ET Interview | Develop long-term trading viability in the self-operated assessment

When he resigned and entered the industry in June 2023, Zhang Xinfu’s gold foreign exchange trading career has been completed for three years. Unlike most people who entered the market with the mentality of getting rich suddenly, his original intention was extremely pragmatic: “When I graduated, I planned to do freelancing after the age of 40. After comparison, I chose the trading path.”

From the time he came into contact with trading, he has focused on the golden foreign exchange track and has always maintained a full-time status. Even if he later passes the EagleTrader assessment and operates a profit-sharing account, he will continue to work full-time. In his plan, trading is not short-term speculation, but a long-term career that will take more than ten years.

Losing control is more painful than losing money

After three years of trading, liquidation was his most profound lesson. “The most painful thing was not the moment of the liquidation, but the week before the liquidation – not being able to sleep every day, opening the account to see the floating losses, closing and opening the account, and repeatedly confirming whether the numbers were true. I knew in my heart that I should cut, but my hands just couldn’t move. In hindsight, I cut half of the money and had to wait until it reached zero before I stopped.”

There was no external force, it was all luck and emotion that pulled the account into the abyss. This experience made him completely understand: The most unreliable thing in trading is emotion on the spot, and the most reliable thing is rigid rules.

<img alt="" src="https://www.hudianbaoseo.cn/uploads/allimg/20260701/1782874497495293.jpg" width="654" height = 491 "Currently, we still have insufficient grasp of effective support, resistance and liquidity clearance, and we are still learning." He will make trading plans in advance, but he is not rigid: "When the market situation is inconsistent with the plan, adjustments will be made according to the market situation."

When it comes to the key to long-term stable profits, his answer is clear: “Only do transactions within your own rules, and do not inflate due to continuous profits, and do not deform due to continuous losses.”

Yes. Regarding the element of luck in trading, he has a clear understanding: “Long-term profitability does not depend on avoiding luck, but on designing a system that allows luck to statistically cancel each other out, and then executing it mechanically. Luck cannot give you a positive expected value, only strategic logic can.”

His understanding of transaction consistency goes straight to the essence: “Consistency is not about making money every time, but the repeated verifiability of the decision-making logic.” Once the strategy goes awry,If he is away, he will suspend trading first, analyze the market changes, and then adjust the rhythm.

In terms of market preferences, he never blindly chases big fluctuations: “I prefer fluctuations that can accommodate my strategic framework, not simple big fluctuations. The essence of volatility is the instability of prices on the timeline, which is relative.”

Engrave the bottom line of operations

Risk management is the most important part of Zhang Xinfu’s trading system.

He will first set the maximum tolerable risk for the account, and then control a single transaction to 30% to 50% of it. Taking a $100,000 account as an example, if the maximum allowable loss in the account is $1,000, then the stop loss for each transaction is usually set between $300 and $500 to keep every entry within control.

When faced with a large floating loss after taking a heavy position, he will not rush to analyze the market, but deal with the risk first.

“First reduce the position to a level where you can think objectively. This is the first step, without any analysis. Then recalculate how much loss you can accept, set a hard stop loss, and no longer consider ‘returning to the cost price’ – the cost price is a sunk cost, which has nothing to do with now.”

Even if the subsequent market reverses, he will not add back the lost position.

“Loss greatly weakens the fault tolerance rate. Taking a heavy position at this time is equivalent to betting on a small probability with a magnifying glass.”

If the transaction has made a large profit, but there is an obvious retracement, his handling method will also follow the established rules.

“First close half of the position and lock in the profit. Then redefine the stop loss line. It is not set at the cost price to protect the principal, but set at the retracement ratio I am willing to transfer in the current profit.”

Currently, Zhang Xinfu mainly conducts intraday trading with a 15-minute period. According to his statistics, after each major retracement, the account can usually return to its previous high net value within 1 to 2 days. This stability also comes from long-term position management and risk control.

Turn cognition into action

Zhang Xinfu, who has already established a mature trading system, participated in the EagleTrader self-operated assessment. What he valued was never the operating capital. In his opinion, the biggest gains from this assessment are three points: strictly implement trading strategies, execute transactions according to rules, and polish trading mentality.

Many traders understand these principles, but when there are no external constraints, it is easy to relax and compromise. Standardized assessment rules are like a rigid boundary, forcing traders to put their cognition into every operation. Under the pressure of rules,Truly complete the leap from “knowing” to “doing”.

At the end of the interview, Zhang Xinfu left five words of advice for newly registered Eagle traders:

1. Survive first, then make money

2. Consistency is not a talent, it is a habit

3. Stop loss is not a cost, it is the ticket money

4. The market will not target you, it has no idea who you are

5. Life outside of trading