EagleTrader trader interview | Finding stability amidst volatility and winning within the rules

Among the many traders on EagleTrader who have passed the self-operated trading examination, Zhao Yabo is a trader who is known for his “rules and insights”.

He has been engaged in foreign exchange trading for eight years. During this time, he has witnessed the changes in the market and his own transformation from emotional operations to rational and systematic trading.

When asked why he chose and persisted in trading, his answer was simple and powerful – “the diversification and regularity of trading.”

In his view, the attraction of trading is not the temptation of short-term profits, but the logical closed loop of this undertaking: it tests your thinking, your execution ability, your self-control – and also tests your ability to maintain order in chaos.

Replace emotions with rules

Zhao Yabo’s trading system is based on “analysis and probability”. When making trading decisions, he uses a combination of fundamental and technical analysis – 40% fundamental, 30% technical, and 30% intuition and experience. This is a kind of balance and a kind of confidence.

“The most important thing for medium and long-term profits is the entry point and stop loss, and the second is to learn to hold positions.” This sentence can almost represent his trading philosophy: the moment you enter the market, your subsequent risks and returns have been determined.

He emphasized that the significance of strategy does not lie in complexity, but in continuous optimization and verification. His last major revision of the strategy was a month ago. The new system more precisely split the volume-price relationship into different time periods to match different market rhythms. “Only data and logic can make transactions repeatable, not relying on temporary inspiration.”

Luck is an excuse for non-executors

When it comes to “luck”, a word that is often mentioned by traders, Zhao Yabo appears to be particularly rational. “The factor of luck can only be avoided but cannot be eliminated. Avoiding some risks by controlling the opening time is one of them.”

He believes that real “bad luck” often comes from “non-execution”. If it is a planned position opening, only take profit and stop loss must be strictly implemented; but if it is an unplanned temporary increase in position, it means that the loss must be stopped manually and the bleeding must be stopped immediately.

“It is easy to stop profit manually, but it is difficult to stop loss manually. But a truly mature trader knows when to ‘take action’.”

From impulse to insight

“Excessive position.” When it comes to trading troughs, Zhao Yabo did not shy away. That was in a sectionIn the trend of the market, he kept trying to buy the top and bottom, “trying to catch the correction” again and again, and finally fell into a quagmire of losses.

“This is generally the case for many people, and their mentality is completely abnormal.” This experience made him fully understand that impulsive and contrarian operations are the biggest enemies of traders.

Now, he will set the maximum risk threshold in the system in advance – if the risk he can bear is 100 points, he will only use 2%-5% for each transaction, strictly abiding by risk control. “Position is the life of a trader.”

Volatility is the language of the market

Unlike some traders who prefer stable market conditions, Zhao Yabo prefers “volatility markets.”

He explained: “Volatilities reflect the huge relationship between supply and demand. A healthy market will definitely have fluctuations of varying sizes, which are where trading opportunities lie.”

But he also emphasized that fluctuations do not mean blind chasing. “The important thing is to understand the rhythm behind the fluctuations, rather than being led by its appearance.”

The road back to profitability

In Zhao Yabo’s experience, the resilience of the market depends on the length of the trading cycle. “If it is intraday trading, it usually takes 1 to 3 trading days after the maximum retracement; if it is long-term trading, it will take about 5 to 7 trading days to return to the high point of net worth.”

This is not luck, but a manifestation of probability – a statistical conclusion based on long-term data accumulation.

Improvement and Growth

Looking back on the EagleTrader proprietary trading exam experience, Zhao Yabo’s biggest gain is “improving position management and risk control capabilities.”

The exam is not just a screening, but a systematic review – allowing him to recalibrate his trading logic and find the balance between rationality and discipline.

For the new Eagle traders, he left four pieces of advice: “First, don’t operate against the trend; second, don’t rush for success; third, learn position management; fourth, learn when to exit.”

The eight-year trading journey has allowed Zhao Yabo to grow from a follower of the market to a practitioner of rules. He knows that the market is always neutral – the difference between profit and loss only lies in the rigor of execution and the stability of mentality.

Today, he no longer tries to “beat the market”, but learns to dance with the market – finding stability amidst fluctuations and winning within the rules.