How to Backtest a Trading Strategy: A Step-by-Step Method
A manual backtesting method for forex and index traders: honest chart replay, costs in R, sample size, losing streaks and a prop firm check.
Read MoreFips Trading Blog
Expert guides, strategies, and market analysis to help you trade smarter.
Trailing vs Static Drawdown: How Prop Firms Calculate Max Loss
Trailing vs static drawdown explained: floor formulas for each type, real Topstep, Apex, FTMO and FXIFY rules, and how to size from distance to the floor.
Read MoreProp Firm Consistency Rule: Best-Day Limits Explained
How the prop firm consistency rule works, which programs use it (FTMO, Topstep, Apex, FundedNext and more) and how much profit you need after a big day.
Read MoreHow Much Is 0.01 Lot? Lot Values for Forex, Gold and Indices
What 0.01, 0.10 and 1.00 lot are worth per pip and per point on EUR/USD, USD/JPY, gold, silver, NAS100, US30, GER40, oil and BTC.
Read MoreProp Firm News Trading Rules: Which Firms Allow It (2026)
Which prop firms allow news trading, which restrict it on funded accounts or cap news profit, and how to plan trades around high-impact releases.
Read MoreWhat Lot Size for a $10K, $25K, $50K or $100K Prop Account?
Lot size tables for $10K to $200K prop accounts at 0.25%, 0.5% and 1% risk on EUR/USD, gold, NAS100 and US30, tied to FTMO and FundedNext limits.
Read MoreProp Firm Daily Drawdown: How It Is Calculated (2026)
How prop firms set the daily loss floor (balance, higher of balance or equity, session P&L), when it resets, and how to size so a stop-out cannot breach it.
Read MoreMT5 Trading Journal: How to Import Your Trades Automatically
Three ways to get MT5 trades into a journal, what the investor password can and cannot do, and the history pitfalls that skew your statistics.
Read MoreTrading Performance Metrics: Expectancy, Profit Factor and R
Expectancy, profit factor, payoff ratio, streaks and drawdown, all computed in R from one 20-trade EUR/USD and gold sample, plus prop firm breach checks.
Read MoreTrading Risk Management: Position Sizing, R and Drawdown
The arithmetic that decides whether an account survives: fixed-fractional sizing, R-multiples, break-even win rates, losing streaks and drawdown recovery.
Read MoreSupply and Demand Trading: Drawing and Trading Zones
How supply and demand zones are drawn from impulsive moves, how they differ from support and resistance, and the discretion that makes them hard to test.
Read MoreBlow-Off Top: What It Is and Why It Is a Hindsight Pattern
The characteristics of a blow-off top, why it can only be confirmed after the fact, the danger of shorting into one, and what it is useful for.
Read MoreAccumulation, Manipulation, Distribution: the AMD Model
What the AMD or power-of-three model describes, which parts are measurable and which are narrative, and why the phases are far easier to label after the fact.
Read MoreFlag Pattern: How to Identify and Trade Bull and Bear Flags
What separates a flag from ordinary chop, how it differs from a pennant, why a tight stop is where sizing goes wrong, and how flags fail.
Read MoreGravestone Doji: How to Identify and Trade the Pattern
What qualifies a gravestone doji, how it differs from a shooting star, where the stop belongs, and the situations where the pattern means nothing.
Read MoreHammer Candlestick: How to Identify and Trade It
The exact proportions that qualify a hammer, how it differs from the hanging man and inverted hammer, why location decides everything, and how it fails.
Read MoreWhat Is ICT Trading? Liquidity, Order Blocks and Killzones
An even-handed guide to ICT trading: what liquidity sweeps, order blocks, fair value gaps and killzones mean, and which of them rest on real market mechanics.
Read MoreFair Value Gap: How to Identify and Trade an FVG
What a fair value gap really shows about order flow, the exact three-candle test, how traders enter and place stops, and why the pattern fails.
Read MoreBullish Pennant: How to Identify and Trade the Pattern
A precise guide to the bullish pennant: flagpole plus coil, how it differs from flags and triangles, and how traders set entries, stops and targets.
Read More
What to Write in a Trading Journal: A Checklist for Forex Traders
A per-trade checklist for forex and prop firm traders, a full example entry for a gold trade, and the weekly and monthly review questions.
Read More
How to Calculate Lot Size in Forex: Formula and 5 Examples
The lot size formula with five worked examples: EUR/USD, USD/JPY, gold, NAS100 and an FTMO account sized against its daily loss limit.
Read More
Ready when you are.
Journal, review and size your trades with precision, speed and clarity.