Read this interesting story of Ty Nguyen, an American prop trader who passed the FTMO challenge and verification account in just 3 days.
After working as a salesperson for 4 years at Philpott Toyota Car Dealership Company in Nederlands, Texas, Nguyen used €540 from his savings to purchase a $100,000 FTMO Challenge Account.
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Conversation With FTMO Prop Firm Trader
In an exclusive interview with OpWell Forex, the FTMO prop trader revealed that it took him less than 10 trades to pass both the FTMO Challenge and Verification Account.
Here is the unedited version of the conversation we had with him:
How old are you?
“25”
Are you a graduate? What’s your highest level of education?
“I took some college, but I dropped out. When I was researching about forex trading and stumbled upon some information about prop firms, I started learning how to pass FTOM Challenge and Verification because I needed to get funded “.
What economic activity were you doing before you started trading forex?
“I worked at a sales job full-time for about 4 years total before that”.
What other businesses do you do right now apart from forex trading and being an FTMO prop trader?
“I don’t do anything other than trading right now”.
Do you have a forex trading office like most American forex traders?
“Sort of I guess? It’s just my home computer in my bedroom”.
Which forex broker do you use, and how much was the first forex trading capital you deposited before you started trading with a prop firm?
“I never used another broker or money of my own before with forex, when I learned about the opportunity in forex trading and became an FTMO prop trader, I went directly to trying to get funded”.
Does that mean the FTMO challenge and Verification accounts you passed in 3 days were free/demo accounts? If not, how much did you pay for the challenge account, and how much capital were you given to trade with?
“I’ve hit profit targets for 2 real challenges, I paid between $500-600 for each. They were both $100,000 challenges.
Here’s my certificate for the first FTMO account, I’m just waiting for the rest of the minimum trading days on the 2nd one”.
How did you learn how to trade forex? Did you pay for a mentorship program or did you watch YouTube videos/read articles and eBooks?
“Mainly YouTube videos, online articles, and my own study/observation. I never paid for any kind of program”.
Anyone can become a profitable trader without the help of a forex mentor. Do you think this statement is true?
“Yes, because there are many good free resources out there”.
Why do you think forex trading skills can be mastered without the help of a mentor?
It’s much harder to find the right answers looking through free stuff on your own, but its definitely possible. I’m a proof of that.
Why did you choose FTMO instead of other prop firms? Why did you decide to become an FTMO prop trader?
“I chose FTMO because they don’t have any kind of restriction on what instruments you can trade, and FTMO’s account scaling process is ridiculously good”.
What motivated you to pay for a prop firm’s funded account rather than trade with your capital?
“So I never have to risk my own money, and because you pay less taxes in America on getting paid by a prop firm than making profit on your own capital”.
Do you mind sharing your transaction history on the FTMO platform?
“I do not want to share the invoices as they contain personal information”.
Have you been listed on FTMO Leaderboard as one of the prop firm’s top traders?
“No, I have not been listed on FTMO Leaderboard”.
On average, how much money have you been making weekly or monthly through FTMO’s funded account?
“I started out trying to make $1,000 per day, but my current goal is only $500 per day. Most weeks I make more than my goal though, but I haven’t had a red week yet”.
Lack of enough trading capital has been one of the many reasons why most traders are not profitable. According to you, what is the recommended source of capital for forex trading?
“My preferred source of capital is through prop firms, but I can also say the amount of trading capital someone has, has zero relevance to whether or not they can be profitable.
A good strategy and risk management can be scaled down to an account of only $1, or up to an account of $1 million”.
What type of trader are you? Are you a fundamental, sentimental, or technical trader?
“Technical, my strategy is based solely on price action and volume”.
Are you a scalper, swing trader, or position trader?
“I guess the closest thing to what I do would be scalping. Sometimes I’m only in positions for a minute, but the maximum is usually only like 30 minutes or so”.
How do you control your lot size depending on your available account balance?
“I only ever risk 1-2% per trade. So on a $100,000 account, I currently trade 10 lots at a time. However, sometimes I do scale into larger positions while in a trade”.
Do you set stop loss and take profit in your trades?
“I only use stop losses and I trail them into profit as soon as possible”.
What risk-to-reward ratio do you use that helped you pass the FTMO challenge and verification process in 3 days?
“Because I don’t use take profits and only trailing stops, I don’t have a set risk to reward ratio. I use a trailing stop so I can let my winners run as long as possible.
My biggest winning trade of my career so far was just over 1:11, but I typically average around 1:2.5 or so”.
You must be a confident trader. Most forex traders cannot let their trades run for too long unless they set a stop loss at the entry point once the trade is running in profit
“I set my stop loss beyond my entry point to where I’m usually making 1% or $1,000 as soon as possible so I still hit my daily goal even if I get stopped out. Then if the trade goes to 1:2, I’ll move my stop loss even further so if I get stopped out, I’m making $2,000. Then it’s just about waiting to see how far it’s going to run before reversing, but either way, I’m guaranteed to make money.
My favorite quote to avoid greed and FOMO is – Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered”.
How many trades did you take to pass both the two steps of the FTMO Challenge and Verification?
“For this second challenge, it took me less than 10 total trades to pass both steps”.
What challenges do you face when trading with FTMO?
“The only thing with FTMO that ever challenged me was the minimum time frames. Knowing you only have 30 days to make 10% can make you feel a ton of pressure, and I like to push myself so I wanted to do it in the first 10 days which at first gave me a lot of stress and made it difficult to stay disciplined and not over trade”.
Based on the fact that you face some challenges trading with FTMO, are you satisfied with the prop firm’s services or are you looking for an alternative?
“I’m very satisfied and will most likely stick with FTMO for the entirety of my trading career”.
Most beginner forex traders believe that prop firms like FTMO are scam businesses. What can you tell them?
“I guarantee you, FTMO makes a lot of money off application fees from traders failing their challenges, and while thats very unfortunate, it’s not FTMO’s fault that most retail investors lose money at trading and aren’t good enough at being profitable to earn a funded account.
But for traders that do get funded, FTMO is the complete opposite of a scam, they take all the risk for us for a mere 10-20% of our trading profits. In no way does that sound like a scam to me and is a great deal to me”.
Do you have a forex trading academy where beginner traders can learn through an online class or a physical classroom?
“I’m already in the process of making a course on Udemy”.
Why are you late to set up a forex trading academy when you could be making money by teaching others the skills you poses?
“Teaching beginner traders is not my main priority right now”.
Do you have a Myfxbook account or MQL5 Signals account where investors can subscribe to your forex signals?
“I don’t, and I don’t plan on ever having anything like that”.
Why don’t you have a Myfxbook or MQL5 Signals account? Some investors are ready to copy your trades automatically through the platforms
“Any real profitable trader can make enough money through trading alone to not need to make income from selling education or signals.
Plus, allowing people to simply copy your trades is doing them a disservice because they will never learn to be profitable on their own that way”.
What advice can you give traders who are thinking about trading with a prop firm?
“Backtest your strategy and practice with paper trading on the same size account you plan to apply before you ever pay an application fee and try a challenge.
Also, the mindset that you aren’t profitable just because you don’t have enough capital is completely untrue and won’t do anything but set you up to lose a larger amount of money with a bigger account”.
Conclusion
Most American forex traders understand the benefits of trading with a prop firm. That is why it has always been impossible to miss their names on the FTMO Leaderboard.
So why are most American traders listed on the prop firm’s global scorecard as the most profitable and active traders? It is because they spend time learning how to pass FTMO Challenge and Verification process.
Author
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