“Whatever is going on in your life and in your surrounding subconsciously transitions into your trading” – Dan
This week we spoke to Dan, a funded trader who was able to fund a wedding from simulated trading virtual profit.. He shares not only his simulated trading journey; but principles on psychology and a look into his strategy.
Background
Dan is a 32 year old trader from the UK. Asides trading, he does maintenance and renovations and sometimes serves as a project manager. He was able to get past the 200k challenge and the 100K challenge which he combined to make a 300K account but unfortunately, he lost it.
Dan and his partner had saved up some money as part of their wedding expenses but after working out the remaining amount that they needed, getting the payout really took the stress and pressure off. Although he lost the account a little while after, he was able to get over it fast because he already achieved the goal of getting the remaining money for the wedding.
Getting into trading / Finding a prop firm
Dan stumbled across simulated trading via social media and has been simulated trading for 6 years now. He had the help of a mentor who helped him with his psychology and how to narrow the path better. He went down the whole retail route of the trade through trend lines which was really overwhelming to begin with especially since he’s not from a financial background.
Instead, he had to learn the easiest way which was through signals. This wasn’t working well for him and he eventually decided to Invest in some education. This worked and although the progression was slow, he explored about and came across the SMC Concepts which made him change the strategy he was using. He said the retail concepts were alright but it was not hitting great risk to reward and it was taking a lot longer to get.
Dan does not use a stop loss any less than 10 Pips which was when he started seeing a bit of consistency. To get capital, he started from looking at FTMO but a couple of good friends mentioned TFT to him and he did a background check and loved what he was seeing. Unlike other prop firms, TFT had a giving back factor and was always giving away promos. There were always competitions but not a lot of other prop firms were doing that. There’s also a recent update to the dashboard which he finds very cool. He appreciates the discord community and says his main focus is going to be with the TFT because it’s where he has had the best experience as a trader.
Suggestions for TFT
When Dan is trading, he mainly focuses on EUR/USD but sometimes he trades Commodities and Indices. He says the commission on those is quite high especially because he trades using larger Lots. He feels this can be improved but in regards to the actual company, there’s nothing he’d suggest to make it better than it was because it was pretty good.
Getting the payout
Dan and his partner were flying out to Spain when he got the payout. It was a great feeling telling her because she had been really stressed about how they were going to afford the rest of the wedding. To relieve the stress off her was such an amazing thing for him.
When he first came across The Funded Trader, he was really skeptical about joining because of the amount of toxicity around Forex simulated Trading and prop firms and differentiating things that were legit and genuine. Dan says he’s never heard one bad word about TFT which was why he took the plunge and got a challenge. Although he lost the account, it doesn’t cast any doubts in his mind because he’s sure he’d be getting another challenge very soon.
Trading style
Dan mainly trades forex and tries to line his technicals with his fundamentals. He combines his concept with Fibonacci and order blocks and Order flow. For the start of the week, he checks out the calendar for the first and the second week of each month. Although he’s aware there’s the NFP and FOMC events he doesn’t trade. He also suppresses the amount of virtual profits he takes and usually has a lot more success in the second half of every month than the first.
For him, it’s just a combination of supply and demand, order blocks and so on. Since his maintenance business takes a good chunk of his time, he works more on swing style of simulated trading as this fits his lifestyle more. Hitting a stop before the target and losing makes him start to question his strategy and everything he knows so basically he handles being a swing trader by compounding and journaling over time. He trades an average of 5-10 times per week and rarely counter trend trades, usually he just sticks to the pro trends.
Best trade and reaction
Dan’s best trade was a $20,000 trade during a CPI date release. He was really surprised because it happened so fast. However, within less than an hour the price plunged and went straight down to TP. He was struck with disbelief because he could have easily gotten it.
Losing the account
The biggest piece of advice Dan could give anyone would be to know whatever is going on in your life and in your surroundings will transition into your trading. The events that led to him losing the account; His daughter was involved in an accident at home and they lost the house they really wanted to get. At that time, he was floating about $11,000 to $12,000 virtual profit..
He was making tea for the family and thought he was at a risk-free stage and decided to leave it for a while. He forgot about it and woke up in the morning to realize he had been stopped out. He was in disbelief because the trade was running so well. Although fortunate to have funding from other prop firms, the TFT account meant the most to him because of what he’d achieved so far from it. He was, however, able to get over all of it faster because he had a supportive partner.
Obstacles/Advice to other traders
The major obstacle Dan faced was figuring out what kind of simulated trading he wanted to do. Balancing his trade and his other business was another thing he had to learn to control. He hopes to be able to adopt and bring values from his other business over to trading. He doesn’t trade in and out every single day as he doesn’t even have the time. His advice to traders is to be patient and wait for their positions.
Comparing how much you got in payout with how much you paid to get there helps you get an insight on how much net virtual profit you made and to keep up with your progression. Some of his future goals include getting a million pounds in funding, becoming a support system to other traders and to be able to create something that will bring topmost value to everyone.
