Ananda built $80,000 in prop-firm rewards around a full-time job through rules, risk management and psychology.
Read the firm's rules before your first tradeHe lost bigger accounts to drawdown, day shift and news violations he never knew existed; reading the rules top to bottom would have saved him a three-month learning phase.
Different risk rules for challenge and liveChallenge accounts get 2% to 2.2% risk and set-and-forget targets; live accounts get 1% or less, moved to break-even at 1:2 and capped near 1:3.
Stop for the day instead of revenge tradingTwo stop losses on two accounts ends his session, and one intraday entry a day is what fits his current lifestyle and his 9 to 5.
Executive SummaryAI
Ananda, who still works his full-time profession, has traded for over four years, about two of them with Funding Pips, and has earned over $80,000 in rewards.
He puts it down to finding an edge: trading mainly gold, picking the account type that suits you, knowing your lot sizing by heart, keeping risk management solid after a stop loss, and treating psychology as the major thing.
His counter-trend method of selling whole levels stopped working as gold flew past 4000 to all-time highs, giving only 30 to 40 pips instead of the 100 to 150 he needs, so he is waiting for gold to settle and looking at pairs such as GBP/JPY on support and resistance.
A turning point was going smaller: on a 25K account he took eight to ten consecutive payouts totalling close to 14 000 usd, which he now rates above chasing a twenty or thirty thousand dollar payout.
After losing a 200K account that was 14,000 up on a fundamental event, no trades during heavy news became a non-negotiable live rule, alongside stopping for the day once two accounts take a stop loss.
Key Quote
“so it's pretty much finding your edge that I would say”