January 2023 Trading Review

This month I'm introducing significant changes in how I write to this blog. Since June 2021, when I transitioned to full time FX trading, writing monthly trading reviews was a good way to keep myself accountable and to keep track of my results. And since I was not a profitable trader back then yet, nobody paid much attention and the emails that I received from readers were mostly polite and down to earth. I suppose this is a "tall poppy syndrome" - struggling readers relate better with other struggling traders as they don't want to see others being more successful than they are.

But after I became consistently profitable and started sharing my trading reviews not only here but on some forums, things have changed. I thought that it will be beneficial for others to learn from a successful trader, but the problem I encountered that very few people wanted to learn from me. Besides a few serious traders who actually wanted to learn something from me, all the others just got jealous and started making fun of me. Or perhaps their minds were just too narrow to even believe that my kind of returns are possible at all.

I don't mind people making fun of me because it's free popularity, but I made a decision not to share my profit percentages on a regular basis anymore. For credibility reasons it was essential to do it, but one actually needs to do it only once. There's no need to do it on a regular basis. Dogs are going to bark anyway, and those who are serious will find the way to talk to me when in need.

What is actually more important than weekly/monthly figures is professional understanding of how the forex market works. Because even retail traders can make some money in the markets from time to time, but there can't be any comparison about how a professional and how a retail trader trades. It's like white and black. In my videos I share some glimpses of how to interpret the market in a professional way, but most people won't listen to that. They think they know it all even if they're losing traders and what's more exciting for them is to make fun of how I talk rather than focusing on what I have to say.

Buddhists say "we will teach you illusions until you're ready for truth". But only now I understood that people actually teach those illusions to themselves on their own and I don't even need to teach illusions! When you share wisdom, many people, apparently, are not able to take it directly. They will find their ways to distort that information and they will miss the point.

I've also noticed that posting my weekly results got me focused on those figures too much and my ego got inflated. Living with an inflated ego is not a healthy way to live, and trading while being obsessed about weekly goals is a dangerous way to trade. So I had to take a break and flush that shit out of me.

I have also decided to temporarily pause accepting new investors into my managed trading account service. If you were referred by one of my associates then you can still contact me and we will work out a solution for you.

My goal for this year is to accumulate $1M funding from prop firms. This month I have almost passed the FTMO challenge, but I still have to improve a bit as my % returns on FTMO are drawdown-adjusted.

This year I may also consider launching a signal provider business. At the moment I'm collecting information from A to Z what is needed to run this type of business successfully. The advantage is that via signals I can serve a much wider audience because there's no minimum capital requirement. Subscribers only have to pay a monthly fee and it's up to them how much capital they allocate to trading my signals. That way they can first gain trust with me, earn some money and upgrade to my capital management service only later, if they wish.

On the other hand, the fact that it's easy to get popular in signals business was the main reason I didn't want to do signals upfront and preferred private capital management. Because when you provide signals, your signals will get reselled by other providers as well and I can end up being copied by thousands of people without even knowing about it. This creates a big danger as then I would become a liquidity target for brokers. This can bring big losses and ultimately make my strategy untradeable. But on the positive side - when that happens I can simply stop providing the signals and urge my clients to upgrade to the private capital management service. Depending on the capital allocation, I may even offer to do it via our own brokerage and essentially become market makers to make the trading environment safer for my clients.

Last week we traveled to Cyprus to catch some sun after a prolonged mid-winter depression here in the Northern Europe :) I had some brilliant time off from trading to reflect on what I do wrong and what I do well, and to prepare for the worst case scenarios. Because responsible traders have to think not only about how to bring more profits, but also about what to do when shit hits the fan. It happens rarely, but when it happens we have to be prepared. I'm talking about account blow ups or career-breaking losses. This happened to me twice and I don't want to repeat that anymore. Because in all cases it could have been avoided if I had a plan. It's the same as in paragliding. My flying teacher once told me that in 95% of cases the emergency parachute is deployed without a real reason - only out of fear. Meaning that the pilot didn't have a plan in his mind about how to deal with that adversity and decided to call for the last shot.

What I also understood that I have to focus more on living a joyful, happy and meaningful life and do not get so obsessed with the weekly or monthly figures. That's another reason why I stopped sharing the figures on a regular basis. Living a life of greed is very unhealthy.

And of course, the time in Cyprus during the unusually sunny week in mid-winter was well spent together with my soulmate. I swam in the sea three times, got my face sunburnt and of course had a joyful yet mind-breaking time driving on the left! If you want to break your mind and install new habits - go to a country where they drive on the other side of the road and drive!

And here's a video of me encouraging traders to prepare for worst case scenarios: how to avoid account blow ups or career-breaking losses. The time off taken from trading in Cyprus inspired me to think about this very important, yet often neglected topic:

Have a good trading month ahead and don't forget to enjoy life. Life is first, trading is second. Don't get glued to the chart too much as in actuality your success is not about the chart but about you.

True soulfulness is doing what you want at any price and not doing what you don't want at any price.