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In this Dubai sit-down from the Viper conference, the host chats with Louis—a long-time student turned senior Viper trader—about the messy, honest side of getting good at markets. You’ll hear how he went from early losses and sketchy mentors to finding his footing with a community, plus a few “we got lost in Dubai Mall” moments that keep it real. Louis matters because he represents the trader most of us are: not a prodigy, but a grinder who treats the craft like a business and keeps showing up.
Read on to learn the simple, repeatable ideas Louis uses to level up: seeing losses as “business expenses,” keeping discipline when revenge-trading tempts you, avoiding social-media comparison traps, and trusting the process even after beginner’s luck fades. If you’re new or rebuilding, this piece will help you frame trading like a real venture—budget the setbacks, measure daily improvement, and stay in the game long enough for skill to compound.
Louis Hancock Playbook & Strategy: How He Actually Trades
The Backstory: From Student to Senior Viper
Louis Hancock’s approach was forged inside the Viper community—first as a student, then as a friend, and eventually as a senior Viper trader. The Dubai interview frames him as the relatable grinder who treats trading like a business and keeps showing up through setbacks.
- Started as a long-time student before being recognized as a senior Viper trader.
- Built his edge within a tight-knit trading group rather than going it alone.
- Emphasizes practical, repeatable habits over flashy tactics.
Market Focus & Why He Trades
Louis was drawn to trading for mobility and freedom: travel, work from a laptop, and earn based on skill. He explored forex (and some crypto), burned through the usual “retail” dead ends, then narrowed to a disciplined, process-driven path.
- Prioritize one core market (e.g., a few FX pairs) to shorten the learning curve.
- Track when your instruments are most liquid and only trade those windows.
- Keep a “do less, better” watchlist; add/remove pairs monthly based on performance.
Process Over Hype: Discipline First
Louis bangs the drum on discipline: make the right decision, avoid the wrong ones, and let the law of large numbers work. He warns how easy revenge trading is when trades resolve fast—so your rules must be even faster. Treat each day as new and aim to be slightly better than yesterday.
- Set a hard “no-revenge” rule: if you take two consecutive losses, step away for at least 30 minutes.
- Pre-write entry/exit criteria before the session; no on-the-fly changes once the trade is live.
- Start each day with a fresh P/L mindset; yesterday’s result cannot change today’s risk.
- Measure improvement daily (plan vs. executed plan), not just P/L.
Treat It Like a Real Business
Louis reframes losses as the cost of building a skill, like startup overhead before profit. That mindset reduces emotional tilt and keeps you consistent long enough to compound skill.
- Budget a monthly “operating cost” (education, data, small test losses) and log it separately from trading P/L.
- Cap daily loss at a fixed “overhead bite” (e.g., 1–2R); once hit, you’re closed for the day—no exceptions.
- Review losing trades as invoices: identify the “service rendered” (rule broken, context missed) and document the fix.
Get-Rich-Slow: Expectations That Don’t Break You
He rejects the instant-success fantasy. Progress is uneven and time is a hidden cost; your job is to make that time compound into skill, not into tilt.
- Replace “goal to make $X” with “goal to execute X perfect setups/week.”
- Track time on task (prep, journaling, replay) and aim for consistent weekly hours.
- Make scaling conditional: only raise size after four consecutive weeks of rule adherence and positive expectancy.
A Simple Session Framework
Louis’s comments imply a fast feedback loop: clear criteria, quick recognition if you’re right or wrong, and immediate discipline when you’re not. Build a routine that makes the right action the easy action.
- Pre-market (15–30 min): mark key HTF levels, expected session ranges, and invalidate zones.
- During session: take only A-setups that align with the plan; timeout after any impulse click.
- Post-session (10–20 min): journal entries with screenshots; tag each trade by setup name and rule compliance.
Anti-Tilt Playbook
When trades resolve quickly, emotions spike quickly. Louis’s answer is structured: predefined pauses, tight feedback, and a bias toward shutting down before psychology spirals.
- Install a two-strike pause: two reds in a row → timer + breathing drill + water + screen zoom-out.
- Prohibit “get it back” entries: any trade taken within five minutes of a stop is auto-invalid.
- Use a “yellow card” system: one rule break triggers a reduced size for the next trade or ends the session.
Execution Rules You Can Copy Today
Everything funnels into simple, enforceable rules that remove wiggle room. The aim is repeatability, not heroics.
- Max trades/day: 3–5. If you can’t get paid inside that, it’s not your day.
- One setup = one look: if price misses your entry, let it go; no chasing.
- Stop placing lives where the setup is wrong, not where P/L feels comfortable.
- Move to break-even only after price converts a planned structure (e.g., break/hold of a level), not after arbitrary pips.
- End green or end early: once you hit your daily target or your daily loss cap, you stop—process over more P/L.
Continuous Improvement Loop
Louis frames progress as marginal daily edges compounding into durability. Your review turns losses from pain into tuition and converts wins into templates.
- Weekly: export stats by setup (win rate, avg R, time of day) and drop the bottom performer for two weeks.
- Monthly: rebuild your playbook with fresh annotated examples; old charts out, last 30 days in.
- Quarterly: reassess market focus and session times; if your edge migrated, follow it deliberately.
Size Risk First: Set Daily Loss Cap and Session Stop Rules
Louis Hancock starts with risk, not trade ideas. He treats a daily loss cap like a circuit breaker that protects both his account and his headspace. Before the session opens, he decides exactly how much he’s willing to lose and what conditions will shut him down, no debate mid-tilt. This keeps him from “earning back” losses with bigger, sloppier bets.
From there, Louis defines session stop rules that are simple and automatic. Two consecutive losses? He pauses. Hit the daily cap? He’s done for the day. Up nicely and starting to feel invincible? He locks the win and walks—no bonus trade to celebrate. By sizing risk first and enforcing stop rules every single session, Louis turns discipline into a habit rather than a hope.
Volatility Dictates Size: Scale Contracts With ATR, Not Emotions
Louis Hancock sizes positions to the tape, not to his feelings. When volatility expands, he cuts size or widens stops; when it contracts, he allows more size only if the setup quality stays high. He uses ATR (or an equivalent range measure) to convert market noise into a hard number, then fits his stop and contract size inside that envelope. If ATR is double the 20-day average, Louis halves his contracts—simple, mechanical, repeatable. This prevents the classic mistake of trading yesterday’s size in today’s storm.
Louis also anchors profit targets and trade frequency to volatility regimes. In quiet markets, he expects slower follow-through and takes partials sooner; in high vol, he lets the trade breathe but reduces the number of attempts. He recalculates ATR periodically during prep and won’t override it mid-session just to “get back” losses. If his ATR-based stop would exceed the daily loss cap, he stands down instead of forcing a trade that doesn’t fit the risk box. By letting volatility dictate size, Louis Hancock stays consistent across regimes and avoids turning a good idea into a bad blow-up.
Diversify Smart: Underlying, Strategy, and Duration—Not Just More Trades
Louis Hancock treats diversification as risk design, not trade hoarding. Instead of stacking five highly correlated setups on one ticker, he spreads exposure across different underlyings (e.g., a major FX pair, an index future, and one commodity) so one narrative can’t sink the day. He also diversifies by strategy—trend continuation, mean reversion, and breakout—but only runs one play per instrument at a time to avoid internal conflict. When one style goes cold, Louis rotates attention to the one that’s printing clean, not forcing everything to fit yesterday’s edge.
He further diversifies by duration, so his book isn’t all ultra-short-term or all swing: a fast scalp may coexist with a structured higher-timeframe idea, each with its own risk box. Correlation checks are routine—if two trades move together, he sizes them as one risk unit, not two. If adding a position raises total exposure beyond the daily cap or clusters too much in one theme, he skips it without second-guessing. By diversifying across underlying, strategy, and duration, Louis Hancock keeps drawdowns shallower, the equity curve steadier, and his decision-making calmer.
Mechanics Over Prediction: Predefine Entries, Exits, Timeouts, and Review Steps
Louis Hancock doesn’t try to outguess the market; he out-executes it. Before the bell, he writes down the exact conditions that make an entry valid, the invalidation that kills it, and the profit-taking mechanics that follow. If the tape doesn’t meet the checklist, he passes without drama. When in a trade, a preplanned timeout—like “no progress after three bars” or “failed retest”—closes it automatically. This turns decisions into switches, not debates.
The same mechanical mindset drives Louis’s review. Every session ends with screenshots, tags by setup name, and a short note on whether he followed the rules. Wins are graded on process, not P/L; rule breaks trigger size reduction on the next session. By hardwiring entries, exits, timeouts, and review, Louis Hancock replaces prediction with repeatable performance.
Choose Defined Risk Setups; Avoid Undefined Risk Without a Strict Hedging Plan
Louis Hancock builds his book from trades where the max loss is known upfront and honored in execution. If a setup can’t be expressed with a clear invalidation and a realistic stop that fits his daily cap, he bins it. He prefers entries that anchor risk to a specific structure—level break and hold, failed retest, or clear swing high/low—so the stop isn’t a guess. When he does consider “undefined” risk ideas, Louis demands a prewritten hedge (second instrument, options cover, or immediate cut rule) that limits tail damage.
In practice, that means no averaging down, no martingale, and no “one more add” unless it was scripted before the session. Position size is sized to the stop, not the hope, and partials only occur after objective progress, not nerves. If slippage makes the planned stop exceed his risk box, Louis cancels and waits for a cleaner look. By staying loyal to defined risk—or enforcing strict hedges when he can’t—Louis Hancock keeps bad days survivable and good days compounding.
Louis Hancock’s key lesson is simple but hard: discipline beats everything. He built his edge inside a real community, progressing from long-time student to senior Viper, and he treats trading like a business where rules run the day. In Dubai, he hammered home that our style gives instant feedback—you know fast if you’re right or wrong—which makes revenge trades dangerously tempting. The antidote is pre-committed limits, a clean reset each day, and a relentless focus on process over prediction.
He also shows that staying power compounds: in just a year, their meetups scaled from a dozen people to a 200-plus Viper community—proof that consistent work and structure attract results. His own path wasn’t linear; he bounced through retail dead ends, mentors, and losses, but he didn’t let setbacks change the mission. Instead, he reframed losses as tuition, tightened rules, and doubled down on execution. If you remember one thing from Louis Hancock, make it this: define risk, enforce stops, avoid revenge, and trust the process to do the heavy lifting.
