Futures Day Trading Deep Dive: Ben Price Interview

This week, I'm joined by Ben Price, an upcoming futures day trader from the UK. I met Ben at the Futures Bootcamp in Tampa and we quickly agreed to do an episode as Ben has so much value to share with other developing traders and a cool story on how he got started. 
This is a deep dive into Ben's trading style, his setups, risk management, prop gaming and more. If you want to be inspired by an awesome trader who you can actually relate to, you need to listen to this episode.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Trader Dane here with an important message. Everything you hear me or my guests say on this podcast is to be considered for educational and entertainment purposes only. It is not financial advice. You should do your own research before making financial decisions, just like in any other part of life. So with that, let's get started with the podcast.

SPEAKER_02 0:30

If you're not someone that feels ready to copy trade, then don't. Like there is no rush. Everyone is on their own journey. You could almost argue what you kind of feel before the market opens can instantly become irrelevant. So you you need to be you need to have your finger on the pulse and read price as it is, you know, as it's printing in front of you at that moment in time. We all have our own lenses for the market, right? So anyone could read a chart and everyone will come up with complete different outcome scenarios, what they think, etc. And I think as soon as you find that thing that resonates to yourself, yeah, it gets far easier. Sometimes the edge, yes, you need to have an edge in the market, but sometimes the edge is in the person clicking the button.

SPEAKER_00 1:17

Welcome everybody to the Trader Dame podcast. We have a new episode lined up for you, and I am guested by Ben Price. Welcome to the show, Ben.

SPEAKER_02 1:26

Thank you very much, and uh yeah, very excited to be here. So thanks for having me on.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

Super happy to have you. Um, we've been chatting a little bit already, we're warmed up, so uh I think this is gonna be a really interesting conversation. Um I have uh a ton of questions I would like to ask you. Uh a couple of episodes now that I've done, I've I've sort of been diving into people's backstories. Um, I want to hear a little bit about your backstory as well. Um, but I also really want to deep dive on your trading. I've been following you on Instagram, on social media, um, and I think you I find your your style, your resolve, like your mental abilities to stay in trades and so on. I find that really fascinating. So I want to dive into that. But maybe if you can just share a little bit about yourself, your background, how you got started trading.

SPEAKER_02 2:10

Yeah, of course. So um I've been trading now for around, I would say I'll consider it around four years now, sort of properly taking it seriously. Um, my first sort of introduction to trading, as many people, um, it's not always the best. Copy trading, signals, bots, etc. And uh yeah, it never went too well. Made money initially, and then shortly after lost it all. So, but uh, one thing it did teach me was okay, there is money to be made throughout these markets. So if I really knuckle down and try and learn some strategies and about risk and things, then hopefully at some point in my future I will start to be able to make some consistent money out the out of the markets. Yeah, and then in 2022, and move forward a bit. Um, I actually started watching this YouTube series, it's called The Real Forex Trader. I'm not sure if you've ever heard of it. It's a series that's hosted by a guy called Samuel Leach in the UK, and their company's called Um Samuel and Co Trading. And now they basically host a series where they get random participants from all across the world uh apply. And basically, the idea is to try and train these people, random people, to become profitable traders over a sort of a four-week period whilst on their trading floor. Um, to cut a long story short, I applied and managed to get on to series four, which was um an amazing, amazing thing to do. Uh, an amazing experience. When I went onto the show, I'd never really even executed a trade um on a desktop. It was all from my phone before. It was uh yeah, I certainly felt like a um sort of a fish out of the water, shall we say. But it was a great experience, plenty of mental uh challenges along the way, and of course, the trading aspect as well. They all taught us the same strategies that we all had to follow. And of course, there was complete different results amongst the the sort of 10-11 people that were on the show. So yeah, that was a great experience, and then from there, um, I guess you could say like I was really, really gonna pursue this as some kind of career, whether it's alongside my job, which it it still is. Um, but it certainly gave me that motivation to keep trading and yeah, try and finally uh tackle the markets, shall we say, and get the upper hand.

SPEAKER_00 4:30

You know what that reminds me of? It kind of reminds me, I don't know if you've read The Market Wizards.

SPEAKER_02 4:34

Yeah, so I have uh yeah, a lot of time it reminds me of the turtles, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:38

The older one, yeah. It reminds me of Richard Dennis and the turtle that you know they they took this group in and they tried to just mechanically teach them back in the 1980s, teach them just to you know buy the breakout or something like that, right? And they're consistently do that, and they would be teaching them. So the thesis was can you take anyone? And obviously, at the end of the day, it wasn't anyone, it was very talented individuals, but of course you could teach them to trade. It's a little bit like that. You were enrolled in a program, you learned how to trade, and then you really the passion started there.

SPEAKER_02 5:08

Exactly that. Yeah, they they put us all into a room, they taught us their strategies over um the course of I think it was two days, and then we were kind of like, right, you need to, it's either sink or swim type of scenario. You yeah, you go and follow these strategies we've taught you. Um, all on uh the major FX pairs and gold. And yeah, at the time it was it was chaotic in the markets. Um, we had, I believe the UK, we had Liz Truss as prime minister at the time. I remember that. It was uh it was absolute chaos, but do you know what? It was just incredible, it was so mentally tiring. I can't even explain because it wasn't just the trading, there was other um, you basically you lived on a knife edge, you never knew what you was going to be doing at any point. They would take you away somewhere, you'd go and do a uh a sort of a physical challenge, like uh army style challenges. Yeah, it was really interesting. Um, yeah, I suggest if anyone's interested in that kind of thing, just do uh yeah, check it out. But um, that was my introduction to trading, at least properly, I would say. So that was like a a bone out of fire kind of thing. Yeah, exactly that. It was exactly that. It was um yeah, real, real good experience and uh something I'll always remember.

SPEAKER_00 6:21

One one thing one curious question I have here because so it was FX and gold.

SPEAKER_02 6:27

Yeah, it was all the major um FX pairs, so yeah, anything correlated to the US dollar. Um, and then yeah, the gold was one of the pairs that we were able to trade as well.

SPEAKER_00 6:38

Do you you're from the UK and I'm from Denmark? We're both from Europe, because I find when I talk to other Danish traders or European traders, it's like it's like they're stuck in the FX land and and and kind of haven't really caught on to futures. Um, what's your take on that?

SPEAKER_02 6:54

Yeah, sure. Um, I would say, yeah, certainly to begin with, like a close friend of mine. Um, he he kind of watched the show and we was in a community together at that point, and he was trading just euro dollar. Yeah, and it took me a little while, but I eventually convinced him to start trading futures, and um, I'm sure we'll we'll speak about them, but then moved on to ASFX. And um, yeah, so he kind of moved out of that FX background into futures. Uh, I don't actually typically speak to a lot of UK or European traders, I'll be honest, it's it's mainly Americans.

SPEAKER_00 7:28

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get the same thing. It's very difficult to find people that actually um that actually trade seriously, I would say.

SPEAKER_02 7:36

Yeah, exactly that. It's it's it's such such a nice community when you finally meet people that are on the same wavelength and they're all out pursuing the same goals as you are and taking it dead seriously.

SPEAKER_00 7:47

Exactly. It's that thing about taking it dead seriously because we've all been met with the you know, you you you tell your friends and your family and say you're probably gambling, you're gonna lose all your money, and then you actually meet a community, you get into a community that is serious about it. Um, I was just in a call with someone, a group of Danish traders where um they were discussing with how serious you need to be, you know, can it be a side income that you just do for an hour a day? To me, it's kind of like do you want to play on the national team or not? You have to be passionate about it. Um, you have to you have to really dive into it. And not saying you have to know everything about the markets, but you definitely have to know everything about yourself, and you're gonna get that through the experience with the markets, right?

SPEAKER_02 8:30

I could not agree more. In fact, I think it was a snippet of your podcast with Clay, which I really resonated with. And that was about being dead serious, and it's something I really liked about yourself and the podcast is how serious you really take this, because you can't take trading like lightheartedly. I I don't understand how people do this as a hobby. If you do this as a hobby, I don't believe you'll you'll really make money ever. I think you have to be fully concentrated, and and like you say, you learn so much about yourself when it comes to trading. I've learned more about myself than I could ever possibly imagine on this pursuit to consistency and profitability.

SPEAKER_00 9:10

I came up with a quote uh that was a reel I did a couple of months ago. It's like day trading is is like the the most potent personal development program you can ever come across, right? It's that's what it is.

SPEAKER_02 9:24

It is it's so true, it really is. It's equal. And the funny thing is, you can't explain it to anyone that doesn't trade, I find no, that's why it's so important to have people that you can um you know express your feelings to when you're going through rough patches with trading, which let's face it, most of us are most of the time uh being real. I know I do, and having someone that's in the space that you can always speak to and just get these feelings off your chest, you know, at least that person understands when you're coming from. It's great speaking to your wife, to your partner, your spouse, whatever, whoever, but unless they're physically trying to do this activity themselves, they can't relate.

SPEAKER_00 10:04

There's exactly there's a lack of connection there, that just is it's a different matter. Getting getting stopped out to the tick and then ripping to TP, that's uh that's only something traders know.

SPEAKER_02 10:14

Absolutely, yeah. It's a savage game, but we we still turn up each day to play it, right?

SPEAKER_00 10:19

Exactly, and that's the key. Um, so so Ben, um, like I said before, I've been watching you on on Instagram on your show. So it's great content. Uh, I really love it. Um, I get the impression you I'm and I know you're transparent, you're you're being very real about your trading, you're showing everything. But overall, I would say I get an impression that you're really good at selling the tops and buying the bottoms. And I I think I saw um, which is a rare ability, right? I think I saw a post you did a day or two ago where you actually had a short position on, at least it looked like that from your markup, and you traded it right through all the vivo apps down to a bottom. Uh that's how it looked with a pretty, I mean, a pretty good risk reward there. Just just as an example, and then we'll dive into a few more questions. Um, what what how do you manage such a trade? And and is that common for you?

SPEAKER_02 11:10

Um, so a lot of my trading. Um I'm gonna take us back to October last year, ever so slightly. Um, so a guy named Alex, uh Flowzone trader, he was on you may have heard his podcast with Austin. He was on his uh podcast back in last summer, and something about the way he spoke, and I just resonated so much with him. He's an English guy who lives in LA. And I wanted to know more about the way he trades, so I started watching his streams. Um, I eventually got into his community and um his course, etc. Now, I'll be honest, I've just never seen anything like it. I was I I'm gonna say it, I think he's the best trader I've ever seen, particularly for trading live. Um, it's it's incredible. He reads the tape like I've just never seen it before, the book, the book map. He's constantly calling out levels, right? It's so it's super impressive. I'm nowhere near that level by any means. But something he taught me was about particularly about value, volume, profile. Um, and I know that the guys in ASFX use it, I know that Zach Zab uses it as well. So I had a very small understanding of it, but once I've kind of started to learn from him, I learned an awful lot more. And one thing that really stood out to me from his teachings is the previous day's um value. So basically, I'll mark out uh the value area from the previous day using a session volume profile, and that will mark out the previous day's value area high, the point of control, and the value area low. Now, when we're in a market that is uh balanced, uh meaning that we're not rotating into new areas of value, seeking higher prices or lower prices, what tends to happen is the edges of that previous day's value seem to be respected. Not all the time, but um on that markup, sorry, on that markup that you saw of mine that particular day, it worked a treat. So at that point, my idea was coming into the market. I was looking for shorts already because the day before we'd had a huge sell-off and I was already looking at potentially getting short back to those lows because we'd broken structure on like the hourly time frame. Um, and when I marked out the previous day value, the value area high was almost like right at the top of that day. We was inside previous days value, so I was looking to trade the edges. So, meaning if price gets to uh the value area high and rejects it and we're in rotation, there's a fair chance that we'll trade back to the mean, whether that's the point of control, or sometimes we'll trade all the way back to the value area low. So that was my idea on that particular uh trade. We had a rejection out of an imbalance or a fair value gap, if you if you want to call it that. Yeah, and also the rejection of the value area high. And that was my reason why I took that short, despite being against the VWAP, if you like.

SPEAKER_00 14:14

Yeah, and holding on to it through the VWAPs and all that. Yeah, so so really awesome, really awesome. Thank you. A lot of technicals, a lot of technicals being thrown around here. I want to just no, that's okay, that's okay. We're gonna dive into it. I said we're gonna talk about trading today. Um, but I've I've prepared a little rapid fire, like this or that kind of question for you that can then lead us into a little bit more about how you trade. Um, are you up for it? Of course, yeah. Always awesome, let's do it. I've added a few more just as we were speaking because I was I I I got triggered here. So so let's go. So it's about I think I have 11 questions. Okay. Number one, long or short? Short interesting. Yeah, two, ES or NQ.

SPEAKER_02 14:56

More recently, NQ.

SPEAKER_00 14:59

Live capital or sim capital?

SPEAKER_02 15:02

Sim capital for me right now.

SPEAKER_00 15:04

Yep. Evals or straight to funded?

SPEAKER_02 15:08

Straight to funded.

SPEAKER_00 15:10

Good one. Uh micros or minis.

SPEAKER_02 15:13

Micros. Get get my size perfectly in, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:17

Right. High win rate or low win rate?

SPEAKER_02 15:21

Good question. I prefer, I'd always prefer a higher win rate, but when you're trying to achieve these slightly larger risk to rewards, you need to accept that you're not going to be right as much. So I'd prefer a higher win rate. Um, I'm around 43% at the moment. So it's not particularly high, but the profit factor is around 1.4, 1.5. There you go.

SPEAKER_00 15:42

It's it's it's a it's a constant balance, right? And and and it also shifts over time. Yeah. Of course. Awesome. Um, more than two hours on the chat or less than two hours on the chat?

SPEAKER_02 15:54

Two hours is a good amount of time for me. If I'm on the chart for more than two hours for the PM session, it's usually because I'm chasing something.

unknown 16:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:03

That's gone wrong trying to force something or win something back.

SPEAKER_00 16:05

Yeah, I feel it. I feel it. Um this one's gonna be interesting as well. Base hits or home runs?

SPEAKER_02 16:15

Um, I want to say I would say base hits. I think base hits they stack. That's that's how historically, when I've had payouts, generally speaking, that's where they come from.

SPEAKER_00 16:26

Yeah, it's funny, right? Because you hear these like these verified traders like Tom Hugard, for example, will I mean he will go for the home runs, but then you hear a lot of people say a lot of people say base hits, base hits, base, especially in prop trading, right? Sure. Uh, number nine, single account or copy trading.

SPEAKER_02 16:45

I would say copy trading as long as you're responsible with how many you're copying and where you are in your career as well.

SPEAKER_00 16:53

It's experience, absolutely. Good. Uh, number 10. Take the payout or build a buffer.

SPEAKER_02 17:00

Take the payout. Uh I I don't I don't even need to elaborate, really. Take the payout. You can always get another account.

SPEAKER_00 17:08

True, very true. Final one VWAP or volume profile. And that was a trigger from before when you were talking about volume profile. I know it's a difficult one.

SPEAKER_02 17:18

They're like the main tools to my tool belt.

SPEAKER_00 17:21

Luckily, we don't have to choose normally, right?

SPEAKER_02 17:24

Yeah, sure. I think if I really had to choose, I'd actually pick the volume profile.

unknown 17:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 17:29

If I really had to choose, but they are both very important to the way I trade.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

Yeah. So let's rewind then. So, what makes you say that you took a home run the other day? Based, I would say that a home run that was a pretty high risk reward, um, based on the volume profile. So it's things like that that are sort of you lean towards the volume profile, you can get home runs like that. I think so.

SPEAKER_02 17:49

I think um it offers slightly better risk reward if you're playing it correctly, if you're able to kind of um understand perhaps what the market is almost trying to do at that moment in time, or at least the the state of the market at that point. Um, obviously, as you'll know as well, with the VWAP, the idea is as Brian Shannon would teach, and Austin passed on as well, is you buy or you sell um away with the strength. So if you were to break the VWAP, you may not actually get the best price. You know, you could argue you could get a lower price if you're looking to buy, but at that stage, you'll be buying underneath the VWAP, which kind of contradicts the the whole thesis around trading in line with the VWAP, right? So I think the volume profile potentially offers a slightly better risk to reward, although perhaps trading in line with the VWAP will give you a lesser reward, but a higher win rate.

SPEAKER_00 18:45

Yeah, I think that's that's very well said. Um, it definitely is like I had a session yesterday. I took a loss. Well, actually, I took a win, but I kind of I had to I choked the first trade and then I re-entered and won the trade, the second trade. But the thing is, I was taking the reclaim of New York and going long. Yeah, but one when when I went back and reviewed my trade, I could see a low volume node, so basically a low volume price, yeah, um, right underneath, and it respected lead like like I mean to the T, right? It was it was it was amazing. So you had that dip in volume at that price, and it just bounced off it beautifully. And that's where I had my stop. So that was the stupid part, right? Um but that's where volume profile really is valuable.

SPEAKER_02 19:31

It is certainly valuable, and as you mentioned about like volume knowns, etc. So sometimes or most of the time, once the New York session begins, after say 15-20 minutes, even half an hour, I'll actually plot an anchored volume profile from the New York Open. And again, that will give you more obviously, it's the uh a developing profile throughout the session, but you will start to see these volume nodes appear, and it's like one of those things. Again, this is something I learned from Alex. Once you have it on your chart and you start seeing price react off these levels, you can't turn it off again. It's it is I find it so fascinating.

SPEAKER_01 20:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:09

Um, so when you get these areas of um big chunks of volume, they can sometimes offer as a you know a support if you're looking to buy, and um obviously inversely from the top, if you've got a big volume node and you're looking for shorts, sometimes you can keep your stop just above that volume node, and that offers you a slightly better risk to reward, also.

SPEAKER_00 20:32

Yeah. Yeah, that's what I should have been paying attention to yesterday for sure. One thing you mentioned as well is um when I asked about single account or copy trading, so that's more of the mental side of it. You said experience counts. Um can you elaborate on that? When can you allow yourself to copy trade?

SPEAKER_02 20:53

Yeah, I mean, I would say I think it comes down to your personality. If you're if you're someone who's um say quite risk adverse and or you've never had a payout before, then I wouldn't suggest obviously copy trading. But if you've had payouts before, or you know, a few payouts, or even just one, you've you've at that point you've already proved to yourself that you can do it. So I don't see the harm in perhaps adding one or two extra accounts to your your first account to try and just kind of scale that um risk to reward with your prop firm journey, if that's what you're doing. Yeah, I I just personally think the reward is a fantastic reward in compared to your risk, if you're able and you're mentally able to copy a few accounts together. Definitely not.

SPEAKER_00 21:42

True, true. How do you find that? Because one of the things I've found is you know, if if I copy trade, um, but I'm only what I do is I only look at the stats for one account, I only look at the PL for one of them. Um so so I'm never really okay. You do the same. So that's kind of the same mental hex that you use to. To not think about the copy trading?

SPEAKER_02 22:02

Yeah, I think so. And I guess I'm just being tight, but I don't see the need to pay for additional subscription to trade Zella. Oh, right. If I'm trading my accounts together, at the end of the day, all I'm gonna be showing is a slightly larger PL or uh an even bigger red day, you know. If um yeah, if you're able to trade them together, I mean everyone has their limits, right? I I certainly have mine. There's been multiple times where I've tried to copy, you know, 20 Apex accounts together and I never got to a payout because I can't handle it. So over the last few months I've really had to scale back. I went all the way back to one account and I still didn't get the payout. You know, to be completely transparent, it's been around 18 months since my last payout, which is it's it's it's really tough. Like, but I've I certainly feel like the last three, four months, or particularly the last three months, my way of trading, I find, has become very solidified to my way of trading. I'm no longer looking at what everyone else is doing. I trust my own setups, and the results have already have been a lot better. Um, and particularly coming back from obviously the the Tampa event as well, yeah. Um, have just ignited a whole new fire inside.

SPEAKER_00 23:16

Are you so fired up when you come back from that?

SPEAKER_02 23:18

You know, you know, yeah. So um, yeah, sorry, back to the copy trading. If if you're not someone that feels ready to copy trade, then don't. Like there is no rush, everyone is on their own journey. Yeah, you will see people online copying all these accounts and stuff, but you gotta remember that maybe some aren't genuine, but also those that are genuine, they may have been trading for up to 10 years, they've got far more far more time in the market than you. So just be aware of it.

SPEAKER_00 23:49

And still, you they they will show a lot of people online will show you the accumulated copy trading results, right? So they hope they want they will show you I made 10,000 across 20 accounts. Okay, so you had a $500 trade.

SPEAKER_02 24:02

Exactly, yeah. And that is something that you know James Bruce taught me when I was in the black shirt pub. He said, Yeah, Ben, you don't need to be trading with bigger size, you just need the capital to do the heavy lifting. Like it doesn't matter, you could have one account, you could have a hundred accounts, they all copied together. Of course, that's great when it's working well. When it's not working well, it's obviously not good either. It's swings and roundabouts. So I think if you just realize where you are on your journey, have you had a payout yet? If you have, be prepared to perhaps buy an extra account and slowly push yourself, but don't run before you can walk, which is something I've definitely fell victim to many, many times.

SPEAKER_00 24:44

So true, so true. And really about you know, have take a few payouts on a single account before you actually start copy trading, right? Um, if if I know you listened to the last episode with Clay, one of the things he said was also the best piece of advice he can give is it's a lot like what you're saying. Turn off your Discords, turn off your telegrams, uh, turn off your YouTube, focus on your process, right? So that resonates with what you're saying, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:10

It's so true. I mean, and in a day and an age now where like yourself and and myself, we're trying to build our brand, if you like, online. It's obviously quite difficult to then switch off from seeing what everyone else has been doing uh on that day, even or that week, wherever it may be. But something I was actually speaking to someone today who voice noted me on Instagram and we'd been chatting a little while, and I said to him, I've started to turn the stream off. Like as much as I love listening to the it's entertaining, I love hearing the stories and seeing the trades. But the trouble is, I'm now finding is if my idea doesn't align, I don't want to get distracted by it. So recently, the last couple of weeks, I'll watch it to a point, and then when it's like, right, this is my setup, I've actually been turning it off so I can remain fully focused on my own idea.

SPEAKER_00 26:02

That's a great point. That's a great point. Um and I think we all start that way because we have to learn somewhere, right? We're learning somehow online on YouTube or through a coaching program. So we start with the live streams and have everything going, but at some point we need to dial back and focus. Once we have the mechanics in place, I came out of the Black Shirt Club the same way. I feel like I have the mechanics in place. I'm gonna go off the live stream and just focus on my own game, right?

SPEAKER_02 26:27

Yeah, absolutely. I couldn't agree more. And like I said to this guy, I said, it sounds like you're in a similar position to I am, where you're you almost need to take the armbands off and swim yourself. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Sink or swim, right? Yeah, it is, yeah, it is, yeah. And and you know, if it doesn't work out and you feel the need to go back, it's always there. Like it doesn't mean you have to go off forever and you're on your own. It's just sometimes avoid as much distraction as you can.

SPEAKER_00 26:55

For sure, for sure. Um, one of the questions I asked before was micros or minis. Uh, and the reason I asked that was um I've had some success with you know scaling in and out of positions, both in profit and also in drawdown. Is is that one of the reasons you said micros, or are you more of a full in, full out?

SPEAKER_02 27:15

Yeah, um, I wouldn't say it's so much. I mean, I have scaled into trades and and I do occasionally if I I'm that convicted by it. So, yes, it gives you that option to scale in. Um, but also it's more like so you can get an accurate uh risk size in as well, right? So for your stop loss, you know, sometimes if you're on a risk, uh particularly on obviously NQ or MNQ, sometimes you'll need micros in order to meet your um desired risk. Um, so that's that's a big reason why I'd rather instead of going one mini, two minis, and then being like, oh, I could lose you know a thousand dollars on this, or I could end up losing fifteen hundred dollars because my stop's slightly higher. I'd rather try and keep my risk as um consistent as possible, and that's that's really the biggest reason why I use micros.

SPEAKER_00 28:03

One more question to that. Um I see you've traded you you also trade 150k prop accounts.

SPEAKER_02 28:09

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 28:10

They they would be quite ideal. I mean, you can obviously always trade 15, 20, 25 micros. So you're still doing micros on those accounts.

SPEAKER_02 28:18

I am, yeah. I know I'm aware that the fees are more expensive to trade micros. But again, it it kind it kind of falls back more to just being able to ensure that I get the right risk. It it's not like I'll I don't often hold runners, for example. I know some people do, and they'll close out say 80% of their position and then they'll move to break-even, then they'll let the other 20% continue as far as they can take it. That's not the reason why it's more from a risk perspective, more than anything, I'd say.

SPEAKER_00 28:47

Yeah. Do you ever move your stop to break-even? Or trail your stop?

SPEAKER_02 28:53

I will trail it sometimes, but it can if I trail it, some it's either sometimes it's logical, it may be like I mentioned earlier, it may be that I'm I then move my stop above a um a volume node, for example, or it sometimes can be more of an erratic emotional decision because I don't want to give back, and that that is detrimental at times. Like I've done that plenty of times, and I get taken out, and then it continues in my direction. And then sometimes it's worse than taking a loss because you're so annoyed at an emotional decision that's impacted your trade when it just didn't even need to happen. So, um, yeah, I'm not a big advocate of just moving to break-even because you know I'm up X amount of points and I don't want to give it back.

SPEAKER_00 29:40

It feels so safe, right? It it feels like the logical thing to do, and that's your brain telling you all these fear, fear-based um inputs that your reptile brain is telling you, and you should actually not do it, right? Because we can see from the data that it doesn't it doesn't work out. Awesome, awesome. Um, Ben, so moving a little bit out of the uh the frame of the the the rapid fire here, is there anything special that you do pre-market? Like, do you do um what kind of analysis, what kind of uh routines do you apply pre-market?

SPEAKER_02 30:13

Yeah, so I don't do um a huge amount of pre-market analysis, but what I do is I always plot those value areas, as I mentioned. So on a Monday morning, I'll plot the previous week's value areas, and I'll also plot Friday's levels as well. Um, and then I'll just kind of look at the overall market structure. Where are we, you know, how do we look from a structural point of view? I'll also bear in mind obviously the the overnight VWAP, are we trading above that? Um, I'll look at uh in terms of value, are we trading inside the previous day's value? Does that then mean that we're likely more to rotate between those levels today? Or if we are are we going to break out of those levels and look for obviously alternative prices either higher or lower? Um, I'll look at previous days high or low. Has that been taken yet? Because we know particularly with indices, we don't often get inside days. So I perhaps if I'm leaning slightly one way, I can frame an idea towards that, either high or low, depending on direction.

SPEAKER_00 31:18

You will have those scenarios played in your head before the open?

SPEAKER_02 31:22

Yeah, I'll I'll try and I I don't like to come into the market overly biased. Um, but I'll certainly kind of be lying if I didn't come in and kind of think, oh, I could see this happening today. But I do try and keep myself as open-minded as possible. And I'll in my um in my notebook, or even if I write it down, or sometimes in my trade seller, I'll have a bullish and a bearish scenario. So it kind of keeps my my mind away from like, oh, this is this is gonna dump today, or you know, we're gonna make a new all-time highs today. I try and keep my mind at a level playing field and look at the alternative options.

SPEAKER_00 31:59

That's a really clever way to do it. I I mean I have a buddy that I'm streaming with as well. He said he will have these scenarios. So if price goes here, he's in this kind of scenario. If price goes here, he's in another kind of scenario. Uh, and that that's a way to come unbiased into the session, but then be able to react off of the certain whatever price does when it opens, right?

SPEAKER_02 32:20

Absolutely. Because when the market actually opens, you know, there's so much, there's such an injection of liquidity at that point. Yeah, you could almost argue what you kind of feel before the market opens can instantly become irrelevant. So you wiped out, you need to be, you need to have your finger on the pulse and and read price as it is, you know, is as it's printing in front of you at that moment in time. So I try not to have too much of a heavy, heavily um directional bias coming into the session, but it's always in the back of my mind, I would say.

SPEAKER_00 32:53

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Same, same. Um so so moving a little bit ahead. So one one thing that's really big for me is, and and I I talk about that every week on this podcast, is psychology. Um you shared, uh, and thank you for sharing that, that you haven't taken the payout in a while. That takes a toll mentally, but how are you how are you seeing yourself through mentally through that that process and you you're dialing in on your process? You said you made a kind of there was a shift a few months back. What was the psychological shift if there was any?

SPEAKER_02 33:30

I think psychologically, I'll be honest, it's it's come more from having way more belief in my setups. I think if you're not confident in the in the trades that you take, and if someone asks you about your trades and you can't really answer them, I think at that point you're not, you may not have enough um knowledge on your trade setups, or you aren't confident enough in them. And I think I've got to a stage now where, like I mentioned to you about um learning bits from Alex, I've learned so much from Austin and the guys at ASFX, it's kind of married this um style, if you like, that resonates to me. And I think that's kind of really helped my psychological point of view because I finally found what works for my mind, and the way we all have our own lens into the market, right? So anyone could read a chart and everyone will come up with complete different outcome scenarios, what they think, etc. And I think as soon as you find that thing that resonates to yourself, yeah, it gets far easier. And I think I posted about I think it was yesterday, you went I took two losses, and yes, it sucked, but it I felt better about it because I knew that if that opportunity comes up again, I'll take it. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 34:47

So you know that it's a winning trade over time.

SPEAKER_02 34:50

You can't put a price on time, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 34:53

Yeah, if you if you lack confidence, that that's really detrimental. I had that the other day where I I got in too at too high a price for a long, um, whereas today I actually got in at exactly the right price, like one or two ticks above the New York VWAP, um which had two effects. I had a very nice take profit placement and I had a very nice stop-loss order. So you can't you if I had just waited five more seconds, that that would have been a hundred dollars of more risk, right? It's it's yeah, so so you've really got to be confident. Um, and and I like what you're saying about when you when you have your mechanics in place, when you dial in your process, you you you have to find something that fits your personality. So there is an element of personality to trading. Would you agree with that?

SPEAKER_02 35:40

Oh, I totally agree. I think it has to it has to match your personality because yeah, I mean, it was very evident as I'm sort of backtracking a bit when I was on that show. Although we all got shown the exact same strategies, and you know that it's quite rule-based, no one took the same trades. It's very rare, or uh, even if they did take the same trades, everyone would end up with different profits because you know they'd close it earlier than the next person, or that person would take a loss because their stop was too tight. Yeah, so again, I think it's such a it proves a point that it just has to be so um personal. Trading itself is very subjective, I find.

SPEAKER_00 36:19

Um, yeah, so it's also fascinating. I I have a hot take which pre people are probably gonna criticize me about. Is I I don't really believe in algos. Um, I mean, I'm sure there are, I mean, and I know hedge funds use algos and all that, but it's but it's for retail. Yes, there are probably one or two people who have programmed something that works, but taking the human element out of futures prop trading or futures trading is it it doesn't resonate with me. I you you need that intuition, you need that okay. I've seen this before, I know my mechanical profit target is up here, but I'm gonna pull it anyway. Um, of course, that requires a lot of experience, but I'm totally with you on that. I think it is there's personality, there is intuition, um, and that's what we're building. Um, with experience that we're getting, right?

SPEAKER_02 37:10

Exactly that. And sometimes the edge, yes, you need to have an edge in the market, but sometimes the edge is in the the person clicking the button. Yes. So, yes, you could argue, of course, algos do work, like say in these hedge funds, institutions, etc. Yeah, but um, from a retail point of view, I mean, I've personally traded FX mechanical strategies that I've learned from other people, and it just didn't work. I'd still get in the way of it, even though it's strictly mechanical. You know, it's very much um if X happens, then we should do Y, etc. And I'd still get in the way of it because my mind would be like, oh no, I don't think that's gonna happen. So it's just like I had to come away from it, it didn't resonate with my personality, right? So I had to move on to something that did.

SPEAKER_00 37:57

Exactly, exactly. I'm really with you on that. I think it is a combination of the it the etch is a combination of mechanics and psychology, it really is. You can also see that from ICT traders. There are some that are crushing it, and there are a lot of people who just cannot work it out, right?

SPEAKER_02 38:14

Um yeah, yeah, I totally agree. I mean, with that in uh the ICT side of things, I've I've looked at it as well, and it is so vast, right? There's so many concepts.

SPEAKER_00 38:25

So again, it's always a fair value gap somewhere, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 38:29

And that fair value gap can mean something so different to someone else. It could be a level of support, it could be a level of resistance. Again, like everyone has their own view on the market, and these levels, of course, will work. You know, I could say, oh, price has rejected out that value area high, so I'm gonna get short. Where to an ICT trader, oh, it's it's you know, it's rejected out this order block that formed last week, for example. So all these levels will work, it's just framing them to suit your personality.

SPEAKER_00 38:58

Some of some of the successful ICT traders that I follow on socials will say it's about building a narrative. And I think that works for any type of setup, any type of trading. If you build a narrative, then at least you have it might not work out, but at least you have a story that backs your thesis. Um, and and and that I think it's important. It's a little bit like the scenarios we discussed before, right? If if something happens here, then something, then I hypothesize that something will happen there.

SPEAKER_01 39:27

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 39:28

Cool. Um, so uh we're almost about to wrap up, and it's been an awesome conversation. I just want to I just want to touch on one thing uh before we wrap up. And I saw you golfing on on your social media as well the other day. What do you beside golfing? You enjoy golfing, and and I think you also commented on some of the similarities between golfing and and trading. Maybe you can share that. But I'm also curious about anything else you do to sort of recreational, you know, get time off, uh, unload your mind, and so on. Sure, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:58

So yeah, golf is is uh uh a big thing that I like to do to unwind. Um, I play football as well, uh, just in midweek. Uh I find football actual football. Yeah, not not serious. Yeah, you're pretty soccer. Actual actual football, yeah, the real game, right? Yeah, um, I play that during the week. I don't play weekends anymore, but I find football more than anything completely takes my mind away from anything to do with life, the desk. Golf is similar. I enjoy it, I find it very therapeutic. I don't really get that wound up about it if I'm not playing that well. I still enjoy just being out fresh air, walking along the golf course. And you're right, there are a lot of similarities, as I mentioned in my post the other day. I think, particularly if you're playing at a high level of golf, which I'm which I don't, but if you're playing competitively, that I find there's a lot of interesting similarities because it's it's quite a solitary game, golf is as well as trading. So you're always against yourself, there's always um a lot of discipline you need to adhere to, and there's a lot of decision making, and it's a game of precision, it's a game of millimeters, and it's also a very big um mindset game as well, which obviously trading is as well as by your execution, your edge, and your risk. Um, so yeah, I find there's a lot of similarities between that and golf.

SPEAKER_00 41:23

And then it gives you it gives you some of what trading also gives you, but in a completely different setting where your mind is not on on price and charts and so on. I really um I really agree with that. I have a I have a hobby that I'm I'm not doing it much, but I was uh sailing, like competitive sailing. And that was also that that you know, that weekend couple of hours where you just switch off your mind. You you're not allowed to think about anything else because you'll crash, right? Um that's that that's it's kind of meditation, right? That's that's almost what it feels like. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:53

Totally agree. Because trading is very consuming, so yeah, it it's important to go and do an activity that actually completely blanks your mind from it because yeah, it's very easy to get hit up on how your trading day has been. And I struggle with it myself at times where it really plays into how it determines how I am the rest of the day. Yeah, but roll rolling back to what I was saying earlier, it's not as bad now that I'm more confident in my setups. Like today, I've got a reel to post after this podcast. I came into the session looking for shorts and I missed three setups today and I ended up flat, but I ended up locking myself out of the account because I could feel that that burning um revenge like I need to get in a trade now. You know, the market's not giving me that money because I didn't take the trade. I would all I would always go and blow my accounts after days like today, genuinely speaking, because I couldn't keep a lid on it. But that's something about getting a bit better each day, right? It's just the self-awareness, improving on that, locking yourself out, and that lockout button is a savior because the minute I press that, I no longer care about what actually happens because I can't do anything about it anyway.

SPEAKER_00 43:05

But that's also back to what we said about being serious and passionate about it. That tells me you've come a long way in terms of I mean, you are taking trading seriously, it's a profession. Um, when you lock yourself out, you're saying, Well, done. I'm that's this this was not for me. I don't need to chase anything. So that's a really, I mean, don't get me wrong, but it's a mature decision. It's right, you're a mature trader who's taking the right decision, which is to stay. Yeah, yeah. Awesome. So um, final note here. Um any type of advice you would give, maybe yourself three or four years ago, someone starting out, someone's struggling towards their first payout, um, new traders. Any any golden nugget you've got for for people like that?

SPEAKER_02 43:48

Yeah, I would say firstly, find yourself a good community to be part of. Um go online. I mean, there's a lot of people that obviously stream now, but just spend Time going through, read reviews on companies and find someone to learn from that speaks to you again, back to your personality, something you can resonate with. Oh, that makes sense. I'm gonna try this out. And if that doesn't work, move on to someone else. You're in no rush to go and you know become a full-time trader as much as we all desire to at times. Sometimes you've got to think more long term and kind of just move along. It's not like you're searching for the holy grail because you've only just started, you're just trying to find something that makes sense to you and then give it a go. It may not work, you can move on to the next thing, the next mentor, the next teacher, whichever it may be. But yeah, find yourself a good community to be part of. Um, be patient, enjoy the time learning about trading. Um, inevitably, of course, as we said, you'll end up learning a lot about yourself along the way. Um, and yeah, like I think I said before, just try not to run before you can walk. I've bit I've done it so many times. Yeah, and it gets back to like um we do we do revenge trading in on a day-to-day basis, it can happen. You you stop out of trade, you get back in. But you it's so easy to do that with prop accounts as well, right? So you go and blow an account and you go and buy more, and suddenly, per speaking from personal experience, you end up in a hole where you spent far too much money on these accounts, and then what then happens is you start buying more accounts because you think, oh, if I get that payout, that's gonna pay off that hole. And it is it's awful. It is something that I've been through, and luckily I'm now coming out the other side of it, but I genuinely wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. It's it's awful, it's so consuming. So please, anyone listening that's new to trading, just take your time, just enjoy the time learning, find a good mentor, and buy yourself a cheap evaluation. They're so cheap now. Test it out on there, or even demo. If you want to feel like you've got skin in the game, buy a $40 account and just get used to position sizing, taking trades, and slowly build from there.

SPEAKER_00 46:15

Exactly. Great, great advice. I what I distill out of it is I think you said walk before you can run. I would probably even say never actually run, just walk, right? Yeah, you're right. It's taken nice and easy, right? It's you're dead right, yeah. Yeah, um, so so don't rush into it. Um, that that's a really uh really good piece of advice. Um, and then community 100%. And and like you say, search on YouTube, just find find some live streams, check into them, see what resonates with you, and then and then go from there. There are a lot of serious traders out there, so of course you need to avoid the scammers and then find the serious traders. Yeah, yeah. Cool. Very, very pleased to have you on, Ben. It's been an awesome conversation. Thank you for joining. Thanks for having me on. It's been awesome. And we'll see each other in Tampa in 2027.

SPEAKER_02 47:05

Yes, I see there are there are tickets of yeah, tickets coming up for next year's event. Um, I'm hoping I'll be there as well. So yeah, meeting great too. See you, mate. Thanks very much. Take care.