He Was Ready to Work 10 More Years But Forex Changed This British Trader’s Long-Term Goals!

Community Member Spotlight
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From the quiet charm of a small village in the north of England to the fast-paced world of forex, this week’s featured member is proving that consistency and simplicity can go a long way in trading!

What started as a casual interest during his share-dealing club days turned into a more serious pursuit when @skulkrinbait revisited forex trading earlier this year. Armed with better tools and a more refined approach, he’s now on a mission: to build his prop firm account and eventually trade full-time.

His edge? A mechanical, trend-following breakout strategy that only requires about an hour a day giving him the freedom to trade and keep up with his day job. But don’t let the simplicity fool you! He’s methodical, data-driven, and not afraid to adapt. After a tough losing streak, he reworked his system and came back stronger, now sticking to a strict risk model and an unyielding commitment to continuous improvement!

So how does he keep his trading efficient, even with a full-time job? What lessons has he learned from drawdowns, and how close is he to making his full-time trading dream a reality?

In this interview, he shares his approach to the Breakfast Breakout strategy, the mindset that’s kept him going, and advice for anyone looking to take the same path.

So, without further ado…

Let’s give it up for @skulkrinbait!

1. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Where are you from, and what are some of your interests outside of trading?

I am from the north of England, I am interested in travel, gaming, flying my drone and web design.

2. How did your trading journey begin? How long have you been trading and what got you into Forex in the first place?

I used to run a share-dealing club and forex trading just seemed to be another way to make some money in my spare time. I did some trading a few years ago but never had much success, I tried again starting in January this year and it is going better as there is more information online nowadays, plus charting software like Trading View helps a lot.

3. In your opinion, what’s one thing you think people get wrong about forex trading when they’re first starting out?

I think people lack determination, give up when they have a few bad results. You need to persevere, learn from your mistakes, you won’t become profitable in just a few days/weeks or even months.

4. On your thread, Qualifying for a 5%ers Funded Account, you mentioned using a variation of the Breakfast Breakout strategy. What attracted you to it, and how have you made it your own?

I like the idea of a breakout strategy as you can just trade for a short time each day and then get on with your life. For the strategy I trade I only need to be in front of a screen for about an hour a day and on some days less than that, it’s also quite “mechanical” in that I just do what the price is telling me with set SL and TP so it’s also easy to back-test accurately. Once trades are entered I can walk away and let them play out.

I use a very simple technique, I look at the first 5 minutes of trading and mark out the high and lows, from 8am to 8:05am (UK Time) and I then enter a trade if the price breaks out of that range, the break has to be clear and it has to be a closed candle on the 1 minute timeframe.

I favour going with the trend here, so if the break is against the trend I like to get a confirmation candle or a break and retest of the edge of the range.

I avoid trading if the range of this 5 minute period of time is very big, I know the usual size of the range and avoid trading if it looks very big which might indicate volatility.

I also am cautious if the range is on any of the Moving Averages as this indicates that the trend is unclear.

5. How do you stay grounded during a hot streak, and how do you mentally prepare for the inevitable losing days?

I just stick to the same strategy using the same risk level all the time (i.e., 0.5% of my bank) and I only trade a maximum of 6 pairs so I can’t overtrade.

Initially I chose the most popular pairs to reduce margin, so EURGBP, GBPUSD, AUDUSD and so on, I have now got enough trading data to know which pairs are most successful so I only trade those with a good win rate. For me, that’s those above and USDCAD.

6. What’s the biggest challenge in your trading journey so far? What did you do to overcome it?

I had a very bad losing streak. I analysed my trades and worked out I was going against the trend some of the time, so I changed my strategy and it has improved since then.
I just try to be as prepared as I can be so I make sure I know how big the range is for each pair, which way the trend is going and also set up the calculators I use with the correct risk (0.5%) and stop loss, etc. Try to remain calm and patient when trading.

7. When would you personally define a trader as “successful”? Do you consider yourself one?

I’m not successful yet, as my definition would be, “I am earning enough, consistently, to give up my day job.” To do that I need to make 2% or more every month and have a $200k or bigger prop firm account. At my current rate I will get there in about 6-12 months time.

This is what attracted me to the strategy I used - I log on to trade around 7:55am, spend a few minutes setting everything up and I can then be finished by about 8:30am. On a bad day I might trade until 9am, I can be done within about an hour of starting.

I work from home, so it’s easy to trade alongside the day job as I literally just keep an eye on the charts and enter when I see a breakout, taking into account the trend, size of the range etc.

8. Complete the sentence: “If I hadn’t learned about forex trading, I would probably _______.”

“If I hadn’t learned about forex trading, I would probably be stuck in my job until I retire in about 10 years time"

9. Non-forex related questions! If someone gave you a million dollars today, what would you do with it?

I’d invest it so I could retire, possibly in property.

10. If we were to go to your hometown, where would you recommend us to go and what should we try doing?

I live in a very small village, there is really not much to do but it is quite pretty, so go for a walk down by the river!

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What an interesting one! I know from some of the posts in his Journal that many of us, including some recent arrivals like me, have been following @skulkrinbait ‘s thread with interest and good wishes. And this thread now explains a lot, and in interesting ways. Thank you for it, and to @Penelopip for “asking the questions”.

Am I right in thinking that this is a shorter reference-range than is normally used for an opening range breakout strategy?

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Yes, most of the breakout strategies that I have seen use a 1hr timeframe or longer.

Still trying to work out if 5 minutes really works but recent results have been more positive, perhaps things have calmed down a bit since Mr Tariff took over.

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This certainly sounds a powerful motivation. :sunglasses:

What’s the current estimate/guesstimate on how long you’ll actually be keeping that job for?

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Good to see, too.

And thank you for being “featured”, David! :sunglasses:

I read a long account somewhere, a while back, where a 5-minute “window” was used to define the range for the subsequent breakout, but that was the second 5-minute period of the market being open, not the first. I was wondering whether you’ve ever looked at that?

(I believe that maybe the rationale for it might have been something to do with the first 5 minutes being mostly/partly about brokers acting on “overnight orders” and that there hadn’t really been any time yet for “reactions to anything much”? But I might have mis-remembered that, or misattributed it, or whatever, so don’t take any notice of me if it sounds like rubbish!).

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Really every month?

To do that is really a radically different thing from averaging out at 2% per month over the year, isn’t it?

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Tom Hougaard’s ‘School Run Strategy’ uses second 15 min bar on Dax and sometimes other indices. And has ‘Advanced School Run’ which is a bit more complicated, he also works around it a bit.

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I predict, if current trends continue that I can probably retire some time next year, probably around mid-summer. Certainly I can go part-time, fingers crossed.

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This depends on the size of my bank, the 2% figure is based on a 200k account, if I can get a bigger one I can aim for a lower figure.

This is an average, so a good month would allow for a bad one etc. No idea if that figure is sustainable or not, but if I can average 1% then that would work if I have a bigger account.

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Hi @skulkrinbait,

Great interview!. Wishing for your great journey in Forex. :slight_smile:

It’s good to utilize prop firm, but to be full time, it’s better to use our own account. I was with a prop firm, until they kicked me due their regulation, no more serving my region. We can’t predict the future. Another thing to prepare before “trading for living”, never rely on one broker, something happens we’ll be doomed.

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Yes, thanks for the advice, I am aware of how prop firms work and I really would rather work with a company that wants me to succeed. Long term I would either work with a Futures firm or have enough to use my own funds to trade with eventually.

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I think it ought to be, but its variability (doubtless Henry’s point?) is inevitably going to be in inverse proportion to the trade-frequency, isn’t it?

One thing’s certain: if you’re depending on it for regular income, it’s going to need a really smooth equity-curve (the main point that all the forum-posters advocating a “high R” always conveniently ignore!). And that means a high trade-frequency (the metric so often ignored!).

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One of the great statistical realities that so many “noob traders” seem neither to acknowledge nor to understand.

It’s true that one of the potential problems of opening-range breakout methods is that they trade only once per day, thus slowing down the number of trades needed to achieve statistical significance. In other words their sample size is often quite small.

Spreading the risk over multiple pairs isn’t much of an answer to this, because of correlation.

On the other hand, they’re undeniably easier to backtest effectively than most trading systems. :slight_smile:

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There are also people doing this, with the Dax, using the second ten-minute bar as the range. :slight_smile:

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Fingers crossed for you, also. Good to have the possibility of going part-time available. :sunglasses:

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That was quite interesting. I myself have developed a strategy based on standard deviation that I hope to share with all of you one day and hear your thoughts on.

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Yeah that looks quite good actually…

Need to backtest over a longer period of time.

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The title of the thread reminds me of those posters you used to see at one time, on the London underground: “I thought I’d have to work for another 10 years, until I discovered Forex whatever …” :+1: :grinning:

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… as long as you don’t also find a graffiti “artist” scribbling underneath “But now I’ll have to work 12 instead!” :confused: :grimacing:

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