My Prop Challenge Adventure

[StebaTrade]

Hi everyone!

I have recently started a challenge at FTMO, and I wish to share my journey with you. Hopefully, this journal will help me become more accountable and get suggestions on improving my trading.
This trading challenge started on 27/03. I also opened a similar account with the 5%ers, where I place mirror trades, but I'll post results from FTMO because their dashboards and analytics seem better.

The objective:
To pass the 1st evaluation step: obtain a 10% return with a maximum loss of 10%.

The market:
I'll trade EUR/USD, USD/JPY, AUD/USD, USD/CAD, and EUR/USD.
I may add more FX pairs and markets along the way, but I'll focus on those at least for the first few months.

Style and Timeframe
I can take two types of trades: intraday or swing. They're both based on the same setup. The only difference is that intraday trades are based on the hourly/30mins chart, whereas swing trades are based on a daily chart.
What I call intraday trades can last 10 hours or more and can be carried overnight into the Asian session. They will be closed by the end of Friday (or the trading week in any case).

The method
I trade using the Volume Profile indicator and using volume clusters as a kind of support/resistance zone.
I'll provide a detailed description of the rules with my first trade posts. For now, I'd describe my trades as using those zones as retracement support/resistance after an aggressive trend move has occurred.
I place my trades as limit orders within those areas. That means that, once the order is submitted, I have to wait a lot (sometimes days) for the order to be filled. Sometimes the price goes ahead and never looks at filling my orders. It feels like going fishing: I need to wait a long time with no guarantee of a catch.

Stop Loss and Target
I place my stop loss at the other side of the volume cluster I am using, looking at the price action in that area (obvious pivot and reversal points). Hopefully, I can give clearer examples later on.
As for the target, I still look for volume clusters, in this case, in the direction of the trade. I make sure I can get a Reward to Risk Ratio (RRR) of at least 1.2, or I don't take the trade.

Position Sizing
While I have a variable stop loss in terms of pips, I always risk the same amount (about 0.5% af the balance).
I take the maximum loss allowed by the challenge (£3500: 10% of the initial balance) and divide it by 20. That's how I get to 0.5%.
Later, as the account hopefully grows, I will take the maximum loss allowed based on the high-watermark balance and divide it by 20. E.g., if the balance reaches £36000, I can take (3500 + 1000) / 20 = £225 as risk per trade
By doing so, I can have a drawdown equivalent to 10 consecutive losses and still have plenty of room to turn my trading around.

 

[StebaTrade]

Where stand now:
The challenge account was opened three weeks ago, and has had only 10 trades so far:

Nothing exciting. I just moved up and down from my initial balance.
Actually, the first two trades were a mistake: an expensive reminder to disable One-Click trading when I install the cTrader app on my phone for the first time... that cost £9. Negligible loss, but silly.

So, that's where the stats start in this journal:

Wish me good luck!

 

[StebaTrade]

1st trade on this journal:
EUR/USD Long @1.1769, S/L 1.1751, Target 1.1793

The setup appeared on 14/4:

The price created a shallow but prolonged range that served as an accumulation zone for a subsequent aggressive upward move.
After this breakout, I placed a limit order to enter a long trade at 1.1769, a value close to the centre of the volume cluster, and used 1.1751 at the other side of the range/cluster as a stop level.
As a confluence factor, the entry price is close to the low of the day, which serves as support.

The limit order wasn't filled until today (two days later!!) and is still open. Fingers crossed!

 

[StebaTrade]

EUR/USD trade finally closed:
Entry @1.1769
Exit @1.1793, 24 pips
Initial S/L @1.1751, 18 pips

This trade required a lot of patience on my side: leaving the order for a couple of days and waiting for it to be filled.
Once in the position, I started wondering whether I should close in advance, fearing the profit could turn into a loss.

My rule is to stick to the original target, whatever happens (except closing by the weekend or by major news the 'day' trades). I have a simple rule to trail the stop when approaching the target, but besides that, I need to resist the temptation to tamper with my original trade setup. If I am wrong, I am wrong: once in a trade, my judgment will be obfuscated by an endless greed/fear cycle. I'd better stick to my rules.

24 pips in three days may not seem a good deal, but I strive to build consistency rather than chasing spectacular wins. I hope that small steps in the right direction will eventually get me there.

 

[StebaTrade]

Summary of the week ending on 17.04.2026

A peculiar week, marked by geopolitical news at the opening of the Asian session on Sunday, and again in the afternoon of Friday before the weekend ( after closing my last trade for the week). In between, the market kept mostly quiet, moving within a range (approx 70-80 pips wide for the EUR/USD).

I took only four trades, two wins and two losses, ending up in green for a modest amount (approximately 0.63% of the account balance).

All of those trades were executed based on my setup.
However, I now think I should have avoided taking both of the EURUSD and USDJPY losing trades: they were based on the same basis and sensitive to the same movements and therefore more correlated than I initially thought. By taking them both, I basically doubled my position size exposed towards one market direction.

 

[StebaTrade]

Before journaling my next trade, I want to try to describe the rules of my main trade setup.
The screenshot below is of a 30-minute chart of the EUR/USD pair on 10th April 2026, which includes a daily volume profile indicator (tick volume).

On that day, the pair generated a volume cluster centred around a POC (point of control) @1.1729. With hindsight, it's not the best volume cluster since it has two peaks (those with one peak are more reliable), but I used it to select this setup on that day.

Rules for the Volume Profile Accumulation setup:

1. The price moves in a range, and:
2. This range is associated with a significant cluster in the volume profile (see box in the picture).
3. There's a sharp move out of the range, initiating a move in either direction.
   Usually, this move is represented by tall body candles. In this case, since there was a weekend involved, the move is created by a large down gap. This activates the cluster above as a Sell area (a resistance). In the picture, it looks marked as Buy, but we will get to this later.
4. The Sell zone/resistance must not have reacted (not touched). Once the zone works as support/resistance, I don't use it again for trades.

The presence of a POC in the middle of that volume cluster serves as a confluence factor.

To break things down, I'll describe what happened in the next post.

 

[StebaTrade]

Here's how I tried to use the level mentioned in the previous post, and how things didn't actually work as planned.

That price area around 1.1730 was taken by a sharp move (caused by geopolitical news) on Monday, 13th April (small picture at the bottom). When the price moves through an area in this way, it flips function: from resistance it becomes support. That's why there's a line marked as Buy in the previous post.
The opportunity to use that level as resistance came on the weekly market open, on the evening of Sunday, 19th April (I'm based in the UK time zone).
The market opened with a down gap, close to that 1.1729 level. A few minutes after the open, I entered the order to buy limit @1.1729, S/L 1.1709 and target 1.1759. The price limit was based on the POC on 10/04 (as in the previous post).

However, this was never filled on my FTMO challenge account. It got filled on a much smaller 5k challenge account at the 5%ers with a very small size.
The spreads, at the time when the price touched that area, are usually wide.
Reconsidering this trade, I should have placed the order at 1.1734, as in the screenshot in the previous post. That level takes into account the price action that occurred on 10/04, when that support resistance area was formed.

Lessons to be taken from this experience:

• Be more accurate and realistic when setting entry price levels, taking into account the probability of being filled and the previous price action around that level.
• Having a broker with tight spreads can help to be filled, as it happened in this case. In all other cases, I need to consider the spreads and the possibility of being filled and set my entry price accordingly.
• Journaling helps. I realised several aspects of this trade while preparing this post, and hopefully I can use what I've learned in the future. So, thank you for being here and reading my posts!