Everyone wants the perfect entry. But the traders who keep funded accounts obsess over something far less glamorous: how much they lose when they’re wrong. Risk management is the whole game.
Risk a small, fixed amount per trade
Decide in advance the most you’ll lose on any single trade. A small, fixed slice of the account (many use around 1%). Same size every time, win or lose. That discipline turns a string of losses into a survivable dip instead of a blown account.
The math of survival: risk 1% per trade and ten losses in a row costs you ~10%. Risk 10% per trade and the same ten losses wipe you out. The size of your loss decides whether you get to keep playing.
Use a hard stop — always
A predefined stop-loss is non-negotiable. The moment your thesis is wrong, you’re out. No “it’ll come back,” no moving the stop, no averaging down into a loser.
No revenge trading
The biggest losses come after a loss, when ego takes over and size creeps up to “make it back.” Protect the account from you on those days. Take the loss inside your rules and shut it down.
How I think about it
My first question is never “how much can I make?” It’s “how much do I lose if I’m wrong, and can the account absorb it?” Get that right and the wins look after themselves. It’s the same discipline that gets you through an evaluation and keeps a funded account alive.