The last module is no longer about price but about the person trading it: a written plan, the traps in your head, managing an open trade, the journal, testing, prop firms, taxes and the routine. It puts in order what the site already has, and each time points to the page that goes into detail.
Step 59
Your trading plan, in writing
Modules 7 to 11 gave you a method. A trading plan boils it down to rules: what you trade, when, how, and when you stop. Written before the session, it decides for you at the moment you are no longer clear-headed.
What it contains
The market and the window: one or two markets, one killzone (module 10).
The setup, in one sentence: the model from module 11, and what invalidates it.
The risk: a fixed percentage per trade, the size drawn from the stop (step 23).
The daily limits: a maximum loss and a maximum number of trades.
The management: when the stop moves, where you get out (step 61).
A rule can be checked
“Be patient” is not a rule; “no entry before 9:30” is one. Every line must be answerable with yes or no after the session, in the journal. A trade taken outside those lines is logged “off plan”, even if it wins.
When to change it
Never during the session, never right after a loss. The plan is reread at the weekend, journal open, and a rule only changes for a written reason. A rule changed every week has never been tested (step 63).
Heading
A checkable rule
On the site
Market
“NQ or 6E, 9:30 to 11:00, New York time”
Live killzones
Setup
“Stop hunt on a London high or low, then a CISD”
ICT strategies
Risk
“1% of the account per trade, size rounded down”
Position size calculator
Limits
“Two losses or three trades: the session ends”
Trading journal (daily rules)
Management
“Stop moved only under a new swing low, after a BOS”
Step 61
An example plan, one line per heading. The values are yours; each line must be answerable with yes or no.
Key pointA written trading plan fits in five headings: market and window, setup, risk, daily limits, management. Each rule can be checked afterwards, and only changes in cold blood.
Step 17 named the mistakes that empty accounts. Here they are with what triggers them and the rule that defuses them. None is fixed by willpower during the session: they are fixed before, in writing.
Wanting to get even
After a loss, the next trade comes faster, bigger, on a weaker reading. The rule: a pause decided in advance after every loss, and the same size as before. A 1 R loss does not have to be won back today.
Fear of missing out
Price leaves without you, and you get in halfway through the move. The stop stays in the same place, under the swing low: so it is further away, the size smaller, and the target closer. A missed move costs nothing; a late entry costs R.
The losing streak, the day that never ends
Ten losses in a row happen to everyone (step 11). Switching methods at the bottom wipes out the record that would tell whether the problem is the method or the streak.
After a win as after a loss, “just one more”. Once the daily limit is hit, the platform closes.
In the journal, tick “Off plan” or “Overtrading” when that is what it was: the table by mistake shows what each one cost.
Bullish candleBearish candle
Key pointGetting even, entering late, switching methods at the bottom, not ending the day: each trap has its rule, written before the session. During it, you only apply it.
Managing an open trade: break-even, partial exits, cutting
Once in a position, three decisions remain: move the stop, take part off, cut it all. Each one is written in the plan before the entry. Taken during the trade, it always looks reasonable, and it is often driven by the fear of giving back a gain.
Break-even
Moving your stop to break-even (BE), the entry price, does not make the trade free: the fees remain, and a return to the entry area is part of a normal move. Stops at BE pile up at the same price: liquidity (module 8).
The article’s rule: the stop only moves up under a new swing low, after a break of structure (BOS) in the direction of the trade.
Partial exits
Taking part off at the first liquidity keeps a gain if price turns before the next one. The price: the part taken off does not travel the rest of the way. On the chart, it costs 0.5 R; on a day price turns, it is the part that keeps the gain.
Cutting before the stop
Only for a written reason: a change of character (CHoCH) against you, a release coming up, the end of your window. Cutting because “it isn’t going up any more” is the early exit the journal makes you tick.
Bullish candleBearish candle
The 6E (euro FX future), 15-minute candles, 31 January 2025. The London low is 1.0386 (4:00). At 10:00, a candle trades down to 1.0381 and closes back above, at 1.03915: a stop hunt. Entry at the 10:15 close, 1.03965, stop under the wick at 1.03805: 16 pips of risk. At 10:45, price goes through 1.04165, the 8:15 high: half exits at +1.25 R. At 11:30, a close at 1.0426 breaks the 10:45 high (1.04215): the stop moves under the 11:15 swing low, to 1.04065. At 12:00, the candle dips to 1.0409, 2.5 pips above the stop, and climbs to 1.0455: the London high (1.04335) is taken, the rest exits at +2.3 R. In all +1.8 R, against +2.3 R had everything stayed in.
Key pointBreak-even, partial exit, exit before the stop: each decision is written before the entry and taken on an event on the chart, never on the fear of giving back a gain.
Step 16 said what to write down. This one says what to read once the trades pile up: the statistics of the site’s journal, and what a small sample does not tell you.
Counting in R
The result in dollars depends on the size; R relates it to the risk accepted. A +2 R trade weighs the same at 2 contracts as at 8. No stop logged, no R: that is the first box to fill in.
The share of winning trades, on its own, says nothing: it reads together with the average win and the average loss (step 12).
The tables that help
By setup: which one pays you, which one costs you.
By session: whether your London trades look like your New York ones.
By day of the week: a day that keeps coming back in the red.
By mistake ticked: what each one cost, often the most useful figure.
What a sample does not say
Over two trades, a setup at “100%” proves nothing; over twenty, neither does a losing streak. The figures describe what you did, not what you will do. Once a week, one single thing to fix is enough.
Trade
Risk accepted
Result
In R
A, 2 contracts
$100
+$200
+2 R
B, 8 contracts
$400
+$400
+1 R
C, 8 contracts
$400
−$400
−1 R
In dollars, B makes twice as much as A; in R, A is worth double. R finally compares trades of different sizes.
Key pointThe journal reads in R, by setup, by session and by mistake. Over a few dozen trades, it describes what you do; it predicts nothing.
Before trading a rule with money, you test it on the past. The danger is not failing to test: it is a test that lies without you noticing, because you already know what came next.
Two ways to test
The backtest: apply the rule to every session of a period, then count. Fast, it tests the rule.
The replay: play a session back candle by candle without seeing what follows (step 26), and decide as if live. Slower, it tests your decisions too.
Not lying to yourself
Write the rule before opening the charts, and do not touch it during the test.
Take every occurrence, losers included, not the ones that “look good”.
Count the fees and the slippage.
Keep some sessions aside: a rule tweaked on the same charts ends up describing them; only sessions never seen say whether it holds.
A test can say no
Step 58 showed it: fourteen quality criteria, measured over thousands of trades, did not separate good setups from bad ones. That is a result, and it is better learned on the past than with your account.
Trial
What it tests
What it does not test
Backtest
The rule, over many sessions
Your decisions, the execution
Replay
Your decisions, without knowing what comes next
The execution, the pressure
Demo
The mechanics of orders
Real slippage, fear
Live, small size
All of it, with real costs
What a big size does to your head
From cheapest to most expensive: each trial tests what the previous one could not.
Key pointA rule is tested written in advance, on all its occurrences, costs included, and on sessions you did not look at to write it. A test that says no is a result.
A prop firm sells an evaluation: a simulated account, rules, and if you keep to them, a so-called funded account whose gains it shares with you (step 22). The rules change from one firm to another and over time; the mechanism is found almost everywhere.
The rules to read before paying
The target: a gain to reach, sometimes within a limited number of sessions.
The maximum loss: often a threshold that follows the highest balance and never comes back down.
The daily loss, at some firms, computed on the balance or in real time.
Consistency: the best day must not weigh more than a share of the total gain.
The threshold that follows
It starts at the account size minus the maximum loss, and rises with every new high. What you can lose is therefore not the account size but the distance to the threshold: that is what the risk per trade is worked out on. In the table, back at $50,000, the account has only $600 of room left.
The first payout
Funded, the account keeps its rules. In the Arena’s career, the first payout comes after at least five funded sessions, once the balance is 4% above the size; at a firm, read its own conditions. The career simulates the whole path on past sessions, with no firm named.
Session
Closing balance
Highest
Threshold
Room
Start
$50,000
$50,000
$48,000
$2,000
1
$50,800
$50,800
$48,800
$2,000
2
$50,300
$50,800
$48,800
$1,500
3
$51,400
$51,400
$49,400
$2,000
4
$50,000
$51,400
$49,400
$600
A simulated $50,000 account with a $2,000 maximum loss, like the Arena career’s 50K. Here the threshold is worked out on session closes.
Key pointRead an evaluation’s rules before paying, and size on the distance to the threshold: it rises with your gains and never comes back down.
Trading for your own account is legal in France as in Switzerland. What changes everything is how the tax authority classifies your gains, and you do not get to choose. Two blog articles set out the framework; here is what to keep from them.
Two opposite principles
France: gains are taxed from the first euro, by default at the flat-rate levy (flat tax). Futures, CFDs and forex form a separate compartment, where a loss is set against gains of the same kind and can be carried forward ten years.
Switzerland: private capital gains are not taxed, and losses are not deductible. The portfolio does count, on the other hand, towards the wealth tax.
The tipping point
In both countries, habitual trading, organised like a professional’s, can be reclassified as business income: taxed differently, sometimes subject to social contributions, but with deductible expenses. Intraday trading ticks several of the criteria by its very nature.
Three reflexes
A prop firm payout looks like pay, not like a capital gain: the capital is not yours.
Declare all your accounts, including at a foreign broker, every year, and keep statements, contracts and a record of your trades.
Ask a chartered accountant or a fiduciary before, not after: the rules change, and your case depends on your situation.
Topic
France
Switzerland
Gains
Taxed from the first euro
Not taxed (private wealth)
Losses
Against gains of the same kind, ten years
Not deductible
“Pro” trading
Business profits, expenses deductible
Self-employed income, AVS, losses and expenses deductible
Prop firm
More like pay
More like pay
Often forgotten
Declaring foreign accounts
The wealth tax
The framework set out in the two blog articles. No rates or thresholds here: they change, and your case depends on your situation.
Key pointIn France, gains are taxed and losses are set off; in Switzerland, neither for private wealth. In both countries, trading judged professional changes everything: ask a professional beforehand.
The last step is not a notion: it is a trading day that always runs the same way. Everything the modules gave you finds its place in it, and the trader desk brings it together on one page.
Before
The desk checklist: your state, today’s releases and their time, the bias in one sentence (step 53), the levels marked (module 8), the risk and the daily limit, the window. Not rested: half size, or no session.
During
Alerts on the levels rather than eyes glued to the screen. The written setup, or nothing. Outside the window, no trade; once the limit is hit, the platform closes.
After
Every day, five minutes: import the trades into the journal, note setup, stop, state and mistakes, paste a screenshot.
Every week: the statistics, and one single thing to fix.
Between sessions: the daily battle or a career session, to keep your eye in.
The course ends here. What comes next is the same routine, session after session, and the journal to check you kept to it.
When
What you do
On the site
Before
Checklist, levels, bias, the day’s risk
Trader desk, killzones
During
Alerts, the setup or nothing, the limit
Position size calculator
After
Import, setup, stop, mistakes, screenshot
Trading journal
Weekly
Statistics, one fix
Trading journal
Practice
A past session, replayed
Battle, career
A typical session, and the page of the site that serves at each moment.
Key pointBefore: the desk checklist. During: the written setup, or nothing. After: five minutes of journal. Repeated every day, the routine is what makes you last.
