Taming the Trading Ego A Lesson from Cyril Khalife

“Invest in your financial education. Take your time because trading will take a lot of patience and time before you become profitable.”

Meet Cyril Khalife, a Funded Trader with Funding Frontier. Discover how Andreas and other traders secured funding and gain insights and tips for a successful trading journey.

What is your trading routine?
I usually start my trading day at around 8:30 – 9:00 am (GMT+2) during the pre-London session. analyse and watch the charts until the London open and occasionally for an hour more depending on the market structure that day.

I then go on with my day job as an engineer and get busy doing that until 2:00 pm (GMT+2) where I trade the pre New York session until the NYSE open.

What are your goals with funded trading?
My main goal with funded trading is to stay disciplined, respect my rules and maximize my funded capital.

Do you have a trading plan in place, and do you strictly follow it? Please elaborate
The most important pillar in successful trading is having a trading plan and sticking to it. The plan that I like to trade according to is not risking more than 1-2% per trade, trying to minimize my losses, and letting my winners run.

As a trading strategy, I really like the SRC price action strategy taught by Raja Banks with a small personal touch of my own.

What was the most challenging obstacle in your trading journey?
MY EGO!!! I’m really good at reading the charts and executing on beautiful lucrative setups, but sometimes the market has other plans.

As Raja Banks says “The probability may not be in your favour on that trade.” That’s usually when my ego becomes my enemy and I refuse to admit that I’m wrong and the trade is going to hit my stop loss. This usually leads to me hoping that a miracle happens and the trade turns back in my direction. I end up taking a big loss instead of managing my risk.

That was my biggest challenge that I had to overcome in order to become a profitable trader. So now I accept that losses are part of the trading journey and it’s okay to be wrong sometimes.

What did you find easier, the FUNDING FRONTIER Challenge or the Verification phase? Share your thoughts:
I believe that traders should not focus on Phase 1 or Phase 2. Rather focus on your plan and risk management. By doing this I can assure any trader that they will pass their evaluation and get funded in no time.

How would you rate your experience with FUNDING FRONTIER?
I was previously funded by two big prop firms and I can strongly confirm that Funding Frontier is by far one of the best prop firms in the industry!

I highly recommend them as they keep their promises, there are no hidden rules (everything is written in the FAQ and the Terms & Conditions). I had no delays and their support is always ready to assist.

What advice would you give to other traders attempting the FUNDING FRONTIER Challenge?
Read the rules very carefully!

Then take your time, be patient, show up daily, stay consistent, follow your trading plan no matter how hard it is, and most importantly practice proper risk management.

Do you plan to take another FUNDING FRONTIER Challenge to manage even bigger capital? I intend to scale up my funded account, so I will be using part of my pay-out to buy another challenge.

Describe your best trade.
IAs I stated before I follow a price action strategy.

One of my best trades was on Gold where I applied dynamic risk to maximize my profit and protect my capital.

Gold was in a strong downtrend and we made a new low, and as we know whenever the price has made a low or a high, there is a 90% it will get retested. I usually only trade based on the 30-minute time frame where I normally wait for the market to form a resistance (since we are in a downtrend) to take that trade and retest the low.

However I had previously seen this setup form over and over again whilst back testing. The difference this time was that the price formed a very weak bullish candle with a strong rejection to the upside, so I made an exception and looked at the first 5-minute candle of the new 30-minute candle.

I risked my first 1% based on that 5-minute candle when it broke the low of the previous 5-minute candle, and I waited for that 30 min to close in my direction. When the next 30-minute candle broke the previous low I added my second 1% and placed my stop loss at break-even. I then watched price MELT!

What is the number one piece of advice you would give to a new trader?
Invest in your financial education. Take your time because trading will take a lot of patience and time before you become profitable. You need to practice as much as you can, whether paper trading or using a demo account. The best thing I can recommend is to get a trading simulator as it will help you A LOT!!!

How did you first hear about FUNDING FRONTIER?
Through Raja Banks and Dominion Markets. I was really happy when they collaborated (Dominion Markets and Funding Frontier) because I already traded with the brokerage. They are exceptionally good and always improving.

Can you describe your risk management plan?
I risk not more than 2% risk on each trade and try to minimize trades to 1 or 2 trades a day. Whenever I’m in profit more than 10 pips on a trade I tend to put stops at break-even and let it run. If it hits my stop-loss I try to accept my loss and learn from it.

In closing, we extend our sincere gratitude to Cyril for sharing his valuable insights and experiences as a Funded Trader with Funding Frontier.

We appreciate his candid responses and wish him continued success as he works toward his ambitious funding goals.

To all our viewers and traders, we hope you found this interview informative and insightful.

If you have any further questions or wish to explore funded trading opportunities with us, please don’t hesitate to reach out. Thank you for being a part of our trading journey.

Stay tuned for more interviews and trading tips from Funding Frontier. Wishing you all profitable trades and a prosperous trading journey ahead!