My FTMO journey: trials, trials and maybe more anytime

[BigDeal]

Hello @llllllIIlll and trendie.

It's interesting reading about your experiences in FTMO, and I really appreciate both of your honest, open synopsis and discussions.

I've not looked into FTMO in depth (and I'm probably too chicken to do something like this), but what I'm keen to understand is your motivation for undertaking these challenges, and in particular whether you feel you are trying to learn or improve your trading techniques, (or whether you think it will guide you to become a better trader) because on the face of it the restrictions imposed by FTMO (garnered from reading your journals) are causing problems (eg max daily loss) so don't appear to fit with the way you would trade normally.

 

[IlIlIlIlI]

Are you trying to pass the challenge in the min 5 days?

Originally no, I wanted to pass it in a way I could run a challenge account with success as I don't get a new trial account before 10 days passed.
But I failed, this trial started badly.

One point I saw today is that currently I'm missing confidence to the market moves.
That should be improved.

Tonight I entered two fun trades after I published my daily results above. Then I lost patience with them and closed them manually because I couldn't set a sense making break even stop and didn't want to watch the market until it closed. The market reached the entered take profit 8 minutes later - about 3 pips above the following low - before it turned 30 pips against my direction for the rest of the day .

Depending on the point of view regarding risk all of my decisions were right.

The last 4 trades in the list above (with an sl shown) were also closed manually, besides they had a trailing stop set by my EA. That was because I wanted to end the trading session - I had enough. But it wasn't necessary - the market hit the tp about 15 minutes later. These trades were the first trades entered today - if I wouldn't have added any trades and just let them run the daily result would be about the same.
That's were I have to learn to trade better to become an FTMO trader.

 

[IlIlIlIlI]

Today there was only relaxed trading before the US markets opened.
The original TP was not reached until now.
All trades were closed before the CPI spike at 13:30 GMT, besides I don't read news, only charts.
Daily loss was less than 500 EUR as far as I saw it.
There are enough days left in this trial to pass the profit target.

 

[IlIlIlIlI]

I passed the profit target of this broken trial account today.
Didn't hold the 6 lots trade size maximum again, had up to 9 lots open.
Max. DD seen was for sure less than 2k, maybe less than 1.5 k, so this was one of the better days.
I entered only long trades today, with a TP for the US market opening.
It worked.

 

[trendie]

Good result!
Those 1lot trades seem to suit you!

 

[IlIlIlIlI]

Done for today even if it COULD(!) be nice to stay short during the most time of the US session.
But - it's Thursday.
With today's high the downtrend definition - lower highs and lower lows - is broken on the daily chart of US100 at FTMO.

Started with relaxed scalping trades during lunchtime and traded the US opening with better entries than usual.

 

[trendie]

Really like how you garner your profits in a matter of minutes!

Is that smash-and-grab or drive-by?

 

[IlIlIlIlI]

Is that smash-and-grab or drive-by?

Maybe a mix of both as I'm working fulltime and can't watch a chart the whole day.
But every day is different.

Today: during lunchtime there is often a smaller move against the trend of the morning if there was a trend. That ends latest 2 p.m. (FTMO time) and then it's time to get out of the trade.
After the "landmine" in the second half of yesterday's US session and the falling markets this morning I was sure that the market would fall below the US opening of today. Maybe only for a minute, but good enough to place a tp order with moderate profit. The appeal of this trade was, I didn't have to do any applicable trend analysis or forecast of the session, just get out in time in case the tp wasn't reached.

 

[IlIlIlIlI]

It's Friday - the weekend is calling
I traded only four luchtime trades via smartphone without a tp which could be closed faster than expected when the trailing stop appeared.
Today I exceeded the average daily profit traget and the overall profit target by a little bit more than 50% .

 

[IlIlIlIlI]

Had only one trading session today which lasted less than 45 minutes.
This trial is done, I failed the daily loss limit twice, but I got is better than the trials before.
Next one will be started tomorrow when this one has run out.

 

[trendie]

Had only one trading session today which lasted less than 45 minutes.
This trial is done, I failed the daily loss limit twice, but I got is better than the trials before.
Next one will be started tomorrow when this one has run out.

To be fair, I think you got the blow outs on the 1.5lot trades.
If you are comfortable with the 1-lot series, I think you are onto a stable and consistent method.

Really envious of your ability to be done in under an hour.
Good stuff. Best of luck with the next series.

 

[IlIlIlIlI]

To be fair, I think you got the blow outs on the 1.5lot trades.
If you are comfortable with the 1-lot series, I think you are onto a stable and consistent method.

Really envious of your ability to be done in under an hour.
Good stuff. Best of luck with the next series.

Besides regarding also the higher time frames, I trade only the M1 chart and a half hour has 30 candles to paint ..

And you're right, the 1 lot series are much better for me.
I will stick to the 1 lot size.
I was always afraid not to be able to take the profit target - I should be much more relaxed as I made an average of nearly 1k on each of the nine profitable days - trading 1 lot series.

With better entries on all days no limit would be violated - training will be continued tomorrow with the next round of a trial.
Looks like FTMO is a good trainer for me.

 

[IlIlIlIlI]

Today I had three smaller scalping trading sessions with different volume/number of trades.
The day ended with a fabulous max. DD (shown as max. daily loss) of less than 250 EUR.
I didn't want to trade the US opening or the US session today as for me the market is unpredictable for a forecast for the day.

 

[trendie]

Great start.
Just being pedantic, but you're stats show 14 trades, but your journal shows 13.
A trade is missing, somewhere.
(not that you need to display it, but my OCD is kicking in.)

 

[IlIlIlIlI]

you're right, this trade is missing:

It got lost between the two screenshots of the trades.

 

[IlIlIlIlI]

I traded today only before the US market opened.
Don't know a reliable direction to trade as long as the daily candle sticks on the lower Bollinger Bands on the daily chart in the way it does until now.
So there were only some small scalping trades made around lunch time in unspectacular situations.
The incredibly low result behind the Max. Daily Loss stayed unchanged. Yeah!

 

[IlIlIlIlI]

Enough is enough.

As I wrote on another threat, I couln't read or write anything in the last days as long as the DDos protection routine was active as I was always redirected to this routine and not to Trade2Win as published by the routine.

Passed this trial in 5 days and closed the last positions as the profit target was met. Today wasn't a good days as the timing wasn't good - but the results are very good as it is the best day of this trial.

There was no losing trade in these 63 trades so RRR can't be calculated.

Now I have to think about when I will start a challenge.

 

[trendie]

Thats brilliant!
Daily drawdown of just 2000-ish, is around half the Max Daily Loss, so thats covered.

You normally group your trades around the 4-lot level, but today, there seems to be 3 sets of trades:
6-lot around the 15:40 mark,
2-lots trades around the 15:50 mark,
and 7-lots trades around the 16:30 mark.

Getting ready for a Min 10-day run?

 

[IlIlIlIlI]

Thats brilliant!
Daily drawdown of just 2000-ish, is around half the Max Daily Loss, so thats covered.

You normally group your trades around the 4-lot level, but today, there seems to be 3 sets of trades:
6-lot around the 15:40 mark,
2-lots trades around the 15:50 mark,
and 7-lots trades around the 16:30 mark.

Getting ready for a Min 10-day run?

Yes, I didn't hold my 4 or 6 lot levels today as I was in a bad mood for other reasons, not with trading.
I added some "test" or fun trades with short tp levels and some of them needed too long to run in.
Maybe I'm trading better when I can't concentrate 100% on trading as it was today

 

[IlIlIlIlI]

Day 6 of this trial: 💣
Reasons: bad timing, no discipline, maximizing lots, trapped in the US market oopening.

As it looked like there were some issues with price data for US100 today during the heat, unfortunately they got it when I violated the daily loss limit - besides I had more than 1.300 EUR profit on closed positions.

After I blew the limits, I closed all open trades when they showed small profit besides "knowing" that also the tp would be reached some minutes later.

So I cannot be proud of my 90 consecutive winning trades.

Solution:
To survive the challenge, a maximum of 4 lots should be held - it looks like it is easier for me to fight for 10% profit than to hold the daily loss limit with 6 lots (ok, there were 9 lots open ).

So I will try to reach the 8k profit in the remaining days trading only 4 lots - of course without violating the loss limits again.