My journey to Full-Time trader via prop funding (and a gift!)

Very excellent explanations. I have learned some concepts from you.
I was backtesting my manual trading in the H4 Chart. My stop loss is 50 to 60 pips but My tp is around 100 pips. The problem is the market most of the time doesn't hit 100pips so I have to close the trade before Tp hit. some times tp hit. I use open trade with 0.3 lot that means every pip is 3$. I risk $150 in every trade. (I want to mentions I am planning to take 10k FTMO challenge). I am practicing in EJ, EJ I make around 5 to 7% return in a month.
To get a 10% return do you suggest me to practice in a 5-minute chart so that I can hit the 10% profit target. I tried the H1 time frame before. I can hit 10% return but I have to open trade almost 24 for a good return. so-called London open doesn't work for me. In fact, in London open, I get bad results.

In my personal trading, I time to time trade a 5-minute chart. 5-minute Chart trading is very stressful for me That is why I trade H4 chart. I found when I trading a 5-minute chart I make mistakes more.
I think I have to practice 5 Minute charts more and more so that I can hit a 10% return.
Which time frame you use to pass the FTMO challenge and can you give me some suggestions about time frame and pair you trade.
Oh I add one-month performance summary
Thanks

Really Insightful stuff man, good read.. especially the take profit part. It's something i'm currently struggling with.
I look to take trades with at least a 3r potential but more often than not price will hit the target and continue in the direction where i could have probably made more returns on the opportunity.

As annoying as that could be, the real pain happens when price crosses 2R and immediately reverses towards my entry and i'm stuck worrying if i should move stops to B.E, take profit at 1R or just have faith in the system that it would reverse and continue in intended direction before stopping me out. Lol trading dilemma

Hey Freefox, great job on getting your first funded account with FTMO. Oddly enough we share a very similar journey but I started in June,
I now have two 100k accounts with FTMO and awaiting login credentials for the verification stage of my third account. I also just signed up for EnFoid 100k account today, found this post while researching the firm. I didn't even have a forex factory account so I made one just to reply to this thread haha.
Let me know if you'd like to keep contact and perhaps help each other out through our journeys!. Best of luck.

Seems if you can make 5-7% a month on EJ that's very good and if you choose to do the aggressive approach I describe above (using your profits as a buffer) you could have a good shot at passing the challenge or at least getting a free go following month. Remember in the challenge earning $9,999 in profit is equivalent to earning $1 of profit - both fail the 10% objective, but both get you a free go. So why go down to 5 mins if you struggle on that timeframe?

In the end you have to decide on which approach you are more comfortable with adjusting to - dropping down to 5 min or sticking with what you do well and go aggressive in the last week? Your choice.

I personally have 8 pairs I follow on my charts but most of my trades are on GJ, EG and EU. Thus I am considering reducing the number of pairs I am tracking as plenty of opportunity in just a few pairs.

It seems the maximum funding you can get through Enfoid challenges is 700k. According to Enfoid website, "The Total Traded Capital per Trader is 700000 USD (after 700k is reached, scaling is only possible via the "by EnFoid" method)".

Well, since I last posted I have had a tough time with my trading. Pretty much up until the start of this month everything had been going very well for me, but November sees my first real setback on my journey to full-time trader.

If you remember I set out in August with the objective of getting three fully funded FTMO $100k challenge accounts within six months. I mentioned it was a tough objective I had set myself from the outset. But anything worth doing does not come easy and that certainly is proving to be the case now.

In my personal trading account, I am on track for only my second losing month this year. I trade my personal account very differently to my funded accounts and challenges, but all my accounts have been impacted to some degree.

In my main FTMO $100k funded account I am in drawdown so not going to get a pay-out this month. But over last week or so I have started to start a good recovery and get back on track. Hopeful I can get it back into profit by end of December. That is a realistic short-term objective. However, in my FTMO Step 2 Verification account I am highly unlikely to manage to complete that successfully. So that is the biggest impact and loss as result of my November trading.

Another impact was my MyForexFunds account where I had to pay a reset fee to continue trading with them. Funding through MFF is a completely different approach to companies such as FTMO/Enfoid and you can start getting paid every two weeks without having to pass an initial challenge. Rather than repeat myself again I wrote about them in detail in this post here:

https://www.forexfactory.com/thread/post/13261179#post13261179

Again, I am back on track with my trading with MFF and only today got the first of my bi-weekly pay-outs on my new account that covers the reset fee I had to pay and a little more. So, no lasting damage done there either and looking forward to continuing to grow the account over the next two weeks and get a further pay-out then.

On my PsyQuation/Axi-Select funding my score has dropped from 77 to 75 (score linked to my personal account). So again, this is not a disaster as 75 is still an acceptable score to advance to the next level of funding with them.

So overall, sure November is a bit of a setback. Big positive though is that I have managed not to panic and do any revenge trading to try and recover everything in one go. Already seeing the fruits of keeping calm and trying to get back to consistent trading and profitable most days.

Green pips to all

Just a quick update as I posted on another journal I would show proof of my latest payment from MyForexFunds account.

Well here it is ... image below shows over $2.5k paid into my PayPal account from MFF. This was on top of the approx. $750 I received from them two weeks ago. Very pleased with MFF and also with how my trading is going in general this month all round. Will give a full update later in month.

Good going man. That's some major gain. To think that some know it all price action gurus advise traders not to trade in December.

Were you replicating these trades on your FTMO account? Say yes, i beg you.

Thanks. Just to clarify this was a $200k account. I'm reading back my posts and forgot to say that, but still a great return and very pleased with it

Unfortunately, didn't do it on my FTMO account. If you read a few posts back in my update at end of November, my FTMO account is in DD so I am trading my way out of that using smaller lots sizes. Plus I don't want all my accounts having the same trades in them otherwise they all 'bomb' together if you have a bad month.

But as you implied - imagine me doing this on FTMO accounts? At 70% cut it would be a mega payout and inspires me even more for the objectives I set out at the start of this trading journal. I'll get there soon

But I did see some video a few months back about some lady getting an $18k plus payout in one month of trading so shows the potential of using these prop firms.

Yeah lol i have seen some really impressive payouts. Very Motivating. Keep up the good job.

Congrats man. Really well done. How long ago did you start with MFF? Also, wanted to ask for any updates on Enfoid?

Very quick update as busy doing Christmas stuff.

But I have just made arrangements to give away the 'gift' I promised in my opening post and very pleased to be doing it. Just in time for the Church at Christmas - seems very appropriate timing

This is honouring the commitment I made when I started my journal and those that have been following my journey since I started will know what this means

Full update of all the details when I get some more time and sat at my PC.

Best wishes and blessings to all as we approach this Christmas and Holiday season

Hi Daytradrfx,

Not managed to pass with Enfoid yet. That will become part of my new six monthly plan now that I have achieved all my initial objectives I set myself (and more) in my first six months.

Will give a full update and summary of things over the Christmas period when I get the time. Time for a well earned break now.

Many thanks BN and the same to you.

Merry Christmas and happy holidays to everyone across the world.

Ok man waiting for your update. Happy Chirstmas and enjoy the holidays

Well as I implied in the week before Christmas have reached the initial objectives I set myself when I started this trading journal (and more!). Just found the time now to write a detailed post about it all. As a result, I have honoured the pledge I initially made and donated £500 (approx. $680) to my local church I am part of.

I was very happy to do this as it means my initial six-month target I set myself of getting 300k in prop funding I have achieved in a little over 4.5 months. I now have three $100k funded accounts all with FTMO

To be honest, since the post I made at end of November where I mentioned I had encountered my first serious drawdowns and setbacks, I have traded out of that situation exceptionally well. I completed two challenges and then verification phases in very quick succession. It all came together so quickly. For the verification phase where you have to make 5% in maximum 60 days, I completed both in 7 days and 3 days respectively. The second one I had 10 trades, all winners in 3 days (very pleased with that). So just had to wait for the minimum 10 trading days by placing small 0.01 trades for the remainder of the verification step. I was just in-sync with the market and took advantage.

Looking back, I was really glad that I had a rough patch end of October and into November. It taught me to stick to my plan, reduce the risk initially and trade out of the drawdowns. Don’t do anything rash or revenge trade. It was better for it to happen at that time when I only had one $100k funded account rather than three. Psychologically, it would have felt a lot worse I feel with more money on the line but the lessons learned during that period will help me enormously now that I am trading bigger amounts. I spent time working out a recovery plan, than made sure I focused on the bigger picture rather than getting payouts and short-term profits. So was a very useful learning experience.

In addition to FTMO, I also am now funded with AxiSelect/Psyquation for another $100k (AUD). Only this week I have been promoted from the Incubator phase to the Accelerator phase. My PSQ score stands at 81 (I needed score to be minimum 75). I am in this 2nd funding stage for 2 months, then as long as I have a score above 65 and profitable I will move to the ‘Pro Phase’ where I will be allocated a further $50k each month up to the max of $350k as long as I make 0.5% each month. Look forward to building that up to the maximum allowed in first half of next year.

I continue to trade my MyForexFunds $200k account and get the biweekly pay-outs. This was something I never had on my radar at the start of my 6-month plan but a very useful addition it has been too. (I have made more money from them, than FTMO due to the drawdown I had to trade out of)

Future Plans
Going forward, I am now going to be turning my attention to Enfoid. Their model is identical to FTMO. My objective for the next six months is pretty much a repeat of my first six-months. Get an additionally $300k in funding this time through Enfoid as I am up to the max with FTMO now. I failed a challenged with Enfoid previously so am familiar with how things work with them. Just need to repeat what I have just done in 2020 all again in 2021. (When I get $300k in funding through Enfoid I will repeat my pledge to make a donation again).

Plus of course I need to focus on trading all the prop accounts I have now. That is going to be a challenge in itself. I haven’t fully thought out how I am going to go about managing this best. I don’t want them all trading all the same trades as all my eggs would be in one basket as it were. If it goes great then yes I get pay-outs from all, but if the opposite is true I don’t want them ‘bombing’ all together. I have to have some further thoughts in what I am going to do here and manage them all. Plus, additionally I have the option of trading some of these accounts more aggressively than others (more risk per trade), to take advantage of the 70% pay-outs FTMO give you. In the end these are nice problems to have so I am not complaining.

The biggest lessons I have learnt during this intensive period of focusing on trading is the following:-

1. Don’t focus on the money, focus on trading well and executing trades according to your plan
2. Don’t move your stops (something I was previously susceptible to). Stick to the amount you want to risk per trade and don’t change It. If it gets to that level the reason you took the trade is probably wrong anyway so you need to take the loss and revaluate.
3. Patience. Wait for the absolute best trade setups. Don’t trade just to be in the market. You only need one great trade and you can literally make good money from just a few good trades.
4. Let your winners ride. If something is going your way don’t always be too quick to cash in. A few very big winners scattered here and there makes a massive difference to your profitability.

That’s about it for now. Really looking forward to what 2021 will bring.

Wish everyone a very Happy New Year and all the best for 2021. Many Green Pips to all

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Wow congratulations Freefox! Really inspiring! I'm about to complete my verification with FTMO as well and looking forward to getting my first funding. Keep up the posts and looking forward for hearing for more! I also plan to try out MMF after I get the max funding out of FTMO.
Cheers and all the best for 2021!

@Freefox:
Thanks so much for your sharing! It inspires me a lot!