this include: 

What mistakes did I make, that don’t have anything to do with my strategy, contributed to this loss? 

To what extent did my discipline or emotions I felt while I traded contribute to failing the challenge? 

And lastly, What were some of the weak points in my strategy – whether this has to do with the day or time traded, my choice of currency pairs, risk strategies, or other mechanics in the strategy? 

3) Take what you discovered from these questions and seek out solutions. 

Get started backtesting if you need to change elements of your strategy. 

Reach out to a trading mentor or friend if you need help with discipline. 

Also, it’s useful to consider whether this particular trading challenge is right for you. 

Keep in mind that different prop firms have different trading rules and requirements for their challenges. (Another firm I’m currently taking a challenge for is Fidelcrest)

Now that you have some experience with prop trading challenges, It may be worthwhile to seek a swing trading account or firm that doesn’t restrict your day trading style to allow for more time for your trades to unravel.

Or perhaps it makes more sense to avoid a challenge altogether and seek a slow growth to prop trading via Funding Talent’s program. 

It’s okay to research other firms and see what fits your style of trading. 

But be sure to place more emphasis on your own responsibility and strategy before placing singular blame on the challenge, itself. 

Losing out on a few hundred to thousand bucks never feels great, but it’s also part of what traders like to call your “trading tuition,” those losses that lead to more knowledge and experience of how trading works. 

So I’ll end with a bonus recommendation and encourage you to not lose hope. 

Try to avoid taking the failure personally – there are plenty of ways you can build your skill up as a trader, so if you’re feeling like a failure right now, it doesn’t mean that you will always stay at this level of trading. 

Something that tends to separate successful from unsuccessful people when you consider mindset and behavior, is that successful people don’t dwell in the problem- they are more likely and more quickly switch to problem-solving mode. 

So Keep looking for ways to improve and most importantly, stay honest with yourself as to the patterns and ways of thinking that may hold you back from finally profiting in the markets. 

I think self-reflection is the ultimate boon to your growth as a trader. I hope you found this information valuable and please be sure to subscribe for more discipline-focused tutorials on profiting in Forex markets. I wish you all the best of strength and luck, and I’ll see you in the markets! Take care.