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Forex Journey Using Other Peoples Money

  • #1
  • First Post: Edited Sep 30, 2022 5:12pm Jul 6, 2022 1:15pm | Edited Sep 30, 2022 5:12pm
Latest:
Funded with FTP ~ August 2022


Having been in trading for a while, the goal for me has always been to use other people's money. Not my own. I haven't got a wealthy family to tap, don't look likely to receive a windfall, don't have any rich friends and wouldn't be able to attract a VC to bankroll a gambling habit (yet).

•If you work for a bank or institution, you trade your time for cash and hope to make enough of a wage + bonus to feel like you're doing well. If you fail to meet a target, you're fired.
•If you go up the ranks of a fund, you're asked to buy into the company, it's the same for a lot of corporate career ladders. Especially ones with partners in the title. This means you have to have a big cushion behind you to buy in, or you need to earn it back should they loan it to you. I don't really want to put £100k+ into an FX firm having seen what happens to brokers like Alpari, FXCM etc. during a market disruption like we had when SNB removed the EURCHF peg.
•If you pay money upfront to do a demo, a trial, an assessment or an audition, you're generally not trading other people's money straight away and maybe you never will. But this is the model that is most popular.

But for this journal, I am going to attempt to trade as many firms' money as I can. Just to see if it is possible for one, and to see which gives the best service for retail traders. I have many on my hit list and some which will allow me to trade for them if I show a track record, rather than paying upfront.


So each attempt with a new prop firm/trading company/ will be using the same EA. I will always start at the smallest account.

I have an EA that I have built. It seems to work, which is a good start and for the last month or so I have been trading with one firm in their assessment. I paid for this privilege and I will buy into many more I am sure. I have started with Funded Trading Plus and I am closing in on the 10% needed to start trading "their money". Hence why I am starting this journal. I didn't want to start until I had a chance of getting a win under my belt as there is nothing worse than starting something but not completing it. I need to hit 1,250 profit as the starting balance was 12,500, so just over 200 to go at the time of writing.

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The first 3 companies to trade with are,

  1. Funded Trading Plus
  2. City Traders Imperium
  3. Surge Trader

Others on my list will include but in no particular order, TopStepFX, FTMO, The5%ers, Alphachain Capital, Darwinex, and I am sure plenty of others to come.

  • #2
  • Jul 7, 2022 5:34am Jul 7, 2022 5:34am
So I opened up an account with Surge Trader and this didn't start well.

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I woke up to a lot of emails, 915 in total. Told me that the EA had not placed an SL on the trade and that they had automatically cancelled the trade.

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Now there is one thing that I know for sure and that is, that the EA places an SL and on 2 of the positions a TP too. At the time of initiating a trade.

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Surge Traders (Bot) closed the first trade before the EA could place an SL, but every other trade of the 900 that triggered had an SL before the (Bot) closed my trade.

F*ck Surge Trader
We'll not be trading with these guys for very long.
  • #3
  • Jul 7, 2022 6:53am Jul 7, 2022 6:53am
Rather than wasting $250 on another broker or trying to get Surge Trader to work, I have moved on to a demo of FTMO, to see if they will have any issues with the EA
  • #4
  • Jul 7, 2022 7:13am Jul 7, 2022 7:13am
Hi Nev, will you continue writing in the macrobriefing website? I used to like those articles :-)

Shame about the broker but maybe the size of your trades (900+) versus their liquidity was a potential issue.
  • #5
  • Jul 7, 2022 8:37am Jul 7, 2022 8:37am
Quoting Steamroller
Hi Nev, will you continue writing in the macrobriefing website? I used to like those articles :-) Shame about the broker but maybe the size of your trades (900+) versus their liquidity was a potential issue.
Hi, yes I have loads to upload, I had to put a delay on them as they were being first used on another website. That has ended now and I'll get everything up to July uploaded and then start adding content again. But maybe less frequent.

The 900 trades issue was because the EA was firing off 3 positions at a time, and then within a second, the Surge Trader Bot would close the order. Here is what their support wrote:


Quote
Looking at your trades, your bot is placing the stop loss slightly after and not at the same time. That is why the trades were being closed. I am able to put a slight delay on your account for your bot, but you just kept trading and ended up breaching the account. We are not going to be resetting it for free and your bot was breaching our rules on every trade our system closed. If you choose to open another audition, please let me know before you start trading and I will add the delay. I just made it so if you go to the reset tab in the dashboard...

When Cameron says "placing the stop loss slightly after", he is talking for less than a second. If you look at the statement above, the order is opened and closed within a second, which means the SL was placed within that second and within the time it took for a server to close the trade.

I pointed this out. As we're talking micro, nano time periods.

and the reply was:
Quote
Thank you for reaching back out. Once again, if you choose to reaudition, I can get support to put a delay on for you to use your EA. “At the same time” means at the same time. 1 second after is not at the same time. It is 1 second after. Our rules do not imply something else. They mean exactly what they say.
Please note, that we never even add delays for anyone, but I can see that your EA is trying to place it quick. However, there is nothing I can do about the previous account because you made the choice to continue trading it while the EA was...

Now the account was a demo and anyone who has been trading for a while knows that demo accounts obviously cost nothing to create, and they cause absolutely no damage to anyone's reputation or bank balance. To dig an account out of a hole in real money is always a problem and if it is my mistake I'll own it. But to effectively lose 4% on a technical mistake, with two systems being incompatible is no problem on a demo account in anyone's universe. I'd be totally happy to trade with these guys if I had screwed up on a live account with live money as I have done with my brokers before, as it sounds like there could be a solution to resolve the issue in the future. But I can guarantee that if something was to go wrong on the live account they would not be willing to rectify the mistake if they can't even rectify a demo account. I am not going to risk it or waste my time with them. Maybe I am being a little bitch but this firm doesn't feel right.

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To be clear the EA broke the rules. The learning point is to always subscribe at the lowest tier and build up, a demo account before evaluating is an even better idea, as per FTMO. It is the lack of reasonableness in customer relations that I have a problem with. It doesn't feel right. Maybe others would have a better customer support experience.
  • #6
  • Jul 7, 2022 10:29am Jul 7, 2022 10:29am
UPDATE:

Quote
Hello,

Thank you for your email. I can certainly appreciate your sentiment. Our goal is to find profitable traders who are responsible with our live capital. We use the audition process as a way to ensure, one, that traders are profitable, two, that they have proper risk management, and three that they are paying attention to their accounts. To your previous point, if this had been a live account and you were not paying attention to your EA it would have been our capital that had been lost.

Our rule is clearly outlined that trades must be...

With that being said, I had management look through all of your trades. They can see that your EA was putting a stop loss on the trade, but it was being put on 1/2 - 1 second after the trade had been placed, which our system had already checked for the stop loss. As a one time courtesy we issued you a fresh account and slowed the check for the stop loss. Please note this is a one time courtesy.

--- Now all I need is a good start , shame these markets are sideways as f£ck
  • #7
  • Jul 7, 2022 10:46am Jul 7, 2022 10:46am
So I have an assessment account with:

  1. FTP
  2. CTI
  3. SurgeTrader

and a demo account pre-assessment with FTMO.

  • #8
  • Jul 11, 2022 3:37am Jul 11, 2022 3:37am
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USDPJY breakout this morning has gone a long way to getting the FTP account closer to the 10% target. The EA went long on the first sign of bullishness near the overhead resistance but it's not often you get a parabolic move straight after. Have one position left running across the different accounts so Monday has started well for all.
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  • #9
  • Jul 11, 2022 3:02pm Jul 11, 2022 3:02pm
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the Funded Trading Plus account continues to grow. Just under £55 to make to reach the 10% goal. I keep thinking if I had only just left the EA to do its thing I would have been through this stage already.

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This brings me to the City Traders Imperium account. Not as many trades but a truer reflection of what the EA has been doing these last couple of weeks.
  • #10
  • Jul 13, 2022 8:24am Jul 13, 2022 8:24am
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So today is the day the FTP assessment came to a close, thanks to the US CPI coming in hotter than expected and the USDJPY surging higher.
The EA performed wonderfully, the sharpest dips in the equity curve was me. So I am going to try and be less compulsive on the other accounts that I am running.
  • #11
  • Jul 13, 2022 3:53pm Jul 13, 2022 3:53pm
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the Deel and Sumsub are how FTP do their KYC and contracts.
All was going well until I had to provide a picture of a Proof of Residence. No one I deal with now sends out a paper version of anything and Sumsub doesn't accept screenshots. Just another hurdle to being let loose on a live account. KYC is so tedious and companies are still stuck in the 20th century even though there are many ways to verify someone's address electronically.
  • #12
  • Jul 23, 2022 4:29pm Jul 23, 2022 4:29pm
Been a slightly frustrating week.
My PC failed and then had to go through a rebuild, which then resulted in constant updates closing down MT5. However this had been temporarily rectified and has also pushed me towards using a Google VPS again.
The next problem came with the ECB rate decision. I should have turned the EA off for the news. I should have also turned the EURUSD pair off when it reached the ADR level. The resulting failure to turn the EA off has meant that I did spot a fundamental problem with the logic of the EA so the positive is that I was able to amend the EA for future prosperity one would hope. Sometimes losing can pay in the long run if the loss is treated as new information.
  • #13
  • Jul 23, 2022 11:09pm Jul 23, 2022 11:09pm
Quoting NevFX
Been a slightly frustrating week. My PC failed and then had to go through a rebuild, which then resulted in constant updates closing down MT5. However this had been temporarily rectified and has also pushed me towards using a Google VPS again. The next problem came with the ECB rate decision. I should have turned the EA off for the news. I should have also turned the EURUSD pair off when it reached the ADR level. The resulting failure to turn the EA off has meant that I did spot a fundamental problem with the logic of the EA so the positive is that...
I see that you have removed your trade explorer? Did you violate the rules? If you need help passing, you can check out my services here.
You can reach me on Telegram @ KramerFx
  • #14
  • Jul 24, 2022 3:42am Jul 24, 2022 3:42am
Quoting KramerFx
{quote} I see that you have removed your trade explorer? Did you violate the rules? If you need help passing, you can check out my services here.
you must have me mixed up with someone else. I never had a trade explorer published. I am trading a live account and am definitely not in need of help passing anything. If you're looking for people to trade for, maybe spark up a conversation first before cold calling.
  • #15
  • Jul 25, 2022 2:50am Jul 25, 2022 2:50am
Quoting NevFX
{quote} you must have me mixed up with someone else. I never had a trade explorer published. I am trading a live account and am definitely not in need of help passing anything. If you're looking for people to trade for, maybe spark up a conversation first before cold calling.
My apologies.
You can reach me on Telegram @ KramerFx
  • #16
  • Aug 24, 2022 12:48pm Aug 24, 2022 12:48pm
Another month has passed,

Where am I at?

Currently have a live account with FTP which is in a small amount of DD

Have an assessment account with Surge Trader and CTI and also a demo account with FTMO.

The FTP and Surge accounts are running the same EA and unfortunately, July into August were not the best trending markets and I had quite a few false breakouts. Which is not a bad thing as it means I got to learn some more about how to avoid bad trades and avoid avoidable mistakes.

The CTI account has been a manual trading account as I was keen to explore new ideas but ultimately I find that I am returning to my NQ futures trading plan and the results after 7 days of active trading are here
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Not as smooth as the EA when it is in the right market conditions and a long way off from hitting the 30 days of Active Trading + $450 profit. For the next month I will reduce the leverage and try and smooth the curve up to the target.

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  • #17
  • Aug 25, 2022 6:22am Aug 25, 2022 6:22am
An article I wrote today
  • #18
  • Sep 6, 2022 2:08am Sep 6, 2022 2:08am
Yesterday felt like a turn in the markets. For a long time, I have been bullish on the Nasdaq whilst it was pummelled lower. The underlying macro and flows is good in America and much better than in the likes of Europe and the UK. An energy-independent country is going to do well, as is a wetter country. So considering the USA both exports more oil than it imports and it has lands that are both wet and arid, it has one up on the likes of Saudi Arabia. But that also goes a long way to explain USA v's Russia. On paper very similar. Unfortunately for Russia most of their flat lands are not very good at producing crops, in comparison to the USA, so again, the Americans have that as a top trump. None of that has anything to do with why I was bullish, but I am currently seeing fiscal flows increasing, bank lending increasing and if you follow the money flows you should long-term do okay. Intraday you get crushed. Avoiding going against the intraday trend on the Nasdaq is proving useful, so to define a weekly trend I am saying is price above or below the Fri-Mon close/open gap?

Yesterday I also had my second interview with Samuel & Co. , I am interested to find out what that firm is all about.
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I am not sure I will get in. I have a feeling they want fresh recruits that they can train in their way and I am maybe a little too long in the tooth for them. We'll see.

If they are all about making a profit they could be benefitting from my skills as I hope to prove with my City Traders Imperium account.
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I need to get through at least 8 more trading days before getting a bigger account and obviously, I need to keep the account above the profit target too.

The Funded Traders account is also in the green and after I have tweaked the algo, youtube video coming, I will start pushing harder on these accounts.
  • #19
  • Sep 6, 2022 4:30am Sep 6, 2022 4:30am
Inserted Video


As promised a quick overview of what my EA is doing currently and the next modification i'll make.
  • #20
  • Sep 7, 2022 3:18pm Sep 7, 2022 3:18pm
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pushing towards 14% after the yen collapsed over the last couple of days
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