Table of Contents
This interview features Navin Prithyani—founder of Urban Forex—breaking down how he actually trades on the Desire To Trade podcast. Recorded while he was traveling and trading, Navin explains why his work matters for retail traders: he moved beyond indicators and signal services to a supply-and-demand view that reads who’s in control—buyers or sellers—and why most people are late to the move. If you’ve ever chased trends, flipped systems, or hit a stubborn income ceiling, Navin’s straight talk on mindset and method will hit home.
In this piece, you’ll learn Navin’s core playbook: identify trending conditions, wait for the right pullback, and execute only when the story aligns with what the crowd is likely to do next. You’ll see how he journals in real time (thoughts, entries, exits, post-analysis) to build accountability, how he scales without changing the underlying strategy, and—most importantly—how he decides when not to trade. Expect practical guidance on risk, patience, and psychological ceilings so you can stop experimenting, start anticipating, and trade with intent.
Navin Prithyani Playbook & Strategy: How He Actually Trades
Core market view: read the crowd, not the indicator
Before placing a trade, Navin frames the market as a story of buyers vs. sellers fighting over price. He maps where trapped traders are likely sitting and where liquidity is pooled, then waits for the price to reveal who’s actually in control.
- Define the “story”: who’s likely in pain if price moves 20–40 pips/points from here?
- Mark obvious liquidity: prior highs/lows, session opens, round numbers, and last swing extremes.
- Box the current range; label which edge holds stop clusters and which side needs fuel.
- Ignore indicator stacks; keep a clean chart with structure, zones, and session markers only.
- Commit to trading only when the crowd’s likely next move is clear—not when it’s “interesting.”
Pre-trade routine: conditions first, setups second
He doesn’t hunt entries cold. He first checks if the market conditions match his playbook—trend quality, session volatility, and upcoming catalysts—then decides if the day is even worth trading.
- Choose one or two instruments with a clean structure and average spread; skip the rest.
- Note session: prioritize London and early NY; reduce risk in Asia unless trend is exceptional.
- Avoid the first minutes around tier-1 news; let the post-news direction print before joining.
- If ADR/ATR is already 80–90% exhausted, pass on late trend chases.
- Set “No-Trade” criteria (e.g., overlapping HTF candles, choppy mid-range, holiday liquidity).
Directional bias: top-down, then lock one side
Bias comes from a higher-timeframe structure, not a hunch. Once bias is set, he hunts only for entries that align with it, avoiding the death-by-a-thousand-countertrades.
- Start HTF (H4/D1) to spot the dominant leg: impulsive up, corrective down (or vice versa).
- On H1/M15, confirm market structure: higher highs/higher lows = long bias; the reverse for shorts.
- Draw supply/demand zones around the last strong impulse base or the origin of a break of structure.
- If bias is unclear after 60–90 seconds of review, stand aside; do not force a narrative.
- Re-check bias only after a significant break/retest; don’t flip bias mid-range noise.
Set up selection: pullback into the “pain zone”
His best trades come when the price pulls back into zones where late traders are vulnerable. He wants entries where a small stop sits behind a meaningful structure and the move has room to run.
- Identify the impulse leg that broke the structure; mark its origin zone (the “decision point”).
- Wait for a clean pullback into the zone; avoid entries in the middle of nowhere.
- Demand confluence: zone + session timing + liquidity sweep (wick through prior high/low).
- Place stops behind the zone’s invalidation, not arbitrary pips.
- Target the next liquidity pocket first; leave runners only if HTF space is wide open.
Entry triggers: let price prove it
He doesn’t predict the turn; he lets price show intent. A sweep, reject, and reclaim sequence is preferred over blind limit orders at zones.
- For longs: look for a sweep below a prior low, immediate rejection, then a higher low to buy.
- For shorts: a sweep above a prior high, rejection, then a lower high to sell.
- Accept only one clean trigger pattern per plan; avoid stacking rules until nothing qualifies.
- Enter at the break of the trigger candle’s structure or on a tight retest—predefined, not improvised.
- If the trigger doesn’t fire within your “time stop” (e.g., 2–3 candles), scrap the idea.
Risk sizing: protect the mind, not just the account
Sizing is built to survive drawdowns and keep psychology intact. He’d rather trade smaller and execute perfectly than swing for home runs and break discipline.
- Risk a fixed fraction per idea (e.g., 0.25–0.5%); halve risk in low-liquidity sessions.
- Cap daily loss (e.g., 1–1.5%); stop trading when hit—no “one more try.”
- Use asymmetric payoffs: require at least 1.5R seen clearly to the first target before entry.
- If spread + slippage eats >25% of stop size, the trade is invalid—skip.
- Never widen stops after entry; exit and reframe instead.
Trade management: mechanical milestones, discretionary context
Once in, he manages by objective levels first, context second. Partials come at logical liquidity, and the rest rides only if the structure remains intact.
- Take first partial at the next swing/liquidity pocket (e.g., 1.0–1.5R).
- Move stop to breakeven only after structure confirms (higher low for longs, lower high for shorts).
- Trail behind fresh structure, not candle lows/highs alone; let breathing room match volatility.
- If the price closes back inside the opposing zone, flatten—story is invalid.
- End-of-session rule: close runners before dead liquidity unless the HTF trend is extremely clean.
Scaling and add-ons: only on a fresh structure
Adds are earned by new structure, not by hoping. He scales only when the market creates another high-probability trigger in the direction of the initial trade.
- Add only after partial profits banked, and stop is at or near breakeven.
- Require a new pullback + trigger sequence; no “averaging in” during drawdown.
- Keep total exposure within max risk per symbol/day (e.g., 1–1.25%).
- Treat each add-on as a standalone with its own stop and target.
- If the new structure is weaker than the first, skip the add.
Session tactics: London impulse, NY continuation, or fade
Different sessions have different personalities. He leans into the hours that match the instrument’s natural volatility and respects when to power down.
- For FX/indices: focus 30–90 minutes after London open; look for the day’s first clean leg.
- In early NY, join continuation only if London leaves space; otherwise, fade exhausted moves carefully.
- Avoid lunch hours and pre-rollover drifts; if in, tighten management or exit.
- If ADR is nearly filled by late morning, prefer mean-reversion scalps over trend chases.
- One strong idea per session beats three mediocre ones—quality over activity.
News & catalysts: confirmation, not prediction
He doesn’t guess news outcomes. He uses scheduled releases to time when not to trade—and to catch clean post-news structure once the dust settles.
- Flat or reduced risk 5–15 minutes before high-impact events on your instrument.
- Trade only post-release once direction and structure are printed and spreads normalize.
- If the first move spikes both sides (whipsaw), stand down until a higher-low/lower-high appears.
- Treat unscheduled headlines as a circuit breaker; flatten if liquidity evaporates.
- Rebuild bias after news; don’t cling to the pre-news plan.
Journaling & review: make the edge repeatable
Navin treats journaling as part of the trade, not an afterthought. He captures the story he saw, the plan he made, and what actually happened to refine the next decision.
- Screenshot pre-trade markup with bias, zone, trigger, and risk written on the chart.
- Log execution: entry time, size, stop, targets, partials, and management notes.
- Tag outcomes by reason (e.g., “early entry,” “skipped due to ADR,” “perfect trigger”).
- End each week with a 10-minute tally: which rule prevented pain, which rule made money.
- Promote rules that consistently add R; delete rules that add noise.
Psychology: patience pays, boredom costs
He builds patience by making “no trade” a valid outcome. The goal is to execute a small set of high-quality behaviors, not to be constantly in the market.
- Pre-commit to a max number of ideas per day (e.g., 1–2); close the platform when done.
- Use a checklist before entry; if any item is “no,” pass—no negotiation.
- Replace “need to trade” with “need to follow plan”; reward perfect passes, not just wins.
- If tilted (revenge, FOMO), enforce a 20-minute lockout and a written reset.
- Keep risk tiny after a losing day; earn size back with flawless execution, not hope.
Common mistakes to avoid: crowd traps 101
Most retail pain comes from buying highs, selling lows, and reacting to candles without context. He uses simple filters to avoid becoming part of the liquidity.
- Don’t trade mid-range; wait for edge or breakout-retest structure.
- Don’t short higher highs or buy lower lows without a sweep + reclaim pattern.
- Don’t counter the HTF leg because “it’s too high/low”; price can get “more too.”
- Don’t add to losers—ever; exit and wait for a fresh story.
- Don’t skip session rules; the same setup in dead liquidity is not the same trade.
The size risk is small, so psychology stays steady, and execution stays sharp
Navin Prithyani keeps risk tiny so his mind stays calm and focused. When each trade only risks a fraction of capital, fear drops and decisions improve. He treats risk per idea as a fixed cost of doing business, not a negotiable guess. That consistency lets him execute the same way on a Monday loser as on a Friday winner.
Pick a small risk unit—say 0.25% to 0.5%—and make it non-negotiable. If volatility spikes or spreads widen, he cuts size further instead of forcing targets. A hard daily loss cap ends the session before tilt turns one mistake into many. By protecting psychology first, he preserves the edge that actually compounds: flawless, repeatable execution.
Trade mechanics over predictions: read crowd, wait, trigger, act
Navin Prithyani treats prediction as a trap and mechanics as the edge. He reads who’s in control—buyers or sellers—by watching how price behaves around obvious highs, lows, and session opens. Instead of guessing turns, he waits for a sweep and rejection to show intent. The crowd reveals itself in how quickly levels hold or fail, not in anyone’s forecast.
Once the story is clear, he looks for a defined trigger and executes without hesitation. If the trigger doesn’t appear within a few candles, he scraps the idea and resets. No trigger, no trade; no exceptions. That simple flow—read the crowd, wait patiently, act on the trigger—keeps him disciplined and profitable across changing markets.
Use volatility to set stops, targets, and realistic session expectations.ns
Navin Prithyani sizes his expectations to volatility so the market doesn’t punish optimism. He checks the current ADR/ATR to decide if there’s room for a meaningful move before chasing entries. Stops sit beyond the structure by a multiple of the recent range, not an arbitrary number. Targets anchor to the next liquidity pocket only if the day’s volatility can plausibly reach it.
When volatility contracts, he reduces position size and aims for closer first targets. When it expands, he keeps risk per trade fixed but lets runners breathe behind a wider structure. Session behavior matters too: London gets the impulse, New York often provides continuation or fade, and dead hours get skipped. By syncing stops, targets, and session choices to volatility, Navin keeps trades realistic—and his equity curve smoother.
Diversify by instrument, setup, and timeframe—never by random ideas.
Navin Prithyani spreads risk across clean instruments and repeatable setups, not a messy basket of hunches. He treats each symbol like a “venue” and only trades where structure is readable and spreads are fair. If EURUSD is choppy but indices are trending, he shifts focus instead of forcing trades. Diversification here means multiple independent opportunities that all fit the same playbook.
He also diversifies by setup and timeframe without diluting standards. A trend pullback on the 15-minute and a breakout-retest on the 1-hour can both qualify if they share bias, confluence, and clear invalidation. What he never does is stack unrelated ideas just to feel busy. For Navin Prithyani, true diversification lowers correlation and preserves edge—randomness does neither.
Define risk upfront; avoid undefined exposure, widen no stops eve.r
Navin Prithyani treats risk definition as the trade’s foundation, not an afterthought. Before entry, he knows the exact invalidation level, the stop distance, and the position size that keeps account risk fixed. If price tags the stop, he’s out—no exceptions, no “wiggle room.” He avoids undefined exposure, re like holding through major news without a plan or shorting instruments that can gap violently against him.
He never widens stops once filled because that converts a calculated risk into a gamble. If the story changes, he exits and looks for a fresh setup rather than negotiating with a losing one. Targets move only if structure and volatility justify it; the stop remains where the idea is proven wrong. By locking risk first, Navin protects both capital and confidence—freeing him to execute the next A+ trade without baggage.
Navin Prithyani’s core lesson is simple: stop predicting, start reading the crowd, and act only when the story lines up with the risk you can live with. He moved from indicators and signal services to a supply-and-demand lens that asks, “Who’s trapped here, and where is the next pocket of liquidity?” That shift turns entries into business decisions: define invalidation, place the stop where the idea is wrong, and only take trades the day’s volatility can reasonably deliver. When conditions change or the session dries up, he steps aside—no drama, no forced action.
The second lesson is discipline by routine. Navin runs a light, repeatable pre-trade checklist, sizes small to protect psychology, and manages with mechanical milestones: partials at logical targets, stop at structure, no widening—ever. He treats “no trade” as a win when the market is mid-range or post-whipsaw and reviews screenshots with notes to promote rules that add R and delete the ones that add noise. Finally, he diversifies intelligently—by instrument, setup, and timeframe—not by random ideas, and he respects session personalities so he’s present for A-quality opportunities and absent for everything else. Put together, his edge is a process: anticipate, wait, execute cleanly, and leave the market before it takes back what it gave.
