Think you have to trade a lot of contracts to put up four-figure days? Wrong. Sarah S. in Jersey City, NJ made $3,200 her first day trading in a Funded Account™, $1,000 her second, and $3,500 two days later. All trading a max of one contract at a time.

Sarah is the first to admit that these were “unusually” profitable days where she was able to capture the right side of a trend. But still, there’s a lot that traders can learn from this performance.

In this interview, Sarah provided robust examples of the three trade setups that she looks for in trading Nasdaq futures.

At 7:05 PM ET on October 6, 2016, I had $6,350 in my retail forex trading account. I was long 210,000 of GBP/USD — max leverage — anticipating that the Pound was nearing a post-Brexit recovery four months after the initial event shook the system.

Two minutes later, I lost $16,000 — the $6,350 PLUS an extra $9,579.91 before my broker was able to liquidate the position. All of this was because of the British Pound Flash Crash caused by (what I would later learn) one fat finger trade and algorithms halfway across the world.

Here's what I learned about what it's like to get caught in a flash crash.

Markets are up and roaring for another week — with everyone's ears perked up listening for how the trade war / not trade war situation plays out between the United States and China. 

But while you can't control what President Donald Trump or President Xi Jinping do, you can control your entries, stops and exits. Here are some of our favorite quotes to get you motivated this week.

Like most of us, Rajeev T. in India learned the hard way that trading is challenging. He’s been trading financial markets (primarily the Indian stock market) for more than five years. Looking back, he realizes that he didn’t have a plan. Instead, he said that he relied on news that he saw on TV to trade. And that led him to the same place: blowing up account after account.

Rajeev said that all changed in September 2016 when he realized that if he kept doing the same things, he would get the same results. That led him to a study of technical analysis, trading psychology and risk management. Less than two years later, he’s found his stride and earned a TopstepFX Funded Account™ with $300,000 in live forex buying power. Here’s how.

For years, Bob R. (Viroqua, Wisconsin) says he was like Jim Carrey’s character in Liar Liar. He would beat himself up whenever his trades went the wrong way. But even when he was struggling, part of him knew he would be a better trader if he could just change his mindset.

That realization led Bob to work on his attitude and stop trying to be right all the time in his trades. Now, Bob is comfortable being wrong — so long as it's not at the expense of being profitable.

Since earning a Funded Account™, Bob has only been profitable on 31% of his trading days. And he’s profitable on just 40% of his trades.

Those are stats that would sink most traders, if not for the fact that the magnitude of Bob’s wins are much larger than the magnitude of his losses. Bob’s average winning day is 3x the size of his average losing day, and his largest winning day was nearly 5x his largest losing day. With that, Bob has turned from a trader that struggled into one that embraced losses and found a way to be profitable. Here’s his step-by-step guide to making that transition.

Like any trader, Mohammad A. in the United Arab Emirates has seen good days and bad. Since earning a Funded Account™, however, Mohammad has put together some impressives stats. In 13 days trading live with our capital, Mohammad has already withdrawn $4,000 in profits.

But that doesn’t mean he has everything figured out. Mohammad’s average winning trade is slightly less than his average losing trade ($135.36 vs -$147.38) — a statistic that he will work on as he looks to improve his consistency even further.

We talked with Mohammad to find out how he managed to get off to a quick start and how he plans to keep building on his success.

Comparing a trader to a baseball legend may seem odd at first. You might be more likely to look for an athlete known for flash, like Michael Jordan, or aggressiveness, like Mike Tyson. However, the aide who described hedge fund manager Monroe Trout in The New York Times as “the Cal Ripken of Hedge Funds” couldn’t have been more right.

Much like The Iron Man set the record for consecutive games played, Trout never missed a day in his 15+ years at the helm of Trout Trading. But showing up is a just small part of Trout’s story. These stats tell the rest:

• In one five-year period, Trout was profitable in 87% of months.
• His average annual return during that period was 67%, while his largest drawdown was just 8%.
• In all months, Trout Trading never had a losing year and posted an average annual return of 21.5%.

Trout’s return/risk measurements are extraordinary, but his methods for achieving them can be followed by any trader. Let’s take a look at a few tactics you may be able to emulate.

Volatility was the name of the game last month. Big swings may cause a few sleepless nights and anxious days, but they can also be profitable if you’re prepared. A robust risk management plan is the key to navigating the market’s sharp turns. Let’s take a look at some of February’s blog post that can help you get ready for the next wild ride.

Melissa M. from Stillwater, Oklahoma doesn’t fit the stereotype of a trader. When she started trading back in 2010, she was a single mother with two young children, a full-time job, and a degree in microbiology.

At TopstepTrader, she found a way to explore her passion for trading. Now she’s putting up numbers other traders would envy. Just last month, Melissa posted four $1,000+ winning days, including a three-day streak where she gained $2,829. She hasn’t yet withdrawn from her Funded Account™, but she sitting on a very healthy account 24 days in.

We caught up with her for an interview to talk about how she did it — and why she believes she is more successful trading live now than in the past. 

February has been an interesting month for trading. There was a brief melt-down in equity markets, causing the U.S. Dollar to (at least temporarily) halt its downtrend. 

Tejas from Vancouver has capitalized on that environment to earn a TopstepFX Funded Account. But in talking with him about what made him successful, his perspective proves that trading forex is no different than trading futures: good trading is good trading.

Tejas’ keys to success are similar to what we often hear from successful traders: he started focusing on the actual market trends and became obsessive about his risk management. Here's how he earned his Funded Account.