How Matt Acquired $50,000 In 3 Weeks Using My Mechanical Trading Strategy

So what happens when a profitable trader comes to you and says, I can make money, I've got a strategy that works, but it only makes me around 2% per month, so I'm really struggling to pass my funded account challenges? The answer is simple. We implement our strategies into their trading plan, strategies that can actually generate— strategies that can actually generate you good returns in the market. And within 3 weeks they go and pass their funded account and they're then on the road to consistent profitability. Well, this is the story of my client Matt, who joined us, and within 3 weeks we helped him get his funded account passed, ticked off, so he can finally start making some money on his trading account. So again, strap in for this one. There's let me know what you think, and I'll see you in the next one.

Hello, Matt, how are you?

George, how are you, mate?

Yeah, I'm not too bad, thank you, mate.

Good to meet you.

Yeah, you too, man.

Some stuff— sorry, let me just get all of this set up. There we go. Speaker. Yeah, cool. Awesome stuff. Well, yeah, thanks for, um, thanks for jumping on with me. Again, I'm sure you've watched some of the previous interviews. Again, it's just very, very laid back, very chill. Just really want to get an understanding of your journey, really. I think obviously coming in, I mean, I think you joined 3 weeks ago.

Yeah, something about that. Yeah, about 3 weeks, the looks of it now.

Yeah, yeah, it's obviously 3 weeks and already got yourself funded. I understand you've got a bit of experience before, so I really, really just want to, want to start from the beginning, really find out a little bit about your sort of where you've come from, your background, and how you got into trading, and then, yeah, how we've got to where we are today, really. So I guess if you want to kick things off and give us a bit of an intro, then we can, we can take things from there.

Of course, man. Yeah, my name is Matt. I am, I live up in Scotland, um, from a small village up near Glasgow. Um, I'm self-employed. I work as a photographer, so I shoot portraits, fashion. Um, I got into trading about 3 years ago. Um, like a lot of people would kind of start to look at crypto kind of late 2020, start of 2021. And that kind of got me looking at charts, kind of looking at where, you know, where certain assets might have been and where they might be going. So that was really my first introduction of like looking at a chart, really. Um, and it really kind of piqued my interest, you know. It's like there's basic things you can do to begin with, just drawing a trend line. Oh look, it's bouncing off that trend line for the last 3 months. I thought that was kind of cool, you know, that way how you can kind of track something longer term. So, um, yeah, from there I kind of didn't do much with it. Um, then just did a little bit of digging on YouTube to try and find strategies and things, not realizing at the time that it's not, it's not that simple. You can't just, uh, you can't just— well, you can, some people are successful with it, but, um, the more you go into it, you realize it grows arms and legs. And if you want to do it properly, you really need to find an edge, find a structure, and work it around your life. So I guess for the last 2 years, that's really what I've been looking for. I've been in loads of groups and communities. Some have been great and I've learned something from all of them, probably. Most of them though didn't really fit with either my personality or my lifestyle. I look after my kids during the day because I have free time because I'm self-employed. So indices for the New York session, it's normally 2:30 PM UK time. So it's like, I can't even trade that if I'm picking kids up from school. So there were certain things that just needs to work within my criteria of my life. Um, tried some lower time frame stuff to begin with and really didn't enjoy it. I found like the stress being like the 1-minute, um, you know, really stressed me out. And so I kind of didn't go back to it until I joined with you guys again. I just seen it as something that I didn't want to do, so I more moved over to the 4-hour, 15-minute, um, and it worked for a while. Yeah, I got funded, I lost some accounts through doing those kind of strategies, um, but again, it's like, it's kind of pick your poison. Do you want to hold trades for days on end? Do you want to hold trades over the weekend? So yeah, you're kind of battling with that type of thing. And then ended up I developed my own strategy, which I spent a lot of time, I backtested 5 years with it, kind of my own edge that I kind of designed. And it was good, and I'm really proud of the strategy that I kind of designed. Um, it was really hard work, and it was really simple and mechanical. It's exactly what I wanted, um, fitted. I could just trade it in London session. The issue was with it that it didn't yield me a lot of percentage per month. I was getting like maybe 2%, the high end 5%. So So, and that's good to understand that from an industry perspective, it's excellent. But from the perspective of trying to pass funded accounts and then maybe have 2 months granted drawdown, so then you're stuck in drawdown for like, embarrassingly, I was stuck in a funded account for like almost a year in phase 1 trying to trade that strategy. Yeah, it kind of, while it's good and while we're proud of it, for the necessity of trying to pass the challenges didn't work unless you're overleveraging. So which kind of leads me to where I'm now. I was looking for something mechanical, something that works during mainly during London session and New York if I can trade it. And yeah, I loved the interviews that I've seen from you guys. One of the things I did love about, you know, URAJ in particular is there was new guys coming in., uh, who never really traded before and they managed to find success with it. And I've got this experience of looking at market structure and these things, it's like, so if I can't do that, then maybe it's not a strategy thing, maybe it's a me thing. Um, so going with it, sticking with it, putting more into it seems to be the way forward. Um, because pretty much you can have too much knowledge sometimes. Um, yeah, so that was my basis for basically coming along and joining.

Awesome. So yeah, I guess really for you, it's— I mean, you kind of put the work in. I mean, you, you did pretty much what you needed to do, but I guess it kind of comes down to it. I mean, you can collect the data on the strategy, but it doesn't really mean the strategy is going to provide sufficient edge. And I think that's— I mean, you've done the right work, but yeah, I mean, if the results don't yield what you need them to yield, then it's always going to be very, very difficult. And, um, I mean, yeah, you look at things like you could have a 2% edge, sort of averaging about 2-3% a month, which, I mean, it's great, right? But it's great if you've got the capital behind you.

Yeah, if you've got a million in funding, you're making 2%, hats off to you, you know, you're doing fantastic. But, um, without that capital to begin with, to start with, um, yeah, it's a long— but especially if you're in drawdown, I mean, spending that amount of time in drawdown, um, it affects you psychologically as well when you're going to then when you're in profit, you're trying to keep that profit, you know, that way. Uh, yeah, but it is what it is. Yeah, to get me here, I guess. Yeah.

So I guess, I mean, what was that decision like? I mean, did you, did you come to us already in the mindset that, okay, I kind of need to find something else to do here, or do you come to us and then you were like, okay, let me see what these guys are talking about, and then you were like, okay, yeah, this makes sense for me to do? I mean, what was your, what was your mindset when you were sort of looking for looking for additional assistance with this, I guess.

Yeah, well, I knew I needed something. I just needed the right thing that ticked the boxes for me. Um, once you look at enough strategies and I've worked with enough people, you know that you need something consistent. You need mentors that are going to be there to assist you if you need it. And I know I picked up on the calls that you've done with other interviews that you mentioned that, um, like you're doing weekly live calls, so you almost get that consistency out of that. You get to maybe share trades with people, you get to know that you're doing okay. And some communities that you're in, you don't get that type of feedback really, and especially the more advanced strategies, you're just expected to pack up, know what you're doing. If you ask a silly question, that's on you. And but it seemed to not be like that because you take on new guys. You seem to have that mentality of kind of a including people who are maybe stuck a little bit and just need a bit of help through it. And so yeah, so I needed something mechanical and something that just worked. And I mean, from all the interviews, I've done a lot of research, and some of the interviews in particular kind of really resonated with me and people in this maybe a similar situation to myself who had had experience, hadn't yet found that breakthrough, and it's really just on that cusp, on that edge of like, making it work, you know.

Yeah, yeah, no, 100%. I mean, I, I always say this, like, yes, we cater to beginners, yes, we cater to people that have got experience, but fundamentally, regardless if you're a beginner or you're an experienced trader, you're kind of facing the same problem, right? And that largely comes down to having an edge that generates the return that you need it to return. So even like, if you have— even if you have no experience or loads of experience, the one thing you're missing is that, is that edge. And yeah, I mean, that's why I think that we can— we try to cater to as many people as we can. And especially like, I mean, I guess you've sort of been in the mechanical space anyway. When you really strip a lot of that discretion away, trading isn't necessarily the most difficult thing to pick up. It's just about— it's just about doing the right things, taking the right actions, and actually having that— the right knowledge there to, I mean, really just be able to focus on, on doing what it takes to actually get your results. As opposed to just like being a crazy man on the charts and just drawing a million things up. It's just, yeah, having that focus really.

Yeah, yeah, I'd agree, man. That's good. Well, it makes sense.

So I mean, obviously this is a, this is a bit of a, I mean, not so much a crazy turnaround, but you joined us and within 3 weeks you passed Phase 2 and got yourself $50K in funding. What was— I mean, did you expect to see results that quickly? I mean, what what were you sort of looking to, I guess, achieve from, from joining our training?

So when I joined, I was in Phase 2 on FTMO. I was 5% down drawdown. Um, okay. When I came in, I first had the first kind of meeting with Josh. We were talking about like what I'm going to do. It's like, I'm just looking to take things slowly. I've been here before. I know if you rush, if you over-leverage, you're going to lose every time. Um, So yeah, I came in with the mentality of taking it slow. Then I kind of plowed through all the material, went through the course really quickly. A lot of it I already knew, but maybe just recapping stuff. I watched a lot of your trade reviews, which are fantastic. I went through your weekly webinars. I chewed through a few of those. I was like, cool, I've kind of done a lot of this stuff before, but but the missing link for me was just kind of putting it all together in a way that kind of makes sense. Like, the way you guys do a chalk is like slightly different, and it means you're getting a bit more of an aggressive entry, which I like, um, than I was used to. Because usually I'd wait for a break of structure, come back, and then the trade runs without you kind of thing. That's what I used to do in the 1-minute time frame, and that's where the stress came from. But the way you guys do it kind of makes more sense, I guess, um. But yeah, so I was trying to take it slow, and then, um, just got dug in and started taking some wins. I built my confidence to take the 1:3s to with, um, which was a tip that I heard on one of your, um, weekly calls. Kind of, it's kind of sometimes nice to just take those 1:3s, can I bang those out, and then you can, um, build confidence through it. And then yeah, from there just like took the setups as the goal, um, silly losses in between all that of course, like, uh, but yeah, got myself out of drawdown reasonably quickly. Um, that was risking 0.25% basically, um, and then the rest of it was risking 0.5%.

Wow.

So, uh, decent return, you know, um, which I wasn't expecting. Um, a few trades just managed to get kind of 1.7, 1.6, 1.7, 1.8 kind of thing. They really helped, you know, that way. Um, I guess I've been in drawdown for so long that risking 1% seems like a lot because you're used to cutting, you're cutting back. By the time you're in drawdown, it's like, cool, yeah, cut your, cut your trades in half. Um, it's then hard to scale up again. So maybe that's the next step for me, is to maybe move on to doing that. But so far so good. So yeah, it seems fast, but it doesn't really feel that way for me because having a look at the charts for so, so long.

Yeah, yeah, I know for sure. No, 100%. I mean, I remember, I think I remember the first post I saw from you. I think it was like 3 back-to-back 3R wins. Yeah. And I was like, okay, like, I was like, wait, I swear I've only seen this name like once or twice in the community before. And I checked back and I was like, wow, he joined like 3 weeks ago.

Where?

Let me, let me see where this, like, where this guy's come from. And then, yeah, I think you commented on one of my posts, I think, and said, oh yeah, this, this trade passed me my phase 2. I was like, okay, cool, like awesome, awesome stuff, awesome stuff. So obviously we've got you to that stage, everything. I mean, it's very quick turnaround relative to the time in which you joined. I want to sort of talk about your goals a little bit because I guess now like we've kind of got you on a path where profitability is in your sights, like the path forward seems probably a little bit clearer now. Firstly, I guess you're trading around your work at the moment. I mean, what sort of things and what sort of processes do you put in place to allow you to sort of juggle, I guess, trading and work and sort of taking care of the kids and stuff like that?

Yeah, if I'm working, I go all out and I'm either on set or I'm on location shooting type thing. So, um, working while trading, which I've learned from the last few years, just isn't possible. Just, I need my attention on it. Um, So, but the good thing is shooting— what I shoot, commercial, um, I pick up my camera maybe 2 to 3 times a month. So the rest of it's admin type stuff. So I spend a lot of time just typing, editing, that type of thing. Um, she was working around a bit of work, working around dealing with kids, getting kids to school, home again, you know. So it's just kind of general life stuff. So setting alerts, um but not have it take over my life. Because the thing that I love about this strategy as well is if you miss a trade, there's another one pretty much just around the corner.

Yeah.

And previous strategies that I did with the 4-hour, 15-minute type setups, which were fantastic, but you might only get a setup maybe once a week.

Yeah.

And it might be a loss. Um, so if you miss that trade, that's kind of— frustration comes from that. But I've missed a couple of trades and I'm quite comfortable with it. Um, you're learning to build that resilience at the same time, obviously. But, um, but yeah, happy to miss a trade because I know that in the next few days at least there'll be something else there that kind of makes up for that, I guess, you know.

Yeah, no, 100%. I think that's really important. I mean, obviously as my career has developed, I've definitely had that before where you sort of try the higher time frame stuff, and I guess it's always a bit of a juggling act, right, where you're sort of you need to have an edge, but you also need to juggle that with your psychology as well. I think it's very easy to fall into a bit of a pit with your psychology if you kind of— your trade expectancy is kind of like once a week. So if you do miss a trade, okay, I've got to wait another 7 days for a potential opportunity. So that then bogs you down, and then you lead yourself into overtrading. You kind of force— start forcing trades, and you sort of fall into that, uh, into that realm. But yeah, I guess if you've got a strategy that you know the expectancy is maybe 3 or 4 trades even a week, you know, okay, I've missed the trade, like, let me just— I'll just wait until tomorrow, see if there's opportunity. And I mean, we're not here trying to make 10% every week, like, which we know that if we can just get those consistent gains in, even if I capture one of the winners in the week, I'm gonna at the end of the month be in a really good position to, to see some good profitability, which I think is really, really good to sort of keep your mind in check. And even, even for me as well, um, So in terms of the, the future for you, obviously you've obviously got a great career in, in, uh, in what you're doing at the moment. Do you have plans to transition into trading full-time? I mean, is your goal just to keep this something that you do in, in your free time? I mean, what does the, what does the future look like for you when it comes to trading?

Yeah, so initially my idea with trading was like any side hustle, it's a hedge against what you're doing. I mean, the photography industry and the trade industry, you could pretty much say they're the most difficult industries I've chosen to dip into and try to make money from. But as it's a hedge against what I'm doing now professionally, and it means that, well, during the pandemic I work one-to-one with clients, or mostly for portraiture, so I didn't— I wasn't able to have that one-on-one contact, and so work basically just stopped. It's like, cool, well, if that happens again, am I ready for it this time? Um, so I'm kind of trying to create that solution for myself, you know. Not that that's going to happen again, but you never know. Obviously I didn't see that coming. Um, so yeah, would I like to trade full-time? Yeah, cool, that would be good. But, um, I'd always keep some kind of artistic thing at the side, and I think that professionally, then fantastic. It's kind of how I'm built, and that's why— the reason why trading works for me as well, because it's very kind of visual, being a visual artist, it's like you could see candlesticks, it's pretty boring and dull, but you're looking for certain pattern recognition, um, seeing the same thing over and over again. It's a very visual thing.

100%.

I guess that's maybe that's why it's kind of resonated with me as well, you know.

Yeah, I mean, that's very similar to myself actually. Um, I came from, I mean, my initial goal was to be a graphic designer when I was, uh, when I was like 15, 16. That's, I went to college to do graphic design and photography.

It's another big, big money maker in the—

it's not, it's Yeah, I gathered that. That's why I— when I got my eyes on trading, yeah, it kind of resonated with me, me the same way, I think. And, and yeah, like that, all, all of the patterns. I mean, everyone kind of thinks it's numbers, right? Everyone thinks that you're talking numbers and it's all statistics and stuff, which is to some degree, but it's largely about having that pattern recognition. Once you start to— I mean, once you have your mechanical rules, it always kind of looks the same, right? Every trade is pretty much identical within, within a few margins, but is then just about, I guess, training your eye to be able to spot those patterns before they happen. And then when you start to see those signs, you know, okay, entry here, stop loss here, TP here, and then you kind of have to trust just to let it run. And I guess that's probably why you've picked this up fairly quickly, because you've already got that pattern recognition in your mind to some degree. It's just then putting things in the right order and then, and then sort of following that process.

Yeah, no, 100%. Yeah, it's about seeing it, but then it's about practicing. And seeing it in real time is different though. See it when the charts are, you know, when you just get that kind of blank space in front of you, you You can look at a million different, um, kind of good results over and over again, but still you have the— have that pressure of finding an entry when there's, there's zero evidence that it's going to go in your favor. You know, that's, that's the— I think that's, that's the hard part about being a trader, I think.

Yeah, no, 100%, 100%. That's why data is so important, right? That's why putting the time into collecting data and being able to go through every trade, every trade, every trade, every trade, and building up that, that muscle memory. That, that's what really, I think, puts the needle in, in the trader's favor. I mean, even so, I've worked with a lot of people that you would look at the trades they're taking and think, you, you know everything that you're doing. But where they lack is they haven't put the time in away from the charts to build that data, to build that muscle memory. I mean, it's the same as like a— I always use the analogy of like a footballer. Like, a footballer can have the skill, but if they don't train well, if they don't analyze their, their games, they're going to step on the pitch and they're not going to perform as well as they should. It's kind of the same with us. If we don't take that time away from the charts to master our craft and to essentially go through training and, and data collection and analysis, then when it comes time to actually play the real game, it's going to be difficult for us to perform at the level that we need to. So that edge actually, that edge actually plays.

Yeah, totally, that makes sense. That's one thing I've been doing actually, um, just I'm still kind of working my way through it, but I'm going back through all your weekly live calls and, um, just marking out every trade on the FX Replay and just marking, marking everything out, almost like back testing sessions really, but to see what worked, what didn't, what potentials could have been there, what trades were maybe a bit riskier. Um, but if you just look at the basic edge and what it does, there's enough there, you know. Yeah, but no, that's pretty good. I've done that for the last— I think I've done like 4 months or 5 months worth. So I'm just working my way through. So I've kind of got a, a, just what takes, what to maybe expect week to week, you know.

Yeah, no, 100%, 100%. But yeah, I mean, I think, I mean, definitely a very, very different story to a lot of people, um, and I think your effort and work that you put in away from working with us has kind of allowed you to get to where you are today. But before we go, I always like to ask this at the end of every interview, Just as somebody who's, who's achieving good, good things in the space already, for those people that are watching this, what would be your top 3 tips to somebody that is sitting on the fence, still trying to get results as a trader? What would those 3 things be that you would, you would give them to, to help them get to where they want to get?

Cool, man. So, um, yeah, I'd say like, if you've not got an edge, you're going to need to start there. I think a lot of maybe people come into it— not that I did, but I know from seeing other people struggling like online and through interviews and things, that they're basically coming in without a structure and without an edge. Um, I mean, there are successful discretionary traders, of course, but you need— that's maybe a very small percentage of the people who are— is already a very small percentage of people who are successful with it. Um, so you're gonna need an edge, um, and that's provided with you guys. You're gonna probably need a mentor and people to help you. That's also provided from you guys. And also just having the community there and having kind of having a bit of backup, people who are maybe the same position as you are. And also that, um, that social approval that you're taking trades that everyone else is, is also important. If you're on your own and you're stuck on your own and you're taking trades, you don't know if it's a good trade or not. Because you've not— maybe nothing to compare it to. But for Eno, because that really has actually helped me the last few weeks, like the community is maybe quiet for the afternoon and then I'll have maybe took a trade, maybe took a break even, maybe a win, and then I'll look back and there's like 3 or 4 people who have done the same thing. It's like, cool, maybe I'm doing okay here. Um, even if it's a loss, it's still, still valid loss, you know?

Yeah.

So for anyone sitting on the fence, if they don't have that type of structure, it's maybe useful to come on board in some kind of community, if not you guys, that can maybe provide that. Um, otherwise you're kind of lost and you're maybe on your own with it, which works for some, but long term, yeah, it's difficult to— it's a lonely journey, you know.

Yeah, no, 100%. I think that's great advice. I mean, irrespective as to whether somebody joins us, I think fundamentally you need that edge. Like, if you don't have the edge, then nothing's going to work anyway. But then having that support and that coaching, that mentorship is— I mean, it's just so important. It is so, so important just having somebody to turn to to get your questions answered instead of letting that fester in your mind, and then that's gonna impact your own results and it's just going to be a downward spiral for there. But, um, yeah, I really appreciate you jumping on. Um, I really appreciate you jumping on again. I'm sure a lot of people are going to get a lot of value from this. Um, I look forward to seeing where this goes. I mean, we're still very, very early doors, which is— yeah, of course, which is, which is a bit crazy. But yeah, I really look forward to that again when, when we, uh, see that next accolade coming in. We'll, uh, I'm sure we'll have another conversation, have another call and get everybody up to date with where you are. But yeah, thanks again, mate. And, uh, yeah, I really appreciate it.

Good man. Thank you, George. Appreciate it, mate.

Nice one. Thank you very much, mate. Have a good day.

You too.

Nice one. Take care. Bye-bye.