I left the Forex Prop Firm space a couple years ago and moved to Futures Prop Firm trading after MyForexFunds got shut down. I was shocked to get an email a month ago about how they would reinstate old funded accounts and they ended up giving me my old funded accounts back (2 x $100k accounts).

After reading some of these new rules it would’ve been better if they stayed in the grave. The whole intern/partner system is extremely stupid. How it works is your account starts in “partner” status but when you hit 2% drawdown from your starting balance you move into “intern” status and when you go back to BE on the account you move back to partner status. However, if you make the switch 3 times from partner to intern your account is closed.

For example let’s say you trade with 1% risk per day while aiming for 2RR trades

Start: $100k

Day 1: -1%
Day 2: -1% (you get strike 1)
Day 3: +2%
Day 4: -1%
Day 5: -1% (you get strike 2)
Day 6: +2%
Day 7: -1%
Day 8: -1% (Strike 3, your account is now closed)

So despite staying within a 2% drawdown the entire time you get your account closed. This is the single worst trading rule I have seen across both Forex and Futures Prop Firm trading. Luckily I’ll get the option of choosing whether I want to follow their old rules or switch to their new rules but everyone else should absolutely stay away from them.

Sad to see how a prop firm which used to be the most generous in terms of rules and drawdown ended up becoming the most restrictive.

FOMC is tomorrow, statement at 2:00 pm ET. I pulled the hourly candle that opens with the statement for each 2026 meeting and measured high to low on gold (OANDA XAUUSD via TradingView). quite interesting data:

Jan 28: $62.8 · Mar 18: $47.0 · Apr 29: $34.7 · Jun 17: $109.3 · Jul 29: $67.3 · Sep 16: $110.2 Median $65.

Why I look at size: $50 on 1 lot of gold is 5% of a 100k account, a common daily loss limit on prop accounts. Four of the six first hours were above that, and June and September were more than twice it.

This says nothing about direction, only about size. It is the full high-low range, so it is the worst case for someone on the wrong side without a stop. Six meetings is a small sample, and spreads widen at the release.

How do you handle it: flat before the statement, smaller size, or wider stops? let me know.

I’ve lost money learning lessons that seem obvious now but were hard to accept at the time. After 4 years of trading, these are the five lessons that actually changed how I trade.

1. You don’t need to trade every day
I used to trade every day just to make sure I was doing something. Waiting for hours and leaving without an entry felt like wasting time. But that feeling kept pushing me into trades I wasn’t fully happy with. Now I ask myself whether my setup is there or whether I just want to feel productive. Some days, there’s nothing for me to take.

2. One trade a day helped me stop revenge trading
I heard this advice plenty of times and ignored it until I almost blew my account. When I finally tried it, it stopped me from immediately jumping into another trade to recover a loss. I eventually recovered and got beyond where I was before. That’s when I started taking the rule seriously. Once my trade is done, I’m done, whether I win or lose. We go again the next day.

3. Being close to a goal is when I need to be most careful
Whenever I get close to passing an evaluation or requesting a payout, that next trade suddenly feels much bigger than it is. I start calculating how increasing my size could get me there today, or convincing myself an average setup is worth taking. I’ve learned to watch for those thoughts. Being close to a payout doesn’t give me a reason to change my risk.

4. Journal your trades properly
Don’t just record your entry, exit, and how much you made or lost. Write down what you saw on the chart, why you took the trade, and how you felt before entering. Were you calm, scared of missing out, or trying to recover a loss? Note what made you exit too. I used to save screenshots, but later I couldn’t remember what I was thinking. Keeping those details alongside my trades helps me understand my decisions and spot habits I keep repeating.

5. Don’t get stuck backtesting forever.
I used to think more backtesting automatically meant more progress. But constantly checking new ideas and changing things left me overwhelmed. Backtesting is useful; I just need a clear reason for doing it. Now I try to keep it simple, focus on one question at a time, and avoid changing my strategy just because I found another losing trade.

I still have things to work on, but these lessons gave me specific habits to change instead of telling myself to “be more disciplined.”

What’s one lesson trading taught you the hard way?

1st frame= first setup

2nd frame= first setup result so far

3rd frame= next probable setup

Tomorrow we'll get the latest U.S. Durable Goods Orders release, a data point that often gets overshadowed by NFP, CPI and FOMC, but can still have a meaningful impact on the USD, yields and ultimately XAUUSD.

The market is expecting a -0.3% reading after the previous report came in at 0.0%.

A stronger-than-expected number could support the dollar and put pressure on gold, while weaker data could reinforce the case for a softer economy and potentially give gold another catalyst to move higher.

Personally, I find these "secondary" macro releases fascinating because they often reveal what the market is actually focused on. Sometimes the data itself matters less than the reaction that follows.

I'm curious what everyone is expecting:

• Bullish or bearish for gold?
• Trading the news or staying out?
• Do you consider Durable Goods Orders a tradable event, or is it mostly noise compared to CPI, NFP and FOMC?

I genuinely enjoy discussing major economic releases, central bank decisions and how macro events affect markets like gold, indices and FX.

If you're following tomorrow's release and would like to exchange ideas, discuss potential scenarios, or simply get another trader's perspective on the news, feel free to reach out. I spend a lot of time analyzing macro events and their impact on the markets and I'm always happy to chat with other traders.

What are you expecting from tomorrow's release?

Is anyone else having problems with ic markets 2fa from mobile number? A friend of mine cant login due to this

I sold USDJPY then fell asleep from a nap

This one humbled me again so I figured I'd ask.

I run a 14 period RSI on daily EUR/USD (I use the ECB daily reference rates because they're easy to pull). It dipped under 30 around Sept 24, bounced a bit, then sat at or around 30 pretty much from Sept 29 to Oct 14. The low was about 20 on Oct 5.

Price during that stretch? Went from roughly 1.1355 down to about 1.118. If you bought every time RSI said oversold, you were catching a falling knife for two weeks straight.

Took me way too long to accept that oversold is a description, not a signal. It just means sellers have been in control. In a real trend that can last way longer than feels reasonable.

What I pay attention to now:

• Where RSI lives. In a downtrend it tends to hang between about 20 and 60, so a pop back to 55 or 60 tells me more than a dip to 25.
• Divergence, but only once price confirms it by closing above a recent swing high.
• The higher timeframe. If the weekly trend is still down, I don't get excited about a daily oversold print.

It's at about 35 now with price around 1.119, so still basically stuck in that zone.

Curious how people here use it. Do you treat 30 and 70 as actual levels, or mostly watch divergence? And does anyone use different thresholds for trending vs ranging pairs?

Price got close to my stop loss and I convinced myself it was going to hit, so I closed the trade early. It never reached my SL. Instead, it bounced back and hit my original TP. What frustrates me is that I exited because I was scared of taking the full loss, not because my setup had changed. This trade happened to recover, and plenty won’t, but I want my exits to follow my plan rather than how nervous I feel in the moment. Anyone else struggle to leave a trade alone when price gets close to their stop?

Hey guy it’s one more happy meal for Monday

Gold has been respecting the downside pretty consistently today.

What's interesting to me isn't the direction, it's how expensive it can be to trade a market like this if you're in and out several times a session.

A lot of traders focus on:

• Entries
• Indicators
• Win rate

But if you're actively trading XAUUSD, a few points difference in spread across dozens of trades can end up having a bigger impact on your monthly PnL than tweaking your strategy.

Serious question for gold traders:

Have you ever calculated how much you pay monthly in spreads and commissions on XAUUSD?

And if gold keeps trending like this, are you looking for continuation shorts or expecting a reversal?

Anyone else trading this?

I only trade XAUUSD and my style of trading is 1:1RR with a 70% winrate monthly. My risk is only 1% of my account on a trade. In layman terms my aim is to achieve 4-5 net positive trades a month. To be honest these are my expections after couple of years experience.

I wanted to know what are the risk managments good expirenced traders following and what are their expectations on return on monthly bases ?

Last week's chip driven selloff pushed the Nasdaq down about 2.6% on Thursday and sent gold below $4,000 for the first time since July, as elevated oil and Fed hike pricing capped its haven bid. Educational only. Not financial advice.

If anyone trades NAS100 or US30.

Ignore of any spelling mistakes or you find my handwriting shit lol and if you have give me what your take aways are from the book

It’s Sunday, and I’m sitting here reviewing my trades in Notion, honestly feeling so proud of myself.

After years of blowing accounts(4yrs), making emotional decisions and questioning whether I’d ever figure this out, I’m finally starting to see progress.

Journaling my trades, tracking my risk to reward and learning from my mistakes is slowly changing the way I trade.

I’m not where I want to be yet, but seeing my hard work finally pay off feels so good ❤️

What's your experience so far with journaling if i may ask?

Does anyone else feel fine sitting out until you open a trading group and see everyone posting wins? You were happy waiting for your setup, but now it feels like you wasted the whole session. Suddenly you’re looking for an entry because you don’t want to be the only one who made nothing. Have you ever taken a trade you normally wouldn’t after seeing someone else’s profit? How do you stop that feeling from affecting your next decision?

It's funny how trading has become such a big part of my routine that when the markets close,I almost feel like I'm missing something😂

Im planning on starting with a $100, now I really want to hear from profitable traders on how much do you guys risk. Lets say that the $100 that I have is your entire account. How much would you be risking per trade?

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