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On this episode of the Words of Rizdom podcast, the host sits down with Tomas Males—a former FX trader who’s brutally honest about wins, losses, and why he ultimately pivoted. Tomas matters because he represents the path so many aspiring traders walk: fast gains, painful drawdowns, and the sobering realization that consistency takes years, discipline, and a real love for the craft—not just the money. His story, from early “signal-following” and blown accounts to tracked risk and a focus on helping people, gives this conversation its punch.
In this piece, you’ll learn the core takeaways traders actually need: how to tell if trading fits your temperament, why an apprenticeship mindset beats “get rich quick,” the power of 1% risk and honest tracking, and how to avoid the gambler’s loop of chasing losses. We’ll unpack Tomas’s emphasis on routine and psychology, why “process over results” is non-negotiable, when it’s rational to step back or diversify into passive investing, and how to keep your mental health intact while you level up. Read on if you want a practical filter for your own trading journey—and a strategy you can really live with.
Tomas Males Playbook & Strategy: How He Actually Trades
Core Philosophy (What He Believes and Why It Matters)
Before the tactics, Tomas anchors on mindset and fit. He’s blunt: trading without a defined plan is just gambling, and it’s okay to opt out if the game doesn’t suit your temperament. This section lays out the principles that steer his decisions day to day.
- Treat trading as a rules-based business; if you don’t have explicit rules, you’re gambling—full stop.
- Process > prediction: build systems you can repeat under pressure, not one-off “calls.”
- If trading isn’t for you (right now or ever), step away without guilt; passion and fit come first.
- Your edge lives in preparation, review, and honesty—not in being “right” on any single trade.
- Clarity of purpose fuels discipline; know your “why” before you size your first position.
Market Focus & Time Allocation (Where He Spends Attention)
Tomas doesn’t try to be everywhere at once. He concentrates risk and attention on a small basket and a few well-defined windows so that decisions are faster and cleaner. Use this to narrow your universe and protect your cognitive bandwidth.
- Pick 3–6 instruments you understand deeply (e.g., one index future, one currency, one commodity, 1–3 equities).
- Trade only 1–2 primary sessions that match your lifestyle; block the rest to avoid “FOMO drift.”
- Define a weekly “no-trade” day for research, journaling, and system maintenance—no exceptions.
- Keep a running “A-list” of markets with clean structure and adequate liquidity; stand down when conditions are choppy by your rules (see Volatility Filter below).
Setup Selection (Exactly What Qualifies as a Trade)
Good trades look similar. Tomas codifies the look and feel of a valid setup so decisions are mostly checklist, not vibes. Here’s how to reduce noise and upgrade selectivity.
- Structure: trade in the direction of the higher-timeframe bias (e.g., H4/D1) unless a defined mean-reversion setup triggers.
- Location: only at pre-marked levels (prior day high/low, weekly open, VWAP/AVWAP, value area edges, HTF supply/demand).
- Volatility filter: if current ATR(14) / 20-day ATR < 0.8, pass; if > 1.3, halve size or widen stops per plan.
- Event guardrails: 30 minutes before/after tier-1 releases (CPI, NFP, FOMC decisions), new entries are blocked unless the setup is event-driven by design.
- Quality gates: require at least 3 of 4 confirmations (trend alignment, level, trigger, volatility) or skip.
Risk, Sizing & Exits (How He Stays in the Game)
Longevity is the alpha. Tomas frames risk in “R” so winners and losers are comparable and the account grows by consistency, not luck. Use these rules to make every outcome survivable.
- Risk per trade: 0.25%–0.75% for normal conditions; cap at 1.0% only for A+ setups.
- Daily loss stop: −2R hard stop; terminal for the day—no “revenge” trades.
- Weekly drawdown circuit breaker: at −5R, reduce size by 50% and trade the plan review-only mode until back to HWM.
- Stop placement: beyond the invalidation structure (not at round numbers); if stop < 0.5× ATR, treat as too tight and pass.
- First scale: if price moves +1R and structure confirms, bank 30% and move stop to break-even minus costs.
- Final target: at the opposing structure or when the reason for the trade dies (break of the trigger timeframe market structure).
Entry Triggers (When He Pulls the Trigger)
Triggers convert bias into execution. Tomas uses simple, repeatable signals to avoid hesitation and late entries. Pick one or two and master them.
- Break-retest: HTF bias long → LTF bull structure break → clean retest → bullish rejection candle → enter; inverse for shorts.
- VWAP confluence: with-trend pullback to session VWAP/AVWAP + wick rejection + delta/volume confirmation.
- Time-of-day: 30–90 minutes after session open or around scheduled opens/auctions; avoid middle-of-nowhere entries.
- One order per idea: if the trigger fails, do not re-enter unless a full reset occurs (fresh structure and liquidity sweep).
Playbook Maintenance (How He Improves Without Bleeding)
Edge compounds in the journal. Tomas is ruthless about tracking, asking hard questions, and holding himself—and students—accountable. This is where you harden the system.
- Journal every trade: screenshot entry/exit, annotate level/trigger/vol filter, and tag with setup code.
- Weekly audit: export stats (win rate, average R, expectancy, drawdown, time-in-trade, news proximity) and update your “Do More/Do Less” list.
- Pre-mortem: before the week starts, list the top three ways you’ll likely mess up (e.g., overtrading chop), and the counter-rules you’ll use.
- Post-loss protocol: after any 2R day, perform a 10-minute written debrief before screens are reopened.
- System change control: any new rule requires 20 sample trades in the sim before promotion to live plan.
Psychology & Fit (Keeping Your Head Where Your Hands Are)
Tomas emphasizes purpose and perspective. If your “why” is weak, discipline frays, and you’ll default to gambling behaviors. These practices align your actions with your goals—and tell you when to pause.
- Define a non-financial “why” (skill mastery, craft, freedom) and read it before each session.
- Set maximum screen time blocks (e.g., 90 minutes on, 20 off) to prevent fatigue-trading.
- Use binary readiness checks: if sleep < 6h, emotions > 7/10, or external stressors are high, size to 0.25% or stand down.
- Permission to stop: if repeated review shows misfit or lack of passion, reallocate effort to better-fit ventures; it’s not failure to pivot.
Implementation Checklist (Put It To Work This Week)
Turning ideas into behavior is the whole point. Run this checklist to make the playbook operational immediately.
- Draft a one-page plan: instruments, sessions, setups, volatility filter, risk table, and event guardrails.
- Pre-mark levels for tomorrow; write your “if-then” triggers beside each level.
- Set platform-level daily loss and time-of-day locks so discipline lives in software, not willpower.
- Create journal templates (entry, exit, review) and schedule the weekly audit on your calendar.
- Commit to 30 trades of one setup before adding another; measure, then iterate.
Size Risk Like a Pro: Fixed R, Daily Max, Weekly Brake
Tomas Males treats risk like a budget, not a guess. He starts by defining a fixed “R” per trade so every outcome is comparable and emotions don’t hijack the plan. That fixed-R approach makes winners and losers part of the same math, which helps Tomas scale without changing the rules. He also caps the day with a hard daily loss limit to prevent tilt and revenge trading.
When markets sting, Tomas adds a weekly brake—hit a predefined drawdown and he automatically cuts size or pauses. This protects the equity curve and buys time to review what’s actually breaking in the process. He pairs this with ATR-aware position sizing so stops aren’t random and small timeframes don’t force oversized leverage. The result is simple: Tomas Males survives long enough for edge and discipline to do their compounding.
Let Volatility Lead Allocation: ATR Filters, Wider Stops, Smarter Size
Tomas Males doesn’t size positions by feel—he lets volatility set the budget. When ATR expands, he widens stops and reduces the size so each trade still risks the same R. When ATR compresses, he tightens stops and can scale size modestly while keeping risk constant. This keeps his expectancy stable across regimes instead of whipsawing with market mood.
He also filters entries by volatility, skipping low-ATR chop unless a mean-reversion setup is explicitly in his playbook. Tomas Males tags each market with a simple regime label—quiet, normal, or hot—and predefines how size, stop width, and partials change in each. He times execution around sessions with clean range expansion rather than forcing trades mid-chop. The payoff is consistency: his edge isn’t diluted by random noise, because allocation flexes with the tape instead of fighting it.
Diversify by Underlying, Strategy, and Duration to Smooth Equity Curve
Tomas Males spreads his bets across different engines so one stall doesn’t crash the plane. He mixes uncorrelated underlyings—an index future, a major FX pair, and a commodity—so a single macro theme can’t dominate his P&L. He pairs trend-continuation with a defined mean-reversion play to capture both expansion and snapbacks. He also staggers holding periods, running quick intraday plays alongside swing holds to keep cash flow and asymmetry working together.
This structure makes the equity curve less lumpy without diluting the edge. Tomas Males avoids duplicate exposure by checking correlation and setup overlap before adding a new idea. He keeps position sizing independent per sleeve, so a cold strategy can’t drain capital reserved for a hot one. Review cadence is sleeve-specific too, letting him prune or boost precisely rather than “fixing” the whole system. The net effect is resilience: volatility in one lane is cushioned by stability in another, and progress keeps compounding.
Trade Mechanics Over Prediction: Pre-Marked Levels, Triggers, Time Windows
Tomas Males starts by mapping the battlefield before the bell: prior day high/low, weekly open, VWAP/AVWAP, and obvious liquidity pools. He wants each trade to begin at a location he planned when he was calm, not at a random candle in the heat of the moment. Once price reaches a marked level, he waits for a simple, testable trigger—break-retest, wick rejection, or a clean higher-low/lower-high on the execution timeframe. This keeps him from front-running and turns the decision into a checklist rather than a feeling. The point is to let the structure do the heavy lifting while he just presses the button.
Time windows matter too. Tomas Males focuses on the first 60–90 minutes of his chosen session and around scheduled auctions, then deliberately avoids the dead zones. If the tape goes dull or the structure breaks down, the plan says “stand down,” not “force it.” He would rather miss a move than buy variance he didn’t plan for, because his edge lives in repeatable mechanics, not calling tops and bottoms. That restraint is the strategy.
Prefer Defined Risk Plays; Tame Undefined Risk With Rules and Hedging
Tomas Males builds around trades where maximum loss is known in advance. If he can’t define the downside, he hard-limits size and insists on structural invalidation that’s actually respected by the product’s behavior. For defined risk, he uses fixed-R stops placed beyond the structure—not arbitrary round numbers—and refuses to slide them. Slippage happens, so he prices worst-case execution into his R and still keeps the setup attractive.
When he does operate in “undefined” territory—fast markets, gaps, news volatility—Tomas Males switches to containment mode. He cuts unit size, widens stops to realistic levels, and pairs positions with hedges or offsetting sleeves so a sudden shock can’t nuke the day. He pre-commits to rules like “no add after adverse move” and “one order per idea,” killing the temptation to average down. If the product can gap through stops, he scales exposure to what a gap would cost, not what a textbook stop suggests. The outcome is simple: Tomas Males earns the right to be aggressive by making sure the downside is boxed in before he clicks.
In the end, Tomas Males makes trading feel less like a guessing game and more like a craft. His core message is simple and hard to ignore: build a rule-based plan, size every trade with a fixed R, and protect your energy with daily and weekly breaks. He keeps his universe small, his levels pre-marked, and his triggers simple—so decisions are made by checklists, not mood. Volatility sets his allocation, not ego; when ATR expands, he widens stops and trims size, when it compresses, he tightens and scales—always to keep expectancy steady.
But the real edge Tomas talks about isn’t a secret indicator—it’s the routine that sustains you. Journal every trade, review weekly, and upgrade or prune only after evidence, not feelings. Prioritize fit and purpose so discipline doesn’t crack when markets do. Diversify across underlying, strategy type, and duration to smooth the equity curve, and favor defined risk while taming undefined risk with strict containment rules and, when needed, hedges. If your passion or life season says “pause,” he treats that as wisdom, not failure. That combination—clear rules, honest tracking, volatility-aware risk, and a lifestyle that actually supports the work—is the strategy Tomas Males actually trades.
