My FTMO journey: trials, trials and maybe more anytime

[IlIlIlIlI]

As in the majority of my attempts: I'm done again.

 

[BigDeal]

What is your goal with FTMO? Do you think you can make money long term.? I realise some people do because that is how they can continue and it would almost certainly shut down if no-one ever did.

Do you think it makes people better traders because they have a rulebook, or do you think their restrictions are really there to catch people out?

Genuine questions - no agenda (although I admit a certain scepticism for FTMO and similar outfits.)

 

[IlIlIlIlI]

What is your goal with FTMO? Do you think you can make money long term.? I realise some people do because that is how they can continue and it would almost certainly shut down if no-one ever did.

It is a better offer than trade copier sites where you have to trade a bigger real acount to catch some clients after months or years. The loss is limited at FTMO and the others.
I also think it is possible to make money this way, I do not think you can make money with them every month as if you fail you have to restart the complete qualifying procedure and payment.

Do you think it makes people better traders because they have a rulebook, or do you think their restrictions are really there to catch people out?

It's both.
If you take the trial (unfortunately most of the other similar outfits might promise it, but never offered a trial) you can find out easily why you fail the rules, and you can try and test an improvement on timing, sizing, tp and sl.

 

[IlIlIlIlI]

The trap in this round was simply - overtrading.

 

[hazelj80]

What is your goal with FTMO? Do you think you can make money long term.? I realise some people do because that is how they can continue and it would almost certainly shut down if no-one ever did.

Do you think it makes people better traders because they have a rulebook, or do you think their restrictions are really there to catch people out?

Genuine questions - no agenda (although I admit a certain scepticism for FTMO and similar outfits.)

I don't think its to catch people out but if you have an aggressive account and you lose more than 10% in one day i don't care if you're with FTMO or not you need to fix what you're doing because 10% loss in a single day is A LOT

That and they refund your trial fee on payout.

also people should be doing the free trials before handing over money. FTMO offers them. use them. if you cant pass a 15 day trial ( 5 day minimum) i almost guarantee you won't pass a 30 day (20 day minimum) in the real trial

 

[ffsear]

I'd almost given up, but battled my way out of a big drawdown... Thats another pitfall on FTMO, massive over confidence once you get an account. I bet a lot of people blow up quickly (as i almost did)

 

[IlIlIlIlI]

Started a new trial round today:

 

[IlIlIlIlI]

Day 2 in this round - 3 trades:

 

[IlIlIlIlI]

Day 3 - increasing the max. daily loss and the profit:

 

[IlIlIlIlI]

Day 4 - increasing max. daily loss and profit again with the highest number of trades on a single day in two trading sessions:

 

[IlIlIlIlI]

Day 5 - more profit in two trading sessions

 

[BigDeal]

You're making it look easy - great results !

 

[IlIlIlIlI]

Day 6: great move this morning in my favour - all objectives passed.
I closed all positions immediately when I saw $1,200 profit on all open positions.
The challenge is now to continue the success for the four trading days left.

 

[IlIlIlIlI]

Day 7: successful trading session in the morning.
I closed all open positions after the first ran into the planned tp.

 

[IlIlIlIlI]

Day 8: Full damage today as usual.
My fault: didn't calculate the sl Levels for max. loss of open positions correctly

 

[Chart_Hopper]

This is really interesting to see and something I want to look into down the line.

 

[ffsear]

From what i've seen, you have a sound strategy and an excellent win rate. Your issue is risk management. Master that and I have no doubt you will be a successful trader. Risk management must sit above everything!

 

[hazelj80]

Yeah if you think about it you can think of the # of trades you lose consecutively so take your max loss daily and divide by 30 that means youd have to have 30 stop losses hit in a row. nobody should lose that many times in 1 day. i figred this out and im woring on my free trials as far as risk management goes. my setup is almost ready to test this week

 

[IlIlIlIlI]

Thank you for your kind and encouraging comments.

I started a new trial today with a new idea to manage it.
Before I always tried to close the maximum number of positions possible with profit to get a great win rate.

This time I want to set a profit target per session and per day and stop trading (closing all open positions) when it is reached regardless whether there are positions to close with losses.
Slippage will be accepted.

For today I set the following values:
Profit target per session: $ 400
Profit target for today: $ 800

Today went like this:

 

[IlIlIlIlI]

Day 2:

1 session, profit target $ 400.

As the market didn't take the planned direction in the first two hours, I left the open positions alone as also the daily loss looked acceptable without any risk of limit violation.
The DAX position was added later when the DD was partial recoverd.

As I did not expect such a volatile move I checked my position later - and they were all closed on the tp.
Profit target was exceeded.