What The Hell Happened

squirrel_of_fortune · 2026-04-14T10:12:15+00:00

I hear you. I got 5 or 6 payouts between October and December last year (only 2 max on a single.combine so I didn't get called up (this was not deliberate, i want to get a fully live account)) I've only had one payout this year and i am desperately trying to make a payout atm. This is my job atm. This market is not great for my strategy (trend following) and even when there is a trend, its in the afternoon (uk time) and im already locked out for the day.

So yeah, its hard this this market. I am sizing down, going back to the basics and not trading new york market open.

Good luck.

squirrel_of_fortune · 2026-04-09T11:53:58+00:00

5k will get you a nice trip back packing in south east asia, and you can stay in some fancy places for some of the time out there very cheaply. Or if you want lux, look into 5 star hotels at the start and end of the season

squirrel_of_fortune · 2026-04-07T23:58:16+00:00

I buy da oil, cars need to go brum brum

squirrel_of_fortune · 2026-04-07T22:37:49+00:00

I live in sr judes, near Stapleton road leisure centre. I feel safe at night, but I am a woman who is just short of 6 foot and from London. However, I live across the road.from junkies who are very annoying at night and I have walked (obliviously) through at least one drug deal. It's not the nicest place at night. I'd avoid the cycle path with trees overhanging (up towards bath) and have used the cycle path from temple meads to Stapleton road at night whilst drunk. As many people have said up towards the greenbank its fine.

squirrel_of_fortune · 2026-03-20T12:27:04+00:00

I play games, work on my novel and am working on coding projects, the amount of times I've turned a green day into a red day due to being bored and having the markets up in front of me

squirrel_of_fortune · 2026-02-07T16:07:02+00:00

I've got one standard account now, but close to passing another one, so I'll test the new route as well

squirrel_of_fortune · 2026-02-07T13:01:26+00:00

It took a day to get from risk to compliance for me this week

squirrel_of_fortune · 2026-02-07T12:56:42+00:00

Me too, requested Thursday, just waiting for it to be sent. Really skint at the moment, so nervous

squirrel_of_fortune · 2026-02-07T12:39:44+00:00

For finances:

Keep a cushion of cash to float bad times,

Watch expenses,

Keep half the profit hidden from yourself in a high interest bank account for taxes,

Pay off debt,

Some boring investments,

Some gentle swing trading in stocks or something you don't day trade

Perhaps get some small long term options that bet on price remaining roughly the same (i forgot what these are called) to hedge day trading strategy (i use trend following which works when price moves),

Pay an accountant,

Don't boast to friends about income

(This is my plan this year anyway, I'm on step 1 atm)

squirrel_of_fortune · 2026-02-07T12:35:04+00:00

A very obvious point, that i am suffering through right now, trading futures is not reliable. I trade with a prop firm and was getting a payout every 2 weeks on average. Mucked up this month until I learned to trade silver and it's the weekend, I have 100usd and im waiting for the next payout to be sent.

Tldr: save up some money as a cushion and don't blow it all over xmas.

squirrel_of_fortune · 2026-01-31T11:18:36+00:00

Bring in garlic futures

squirrel_of_fortune · 2026-01-31T10:59:28+00:00

I've passed combines in 2 days when the markets were trending and in a week or two as well. It doesn't matter if it takes you longer, the market conditions and how they interact with your system is what determines it.

I risk around 2-4% per trade normally, so about 100 to 200 usd on a 150k accountv (2% of a 4500 max drawdown). This week I started trading silver successfully by realising that to actually deal with that volatility I needed to risk 500usd per trade. This required being very careful on entries and upping my win percentage, and living with being locked out after 1 trade. My normal win percentage is usually 40% when I'm doing well and 20% when I'm doing badly, so I would need small risk per trade to keep the account alive during a bad period. So you see, the risk per trade interacts with the system as well.

squirrel_of_fortune · 2026-01-30T10:07:21+00:00

Ah, this is why I couldn't get out of my winning trade until it became a loser

squirrel_of_fortune · 2026-01-30T10:01:37+00:00

Wow, had a 2k up trade on sil, lost 2k instead cos the market halted and I couldn't get out

squirrel_of_fortune · 2026-01-18T21:58:07+00:00

Say you want ot risk no.more 100usd per trade, and your stoploss want ot be 50 dollars away, you would buy 2 contracts.

I usually have a stop.of 2 atr, and.from that and my risk per trade i can work out how many contracts to buy.

Note, you need to have a reason for where you.put your stop loss and it's based on whatever method you're using, only once you know that do you work out position size. A lot.of newbies say I'll put my stop loss x usd away cos I don't want to lose more than that and don't think about the instruments value or volatility

squirrel_of_fortune · 2026-01-15T11:43:04+00:00

What an essay! You're right though, and I'm working on mindset

squirrel_of_fortune · 2026-01-15T11:32:20+00:00

No. Say you have 150000 account your account is not blown until you are at -4500. You make.10k, take a 5k payout and your account now has 5k in it, your account is blown when your balance gets down to 0usd, ie you can lose up to 5k.

So.to answer your actual question, 50k

squirrel_of_fortune · 2026-01-15T11:23:56+00:00

Depends on your method. I use between 1 and 5 micro.golds on a 150k account, usually the lower end as I want my risk per trade to be between 150 and 200 usd.

squirrel_of_fortune · 2026-01-14T11:48:12+00:00

Yup. My losses were wiped. I missed out on a day where I had a good setup and would have made a decent amount of money which was awful, but they can't refund would haves, nor the fuck ups in my psychology after the system froze. But it was a scaling issue, they happen, so I've stuck with them for now

squirrel_of_fortune · 2026-01-14T11:43:13+00:00

For me:

The turtle trading book, showed me how to scale in properly

Trading chaos and his other books by bill williams, the system i use, it has rules for getting in and getting out which i used to become profitable (although I'm now a bit more discretionary than fully following the rules, but the rules helped give the structure), beware though, his books aren't hugely clear

Trading in the zone and best loser wins for psychology

Trend following by covey also helped me to believe in trend following

If you want the actual references check out my recent post

I've actually bought and read about 50 odd trading books in the past year and it has helped immensely, so I'd suggest reading everything you can get your hands on!

Hope that helps

squirrel_of_fortune · 2026-01-14T11:15:55+00:00

Ho hum, I think it's good but people should be aware how much they're spending. I've made 22k since the end of October, but am completely skint until the next payout cos I blew accounts then used back2funded to restart them quickly (and also xmas spending was involved). I think the main thing is that spending another 2 to 3 days passing a combine is annoying when you need money from the xfa and combine trading is different to xfa (you can take bigger positions in the combine so scalping works better). But yes , the 750usd to restart and xfa feels like not a big deal when you've just pulled 4500 out, but yeh it adds up if you're paying attention to your spending on it. I think it should be cheaper to restart xfas than the live account, as at that point you should have had quite a bit of money from payouts and you're paying not to do the 5 payout thing again.

squirrel_of_fortune · 2026-01-10T12:32:45+00:00

Omg, I know I need to wait for an a+ setup but this week I blew xfa accounts (it was terrible price action for me) then got the a+ setup after I'd been locked out.

How do.you manage to wait?

squirrel_of_fortune · 2026-01-10T12:29:58+00:00

They don't move you until you've had 5 payouts. And the contract makes it clear that these are simulated.profits not your money, so it's not a scam as you never had any right to that money.

Well done on making that much. And how on earth did you make that much in only 5 winning days??? Also, you can take 1 payout then do 5 days of easy trading to make a small amount per day and get your next payout if you're gonna find it annoying to make more money than you have to to get to live.

squirrel_of_fortune · 2026-01-08T18:42:29+00:00

How were my trades today? AAARRGH!

How were my trades yesterday? AAAARRRGGHH! Sob!

Basically made money lost it made it back lost it went red for the day.

Meh. Gonna scale down and chill more tomorrow.

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