“Never risk more than 1%” – that’s the advice one of our new FTMO Traders shares. Take a few moments and enjoy the article which is filled with inspiration from traders who successfully passed the FTMO Evaluation Process and are now trading for our proprietary trading firm.
Trader Bas – “Be patient and let the trade come to you. Don’t force it.”
What was easier than expected during the FTMO Challenge or Verification?
Trading less and being more patient waiting for the right setups.
What was the most difficult during your FTMO Challenge or Verification and how did you overcome it?
The 10% target was a big target to hit but I overcome it by executing on the correct trade and my analysis played out.
Do you have a trading plan in place, and do you follow it strictly?
Yes, I have a strict trading plan which I follow for each trade.
How did you manage your emotions when you were in a losing trade?
I stayed calm and I managed my risk using the correct lot size and a stop loss. So I know how much I am risking per trade. I am not right every time and expect some trades to not go my way and I’m ok with that. But as my backtesting has shown me over time my strategy is profitable.
How does passing the FTMO Challenge and Verification changed your life?
Made me feel pleased and grateful that I am now closer to becoming a full-time trader.
What is the number one advice you would give to a new trader?
Be patient and let the trade come to you. Don’t force it.
Trader Deimer – “Trading is a profession that can develop your life.”
How does passing the FTMO Challenge and Verification changed your life?
Actually, I feel like both of those stages were just a little step forward, for what I want. So I would affirm that has not changed my life yet but is a step towards changing it.
What inspires you to pursue trading?
Trading is a profession that can develop your life. It changes your habits for the best and I am always looking for the best, for my family and for myself.
Do you plan to take another FTMO Challenge to manage even bigger capital?
Yes definitely, actually I would like to take one more challenge for $200.000 and one more for $100.000. To get funded for $400.000.
What was easier than expected during the FTMO Challenge or Verification?
I have a plan about trading that has rules that I need to follow no matter what so, sticking to the plan made my trading, responsible and easy.
What was the most difficult during your FTMO Challenge or Verification and how did you overcome it?
A difficult part of the challenge or verification was about how I needed to separate the specific time for the trading since I have other obligations.
What would you like to say to other traders that are attempting the FTMO Challenge?
Definitely that before, trying the challenge, they define their strategy and work in their psychology. I would recommend them that they elaborate a plan where they define their Risk in every trade and put a goal to work for it.
Trader Luis – “Choosing the right instrument to trade helped more than any technical analysis.”
What was the hardest obstacle on your trading journey?
By far is the psychology aspect of it. I struggled a lot with FOMO and took too many trades chasing momentum that just reversed on my face. Now I am able to cope with that a little bit better.
Do you have a trading plan in place, and do you follow it strictly?
I do have a trading plan and follow it most of the times. As a discretionary trader sometimes I fall prey to my gut feelings and enter into trades with too much confidence. Those trades usually end very badly. but generally, I wait for the right signals to trigger and look to protect my capital with the right risk management in place.
How does your risk management plan look like?
I risk between 0,5% and 2% of the trading account. Before entering the trade I have to know where I am going to exit in case the trade goes against me. This step alone, makes me to be aware that I could be wrong and make me more cautious about the trading size.
What was the most difficult during your FTMO Challenge or Verification and how did you overcome it?
There is real pressure from the time limit point of view and 10% in a month is quite challenging. This was a point of stress for me. Also, my father passed away during the challenge so I had to stop trading for a few days. I followed my plan despite the psychological pressure and traded in the bigger range of my usual trading size. I was lucky enough to get into a few good trades early in the challenge and passed the challenged without too much of a grind.
How did you eliminate the factor of luck in your trading?
We are working with probabilities here and it is completely impossible to eliminate completely the factor of luck, in my opinion. Having said that, the instruments that I traded most successfully (Bitcoin and Ethereum) are in a clear bull trend. I made sure that I was placing trades to take advantage of this trend. After a decent pullback, I thought the probabilities of capturing a nice leg up were pretty high.
One piece of advice for people starting the FTMO Challenge now.
For me choosing the right instrument to trade helped more than any technical analysis. In retrospect I know that I took probably quite a bigger risk with my trading size than necessary and looking into the future I will be more conservative. I did it partly to pass the challenge faster but I know now that I could have been more patient and take smaller trades and probably pass in a similar amount of time.
Trader Stephon – “Don’t look at this as a dollar amount look at it as percentages and never risk more than 1%.”
How did you manage your emotions when you were in a losing trade?
To be honest, managing my emotions when in losing trades was easy because I implemented strict risk management and the only thing I know For certain before entering any trade is exactly how much I’m going to lose and I’m always comfortable with that amount.
What was the most difficult during your FTMO Challenge or Verification and how did you overcome it?
At the beginning of my challenge, I had a great start on my first trade so I got a big head and started being greedy trying to chase Bitcoin and went down almost 1200 my first morning I had to slow down I checked my client area and realized I was overtrading and I wasn’t following my trading plan and once I was reminded of that it was pretty easy to adjust
Has your psychology ever affected your trading plan?
During my journey as a trader, of course, it’s hard not to but as far as the challenge tho o feel like it helped me be more disciplined and adjust my style based off the analytics which allowed me to be very comfortable and my psychology not be affected.
What was more difficult than expected during your FTMO Challenge or Verification?
This is my second time taking it so everything was exactly as I expected but the first time around it was the adjustment to the availability to that much capital and learning to use proper risk management
Do you plan to take another FTMO Challenge to manage even bigger capital?
Yes I intend on ultimately having a $400k account
One piece of advice for people starting the FTMO Challenge now.
Advice I would give for new people starting this challenge is not to look at this as a dollar amount look at it as percentages and never risk more then 1% I promise you it makes things so stress-free.