Forum Forexroasted

3-5% is the realistic professional band. on size, 2-3% might be more honest. risk-adjusted, this is institutional-tier performance if youre running it on $500k+ account.

legitimate reasons: 1) you travel and your broker is geo-restricted in some countries, 2) general privacy (your isp logs all your traffic without vpn), 3) public wifi safety. illegitimate reason: accessing brokers that dont serve your jurisdiction (violates terms, can result in frozen accounts). if youre genuine residence-and-broker-match, you dont strictly need vpn for trading.

the practical issue you mentioned (correlation risk) is the big one. if you trade identical setups and all 3 hit the same losing trade you blow 3 accounts at once. parameter variation across firms is how to mitigate. its not free though - you lose performance on each firm slightly.

practical question. trade is up 1R, my target is 2R. price has been slow-grinding upward for 3 hours. structure says target is reachable but momentum is fading.

options:

1. close at 1R, accept the partial win, move on
2. trail stop to break-even and let it ride to target or stop
3. trail stop to lock 0.5R and let it ride
4. add to position because still trending (but tired)

i used to default to #1 (taking the win). lately ive been doing #2 and watching half my trades come back to break-even after hours of being up. what's actually optimal?

trading from home sounds great until you have small kids, a partner with their own work schedule, and household stuff happening all day. my best trading sessions used to be london open (08:00 my time) but that's prime breakfast and school drop-off chaos.

for parent traders specifically: what schedule have you actually made work? not the idealized version, the real one with interruptions and compromises.

the age filter is the simplest protection there is. you give up some early-adopter upside but you avoid the entire category of firms that fold in their first year. if a new firm is genuinely good, it will still be good and paying in twelve months, and youll have lost nothing by waiting. survival is the cheapest due diligence.

trading journals are universally recommended but execution matters. ive tried:

• manual spreadsheet (cheap, customizable, time-consuming)
• tradingview notes (integrated but limited analytics)
• tradervue (good analytics, monthly fee)
• edgewonk (extensive, learning curve)

which has actually moved the needle on your trading? specifically interested in the metrics or insights that changed how you trade after using a journal seriously.

concrete way out of the fog: pick one setup, define it precisely, and trade only that on demo for a few weeks. ignore everything else entirely, every other concept, pattern and indicator. mastery of one narrow thing rebuilds the confidence that broad study destroyed. you can widen later. right now the cure for too much is less, done deeply.

on the actual trade: the two to one with a stop above a clear swing high is sound structurally. my only flag is the same as above, confirm the daily isnt trending hard against you. if the daily is neutral or rolling over, this is a clean setup. if its ripping up, youre fading strength and should size smaller.

this is the key mental shift: earned profit left in the firm is still firm-risk capital, not safe savings. withdrawing converts firm risk into actual money. compounding inside the prop only makes sense if the upside of bigger size clearly beats the risk of leaving that money exposed to the firm, which for most people it doesnt. take it out and compound where you actually own it.

this reframes the whole thing. the target and the drawdown are linked through your position size. size big and the drawdown is a constant threat while the target comes fast. size small and the drawdown is a non-issue while the target comes slow. since the evaluation gives you time, trading small to neutralise the drawdown is almost always the correct trade-off.

i filter heavily by timeframe. inside bars on daily charts are one of my highest-quality setups when mother bar quality is good. on hourly and below they generate constant false moves. the daily timeframe gives the inside bar enough weight that a breakout through it represents actual committed order flow rather than noise.

to make it concrete for anyone trying it: set both legs identical at entry, log them as separate trades, and use server-side stops on each so a platform issue on one doesnt orphan it. the moment you find yourself mentally tracking them as one position is the moment a mistake is coming. independence on paper and on the server, not just in intention.

incremental acclimatisation is the answer. people try to jump from small to large in one step and their psychology cant keep up with their account. step the size up slowly enough that each new dollar range becomes boring before the next increase. the math says you can size up instantly, the nervous system says otherwise, and the nervous system is the one placing the trades.

the textbook says flags and pennants have a measured move target equal to the flagpole. i've been testing this and the target gets hit less often than advertised. wondering if i'm applying the pattern wrong or if the measured move rule is just optimistic.

anyone who actually trades flags/pennants for real - how reliable is the measured move target in your experience?

design is dated but content is correct. they updated it through the years. the fundamental concepts of fx markets, risk management, technical analysis, dont change. modern design that teaches you nothing valuable is worse than dated design that teaches you everything you need to start. give it a real try.

i'd give them a cautious yes for the $50k. challenge rules are slightly more lenient than ftmo in terms of daily loss limits. evaluation fee was competitive. they pay, which is the main thing. just understand the drawdown calculation before you start trading and check whether the scaling timeline works for your goals.

+1. eightcap is one of the underrated brokers because they dont market aggressively. their ctrader integration is one of the cleanest ive used. spreads on majors typically 0.0-0.3 raw plus standard commission.

scale up gradually and log fills at each size, dont jump. track your average slippage per trade as size increases. if slippage stays flat as you grow, the broker handles your size fine. the moment average slippage starts climbing with size, youve found that brokers comfort ceiling for your flow. let the data reveal it incrementally rather than discovering it on one oversized order.

the setups-still-occurring check is the most practical objective handle on an inherently fuzzy question. combined with the padded drawdown threshold, you get a two-part rule that resists both panic and denial: hold while drawdown is within the padded historical range and the setups still appear, review seriously when either breaks. its not perfect but its a disciplined framework rather than a gut feeling in the middle of pain.