Passing an Evaluation

A plan for a phase

• Choose the firm after reading its rules, not before.
• Trade the same method you have already tested on a demo or a personal account; a challenge is not the place to try something.
• Risk 0.5 to 1 percent per trade, so that a losing streak of five stays well inside a 5 percent daily limit and ten stays inside a 10 percent maximum.
• Set a daily stop of two or three losses and a weekly review.
• Plan for the target to take three to six weeks; treat anything faster as luck.
• Bank the pass: once the target is met and the minimum days done, stop.

The sizing arithmetic

A 10 percent target with 1 percent risk per trade and a 1:2 risk-to-reward needs about five net winning trades. With a 45 percent win rate that is around thirty trades, or six weeks at one trade a day. The same target with 3 percent risk needs two net winners but a single bad week ends the challenge. Every trader who passes repeatedly has settled on the small number.

What fails most attempts

• Oversizing to reach the target faster.
• Holding a loser through a daily limit.
• Trading news, revenge trading after a loss, or trading outside the tested method.
• Ignoring the rules on days, news windows or consistency.
• Attempting a challenge before having a method that has worked anywhere else.

After the pass

The funded account usually has the same loss limits and no profit target, and the temptation reverses: traders who were careful in the challenge relax and breach in the first month. Keep the same sizing, set a payout schedule and take money off the table when it is offered, because a payout in hand is the only certain outcome in this business.

Key takeaways

• Choose the firm to fit the method, then trade the method unchanged.
• Small, fixed risk per trade is what passes; oversizing is what fails.
• Plan weeks, not days, and stop when the pass is banked.
• Keep the same discipline on the funded account and take payouts.