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Boris Schlossberg sits down to unpack how he actually trades—across prop accounts, futures, and intraday volatility—and why most traders blow up long before their edge has a chance. In this candid interview, Boris stresses that the market won’t rescue oversized positions and that treating prop funds like real money is the only path to real payouts. He talks election-day swings, why “size beats entry,” and the brutal honesty of sticking to “no signal, no trade.”
You’ll learn the core of Boris’s playbook: start with a smaller-than-you-think size so you can survive, repair, and compound; respect regime changes (continuity vs. mean-reversion) instead of forcing setups; avoid trading right before major events (FOMC, NFP, inflation) and hit it after; and use algos to execute consistently with daily profit/loss stops, not to predict. He also lays out practical risk tactics—from tail protection to strict session rules—so beginners can build discipline and funded traders can keep payouts.
Boris Schlossberg Playbook & Strategy: How He Actually Trades
Risk & Sizing Doctrine: survive first, compound second
Boris is blunt about why traders blow up: it’s almost always size. He treats small size as a superpower because it buys time to fix mistakes, ride out noise, and steadily press the edge when conditions align. If you can survive, you can grow—if you oversize, you’re done.
- Start new accounts at micro size (e.g., 1–2 micro contracts on index futures) until you’ve logged 20+ green sessions.
- Hard cap your per-trade risk at ≤ 0.25% and your daily risk at ≤ 0.75% of your account. If you hit the daily cap, you’re flat—no exceptions.
- If you draw down >1.5× your average green day in a week, halve your size for the next 5 sessions.
- Treat prop capital like real capital—payouts are real; the only way to stay funded is disciplined sizing.
Regime Awareness: continuity vs. mean reversion
His playbook starts with one simple lens: markets alternate between trend (“continuity”) and range (“mean reversion”). Your first job each session is to identify which regime you’re in and trade only the setups that belong to it. Forcing a mean-reversion idea in a trend day (or vice versa) is how accounts leak.
- Before placing risk, label the session Trend or Range using: opening drive strength, VWAP bias, and breadth/ATR expansion.
- Trend day rules: enter on pullbacks to VWAP/EMA with one add only after fresh momentum confirmation; stops trail below last structure.
- Range day rules: fade the second test of the range edge with tight stops; never add if price closes beyond the band.
- If the label flips mid-session, stand down for 30 minutes before trading the new regime.
Calendar Filter: avoid the chop before big events
He avoids trading right before FOMC, NFP, or major inflation prints because the tape is headline-fragile and choppy. The edge appears after the release, when spreads normalize and direction is clarified. Treat these as “no-trade (or tiny-trade) windows.”
- Flat or minimum size in the 60 minutes before: FOMC, NFP, CPI/PCE, central-bank decisions, and election days.
- Resume normal risk 15–30 minutes after the release once spreads/volatility stabilize.
- If you accidentally enter pre-event, hard-stop to a fixed loss (no “just one more” wiggles).
- Keep an event calendar at your desk and plan your session bias around it, not through it.
Daily Guardrails: stop-when-ahead and strict loss limits
Boris bakes discipline into the process: let algos and rules stop you when you’re up so you don’t hand it back in the afternoon, and cut the downside with immutable daily loss limits. The point isn’t to catch every move but to keep equity rising smoothly.
- Green cap: if realized P&L ≥ your daily target, you’re done—platform closed. (E.g., +$50 on a $10k account.)
- Daily max loss: one number; platform-level lockout when hit.
- Trade count limit: max 8 tickets/day; if hit before target, you’re done.
- No revenge: after any terminal loss, step away for one full 5-minute bar before considering the next setup.
Intraday Execution with Algos: rules > feelings
He lets algorithms do the repetitive work—entries, exits, shutdowns—while he decides when not to trade (e.g., pre-event, dead markets). The algos are ~85% self-managed and obey the rules exactly; your job is to give them sound constraints and cut them when the environment is wrong.
- Encode session on/off times (e.g., NY open window) and a daily P&L stop the algo enforces automatically.
- Default small size on algos; after a rare terminal loss, increment size slightly to speed recovery, then revert to base size.
- Maintain a global kill switch for special days (elections, surprise geopolitical risk).
- Keep a single source of truth for parameters (risk per trade, max trades, news blocks) and version-control any changes.
Session Selection & Pace: trade when the tape is alive
He prefers short-term timeframes and faster resolution; extended, slow markets drain discipline and edge. If the tape’s dead or volatility compresses for days, reduce size, limit attempts, or take the day off.
- If 3 consecutive days with index ATR fall below your baseline, halve your clip size and target one A-setup only.
- Prefer NY session for clarity; consider defined windows (e.g., 9:15–11:30 NY) to avoid overtrading.
- If the market’s “chop city,” pre-commit to a maximum of 2 attempts per idea, then stand down.
Account Targets & Expectations: realistic beats heroic
He frames returns conservatively—small, repeatable gains on modest accounts beat home-run hunting. By anchoring on achievable weekly dollars, you reduce pressure and protect the process.
- Set a weekly dollar goal (e.g., $100/week on $10k) and build your daily target from it.
- Any week you exceed target by >2×, withdraw the excess or park it in a “buffer” sub-account.
- Any week you miss the target, review only process metrics (regime ID accuracy, adherence to news blocks, trade count), not P&L.
Prop Trading Workflow: Use it like a flight simulator
Prop accounts are great for stress-testing strategies without endangering personal capital, but only if you respect size constraints and payout rules. Approach them as a professional simulator with real cash rewards—not a video game.
- For new props, start with the smallest contract size your rules allow and scale after 10 consecutive rule-clean sessions.
- Run several small accounts rather than one big one to diversify risk and reduce psychological load.
- Mirror the same risk profile across personal and prop accounts to make behaviors automatic.
- Never chase a prop target by doubling in size late in the evaluation; extend the timeline instead.
Process & Routine: consistency over heroics
He trades live on set days and hours, using that routine to sharpen discipline and feedback loops. Consistent exposure, rule review, and post-session notes beat sporadic “big days” every time.
- Fix session times and pre-market checklist: regime label, news blocks, ATR, key levels, game plan.
- Record every ticket with: setup tag, regime, rationale, risk, outcome, and whether you followed the plan.
- End of day: export trades, tag mistakes, and write two improvements you’ll apply tomorrow—no more, no less.
Background & Focus Areas
Boris is a co-founder of BKForex and long-time managing director of FX strategy, with decades in FX, equities, options, and index futures. He’s also a co-author of Millionaire Traders and regularly shares live trading sessions and education. These experiences shape his emphasis on risk, regime awareness, and systematic execution. (investopedia.com)
Start Tiny, Survive Volatility, Then Scale Size With Proof
Boris Schlossberg emphasizes the importance of starting small, especially for new traders or those with limited capital. In his experience, many traders blow up their accounts simply by taking on too much risk too soon. He advocates for beginning with micro positions and scaling up only after proving consistent profitability over time. By keeping your size small, you allow room for mistakes, ensuring that you can ride out volatility without completely draining your account. The key is to focus on survival first—once you prove you can navigate the market with discipline and manage risk, you can gradually increase your position sizes and take on more exposure.
For Boris, trading is about compounding small wins rather than shooting for the moon with large, risky bets. He underscores that many experienced traders fail not because they lack a strategy, but because they take on too much size when conditions aren’t aligned with their edge. The consistent application of small size lets traders preserve capital through losing streaks and drawdowns, which ultimately builds the foundation for greater long-term profitability.
Identify Trend Or Range First, Match Setup To Regime
Boris Schlossberg hammers one habit before any entry: label the market. Is today trending or ranging? If momentum is one-way and pullbacks are shallow, treat it like a trend day and look to join strength on clean retracements. If the rice is bouncing between clear boundaries and failing to break out, treat it like a range and fade the edges with tight risk.
Boris keeps the checklist simple: opening drive behavior, bias around VWAP, and whether ranges expand or contract. Once the label is set, the setup must fit—pullback-continuation in trends, mean-reversion at range extremes. If the label flips mid-session, he stands down, reassesses, and only then trades the new regime.
Block Pre-News Whipsaw, Trade Clarity After Major Releases
Boris Schlossberg is unapologetic about avoiding the minefield right before big events. He treats the minutes leading into FOMC, NFP, CPI, and major central-bank decisions as a do-not-trade window because spreads widen, liquidity thins, and random headlines can invalidate any setup. His view is simple: your job is not to be a hero in uncertainty, it’s to capture clean, high-quality moves after information is out.
Once the release hits, Boris waits for the first impulse to exhaust, then looks for structure to form—VWAP reclaims, higher lows, or failed retests that define risk tightly. He’ll only engage when direction and volatility stabilize enough to frame a stop that makes sense relative to the target. If conditions remain chaotic, he passes and keeps powder dry; missing a trade is cheaper than mispricing risk. In Boris Schlossberg’s playbook, discipline around the calendar is edge preservation, and edge preservation is account preservation.
Automate Execution Rules, Not Predictions; Enforce Daily Loss Stops
Boris Schlossberg stresses that algorithms should enforce your behavior, not guess the future. He programs start/stop times, entry triggers, scale-out rules, and a platform-level daily loss cap so emotions can’t overrule the plan. The idea is to automate the boring, repeatable mechanics—orders, stops, targets—so your edge shows up through consistency, not hero shots.
When a pre-set loss limit hits, Boris Schlossberg is flat for the day—no overrides, no “one more trade.” He also caps the number of tickets per session to prevent grindy churn. If the tape changes character, he pauses the system and reassesses rather than hacking parameters mid-flight. In short, let code handle discipline and guardrails, while you decide when the environment is favorable enough to switch the machine on.
Diversify Instruments, Time Windows, And Strategies; Limit Attempts Per Idea
Boris Schlossberg treats diversification as practical risk control, not a buzzword. He mixes instruments (indices, FX majors, occasional commodities) so no single product dictates his day. He also splits the session into distinct windows—open drive, mid-morning, and post-news—because each slice has different behavior and needs different expectations. If the open is sloppy, he’s comfortable waiting for the calmer mid-morning tape rather than forcing trades.
On strategy, Boris Schlossberg rotates between a small set of well-defined playbooks—trend pullback, range fade, and momentum break—but he never hammers the same idea endlessly. Two clean shots per thesis, and he moves on; after that, the market is saying “not today.” This keeps emotional tilt in check and stops him from turning a choppy day into a costly one. By spreading exposure across instruments, time windows, and playbooks—while capping retries—he gives himself more ways to win and fewer ways to spiral.
Boris Schlossberg’s bottom line is brutally simple: survival comes before scale. He hammers that prop accounts must be treated like real capital, because the payouts are real, and oversized bets won’t get rescued by the market. Start tiny, learn to live through noise, and only scale once you’ve proven repeatable edge. He views prop as a high-end flight simulator—an environment to test strategies, stress discipline, and hard-wire rules without blowing up personal capital. The rules are a feature, not a bug: daily loss caps, news blocks, and size limits make you better, not smaller.
He frames each session through regime first—trend or range—and refuses to force a setup that doesn’t match the tape. Ahead of major releases (FOMC, NFP, CPI), he stands down, then hunts clarity after the first impulse resolves. Execution is mechanical and partly automated: let algorithms handle entries, exits, max tickets, and a platform-level kill switch, while you decide when conditions are worth engaging. Keep expectations modest and consistent; compounding small, green days beats chasing hero trades. Add practical tail protection for longer-term exposure, diversify across instruments and time windows, and limit attempts per idea. In Boris Schlossberg’s playbook, account longevity, regime alignment, and rule enforcement are the real secret sauce.
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