How do our best FTMO Traders trade?

Discover the strategies of our top FTMO Traders! Explore the trading approaches of our most successful individuals, including a trader who has earned over half a million USD on his FTMO Accounts. Learn from one of our youngest traders and uncover the secrets behind achieving 15 consecutive payouts.

15 payouts in a row

In the beginning of 2024, we interviewed our FTMO Trader Juan from Costa Rica. Like most traders, his beginnings were not great, so he lost his first account at the start of his trading career. One of the reasons may have been the fact that he was trading with a brokerage company with minimal funds. Eventually, however, he discovered FTMO, and today he trades on a $400,000 FTMO Account.

He emphasizes that the greatest advantage of having a larger FTMO Account is the ability to engage in trading with significantly reduced risk. So instead of risking 1% per trade, he can now risk 0.13% per trade. This gives him much more freedom because even a series of ten losing trades is not a serious problem for his account. At the same time, a profit of around 2-3% per month is enough for him, because he knows that a profit of 10% per month is practically unrealistic. Thanks to this, he has already recorded 15 payouts in a row without breaking our Trading Objectives.

Juan trades only one currency pair, which is GBPJPY, and he trades it manually. He simply concentrates on what he knows and what suits him best. He believes there is reasonable volatility on the pair, and it is trending very often, which brings him good opportunities. Furthermore, he uses the pair's correlation with the Japanese Yen index to make entry decisions and enters trades only during the New York session. In addition, he also uses the confluence of multiple factors offered by the market structure (in the form of top-down analysis), liquidity, price action, round numbers, Fibonacci retracement, etc.

He prefers swing trading because it is not as stressful and the larger movements on the instrument allow him to achieve a relatively high Reward to Risk. One of the key components to his consistent trading, may also be the fact that he prefers to close his trades when important news is announced because it is more comfortable for him psychologically. Preserving capital is more important than gambling and hoping for a high profit, according to him. At the same time, patience is the basis of success for him, but nowadays, he does not have as much of a problem with it thanks to his disciplined approach. "Your patience will move to a higher level," concludes Juan.

19-year-old trader

Pepijn, a trader from the Netherlands, has accumulated significant trading experience despite his youth. Like many others, he initially lost his entire brokerage account while speculating on cryptocurrencies. However, he considers this experience invaluable. Today, as a full-time trader, he has achieved remarkable success, earning $76,000 in just one month. Although Pepijn is not an advocate of backtesting, he believes that a very important aspect of successful trading is the analysis of the trades made in the trading journal, which provides the trader with very important data.

Like Juan, Pepijn approaches trade decision making through top-down analysis, thus starting on higher timeframes. On lower timeframes he then uses price action, Fibonacci retracements and liquidity zones. It is the lower timeframes (5 minutes) that he then uses to manage the trade and serve him well in adding positions. He thus uses the strength of short-term trends, which further increases his average Reward to Risk and profit potential from individual trades. With a risk of 1% per trade, he can make impressive profits on a single trade.

Pepijn trades several pairs, from majors, to cross pairs. However, his best results at the time of the interview were on gold, on which he also showed us a very interesting profitable trade. He focuses mainly on the London session, but waits 15 to 30 minutes before entering the first trade, due to the increased volatility, which can lead to unnecessary losses.

Payout of over $500,000 on FTMO Account

Also, Paul from the United States did not avoid losing several accounts in which he traded his own funds. Losses followed losses, and he gradually moved from trading options to forex, which, despite the initial setbacks, suited his trading style way better.

Paul's trading approach centres primarily on fundamental analysis, with a significant emphasis on economic news events and the Commitments of Traders Report. Technical analysis plays a close secondary role in his strategy. But he also added that the psychological aspect of trading is also very important to him. As with other traders, mastering the psychology in trading ended up having a positive impact on his personal life as well.

Paul uses top-down analysis too when making trading decisions using indicators such as the RSI or MACD oscillators. Unlike the previous two traders, he starts his analysis on monthly charts, while also looking at the fundamentals that influence market events. He also uses Fibonacci retracements and takes profit gradually. As he puts it, “I want to make sure that I pay myself, not enjoy seeing the profit on screen“.

Paul also offered us a glimpse of what he is watching in the aforementioned Commitments of Traders report. He is most interested in the so-called non-commercials, which are companies also known as "large speculators". These are primarily hedge funds, banks, and other institutions that trade in the currency market (in this case, through futures contracts and options).

This interview is one of our longest, because Paul described his strategy and all the factors influencing his decision making in great detail. However, the length of the interview shouldn't put you off and the interview is definitely worthwhile. Maybe that's why it's one of the most watched on our channel. The same goes for the interviews with Juan and Pepijn, but there's much more to choose from on our YouTube channel. Enjoy!