Table of Contents
This interview features Cal, co-founder of The Viper Group, sitting down with host Riz on the Words of Rizdom podcast to unpack their decade-long journey—from schoolmates to building a trading education community and recently returning from a work trip to Dubai. Cal talks candidly about early business missteps, the grind of teaching traders seven days a week, and why realistic expectations beat lifestyle marketing every time. If you’ve wondered what it actually takes to go from “seeing the green” to building resilience, process, and community, this conversation is your backstage pass.
You’ll learn the core of Cal’s strategy mindset: plan for the negatives before you chase the positives, pace yourself like a pro, and let the market come to you. He and Riz break down why most traders quit in the first 90 days, how to build emotional control for live markets, and the value of patience—illustrated by their crypto “Road to 500k” approach of waiting months for a high-probability buy rather than forcing trades. Expect clear, beginner-friendly takeaways you can use today: setting realistic goals, managing time and family trade-offs, and developing the habits that turn chart knowledge into durable performance.
Callum Barratt Playbook & Strategy: How He Actually Trades
Core Market Framework
This is the backbone of Callum’s approach—how he reads a market before even thinking about entries. You’ll map structure, define bias, and set the conditions that must be true before you press the button.
- Define trend on the 4H/1H using HH/HL vs. LH/LL structure; no trade against the current 1H structure unless a full break-and-retest flips it.
- Mark weekly and daily key levels (open, high, low, close) and only plan trades that interact with at least one of them.
- Categorize the session: trend, range, or transition. If unclear after 30 minutes, you’re in “no trade” mode.
- Pre-commit bias before the session (bullish/bearish/neutral) and write one sentence why; change bias only after the structure truly flips.
Setup Selection (A+ Only)
Here, you turn a broad bias into one or two repeatable patterns. The goal is to remove random trades and execute only the same high-probability ideas.
- Trade a maximum of two setups:
- Break–Retrace–Continuation (BRC) with a clean prior level break and a 50–100% pullback into the level.
- Failed Break Reversal (FBR) where price sweeps a key level and closes back inside with momentum.
- Require one confluence from a higher timeframe (D/4H level) and one from intraday (VWAP, prior session high/low, or opening range).
- If the candle that triggers you is larger than 1.5× average recent candle size, skip the first pullback—wait for the second.
- No fresh setups within 15 minutes of a major news release; allow one full candle after the initial spike to print before acting.
Risk & Sizing Rules
Capital survives by math, not vibes. These rules keep your downside small enough to let the edge play out across dozens of trades.
- Fixed fractional risk per trade: 0.25–0.5% for day trades, 0.75–1.0% for higher-timeframe swings.
- Place stops beyond invalidation, not behind “hope.” For BRC, stop goes beyond the origin of the impulse that broke the level; for FBR, beyond the sweep extreme.
- If the distance to invalidation exceeds 1.25× your maximum stop size, reduce the size to fit or pass the trade.
- Daily loss cap = 1.5× your average daily gain OR 2% of equity—whichever is smaller; hit it and you are done for the day.
Entry Timing & Execution
Entries are about precision and patience. This section forces you to let price come to you and execute cleanly.
- Use limit orders only at pre-marked levels; if the price touches the level but fails to print confirmation (wick rejection or engulfing close), skip.
- For continuation trades, enter on the first decent pullback to the breakout level; require a lower-timeframe (M5/M1) higher low or lower high to form.
- If slippage exceeds half your planned risk (in ticks/pips), cancel and wait for the next rotation.
- Never chase a missed entry; price must return to the plan level, or you let it go.
Trade Management & Exits
You get paid on exits, not entries. These rules keep wins orderly and losses small.
- First scale at 1R to pay risk; move stop to breakeven only after structure confirms (e.g., higher low after a long, lower high after a short).
- Plan two targets: T1 = nearest opposing structure (prior high/low, VWAP), T2 = higher timeframe level.
- If momentum stalls (three consecutive inside/indecision candles at your level), trail behind the last valid swing and accept partial profits.
- Time stop: if a day trade hasn’t reached 0.5R in 45–60 minutes, exit at market—opportunity cost is a real risk.
Session Routine (Open-to-Close)
Consistency comes from ritual. This is the daily loop that keeps you sharp and reduces decision fatigue.
- Pre-market (20–30 min): mark levels, write bias, list exactly two scenarios (If A then B… If C then D).
- During session: set alerts at levels; no random chart surfing, no adding instruments mid-session.
- Midday audit: if you’ve taken two losses, pause for 15 minutes and re-evaluate the structure on the 1H before proceeding.
- Post-market (15 min): screenshot best setup—taken or missed—and annotate entry, stop, target, and the “why.”
Psychology & Patience
Discipline is the edge. These rules keep emotions out and process in.
- Pre-commit to a maximum of three trades per session; the fourth trade is automatically disallowed.
- Use a “cool-off” timer: after any red trade, wait five minutes before the next decision; after a green trade, wait two minutes.
- No P&L on screen while in a trade—display only price, structure, and risk in R-multiples.
- If you’re not at 100% focus (fatigue, distractions), switch to higher-timeframe swings or skip the session entirely.
Swing Framework (Crypto/FX/Indices)
When the market is slow, you wait; when it’s ready, you scale. This framework captures the bigger moves without over-trading.
- Weekly bias from D/3D trend and a clear “value zone” (discount for longs, premium for shorts) measured from the last impulse leg.
- Alerts at value zone edges; only build a position inside that zone with staggered limits (e.g., 3 entries, equal risk per entry).
- Hard stop beyond invalidation for the entire basket; total basket risk ≤ 1%.
- Scale out at prior swing extremes; leave a runner to the next higher-timeframe level and trail behind D swing points.
Data, Review, and Continuous Improvement
You don’t improve what you don’t measure. This section turns your trading into a testable system.
- Journal every trade with five tags: setup (BRC/FBR), market state (trend/range/transition), confluence used, execution grade (A/B/C), and emotion (calm/hesitant/impulsive).
- Weekly review: compute hit rate, average R, and expectancy by setup and by market state; pause any setup with expectancy < 0.2R over the last 30 trades.
- Build a “no-trade gallery” of the top three days you correctly skipped—reinforce the skill of waiting.
- Each Sunday, write one concrete tweak (e.g., “Require M5 HL confirmation on longs”) and test it for 20 trades before adoption.
Risk Events & News Playbook
Volatility is opportunity and danger. Here’s how to engage without getting chewed up.
- Pre-list the day’s events with exact times; 15 minutes before/after high-impact releases = observation only unless you’re in a protected swing.
- If holding into news by design, reduce open risk to ≤ 0.5R via partials or stop-in-profit; otherwise flatten.
- Post-news, allow the initial impulse and one retrace to print; trade the second structure confirmation only (avoid the whipsaw).
- If the spread widens beyond your planned stop distance, cancel all intraday orders until spreads normalize.
Scaling & Capital Growth
Edge compounds only with controlled growth. These rules scale you without blowing up consistency.
- Increase risk by 10–15% only after three consecutive green weeks with a max drawdown under 2R.
- Withdrawals on a fixed schedule (e.g., monthly) and never during a drawdown; protect psychological capital.
- Add one instrument at a time and log 50 trades before expanding further.
- If equity drawdown hits 6% from peak, reduce risk by half until a new equity high is printed.
Size Risk First: Let Volatility Dictate Position, Not Ego
Callum Barratt starts by sizing the trade before he even thinks about entries, because risk is the only thing you control on every single position. He ties size directly to current volatility—if ATR or range expansion is high, size steps down; if conditions are quiet and orderly, size nudges up within strict limits. That keeps each trade’s dollar risk consistent even when markets whip around. He’s blunt about it: prediction is optional, position sizing is not.
In practice, Callum sets a fixed percent risk per trade and then solves for contracts or lots based on stop distance and recent range. If the stop needs to be wider than normal, the size shrinks automatically; if the stop is tight and clean, the size can expand, but never beyond the cap. A daily loss limit shuts the platform down after a predefined draw, removing the temptation to “earn it back.” The result is a portfolio that breathes with volatility while keeping downside in a tight box.
Diversify Smartly: Underlying, Strategy, and Holding Duration Work Together
Callum Barratt doesn’t spread bets randomly—he diversifies by design, so a single idea can’t sink the day. He mixes instruments (FX, indices, crypto) to avoid piling correlated risk into one theme, and he pairs different playbooks so not everything depends on breakouts or mean reversion at the same time. He also staggers holding periods—some fast intraday clips, some slower swing pieces—so PnL isn’t chained to one market regime. That balance keeps him trading even when one lane goes cold.
In action, Callum maps correlation before he adds size, treating highly linked pairs as a single risk unit. He caps exposure per theme (e.g., “USD long bias” or “AI equity beta”) and requires independent triggers across strategies before adding a second position. If two trades share the same thesis or timeframe, he sizes the second smaller or skips it entirely. The result is smoother equity curves and fewer “everything moved against me at once” days.
Trade the Mechanics: Rules Over Predictions, Triggers Over Opinions
Callum Barratt builds every decision around repeatable mechanics, not market guesses. He defines one or two triggers per setup—like a break-retest with a clean close or a liquidity sweep that snaps back—and ignores everything else. If the trigger prints, he executes; if it doesn’t, he passes without debate. The goal is to remove opinion drift and make each trade look like the last winning example.
On trade day, Callum pre-writes conditions for entry, stop, and targets so there’s nothing to “figure out” in the heat. He measures execution quality by “Did I follow the rules?”, not “Did the trade win?”, and he cuts ideas that can’t be coded into clear triggers. When price action gets messy or signals conflict, the rule is simple: stand down and protect the playbook. By keeping the mechanics front and center, he ensures consistency beats any one prediction.
Choose Defined Risk When Possible; Control Undefined With Hard Stops
Callum Barratt prefers trades where the maximum loss is known upfront, because it keeps psychology calm and math clean. When he uses options or tight technical invalidation, he knows exactly what a bad outcome costs, so he can size properly and stick to the plan. If the market doesn’t give him defined-risk structures, he still trades—but only with a pre-planned hard stop at true invalidation, not a convenient round number.
In practice, Callum sets the stop beyond the structure that proves him wrong and calculates position size from that distance. He refuses to widen stops mid-trade, because undefined risk sneaks in the moment you start “giving it room.” For volatile events, he either reduces size or hedges so a gap or slip won’t turn a normal loss into a day-ender. The result is simple: wins can vary, but losses stay small and predictable—and that’s how his edge compounds.
Process Wins: Pre-Plan Scenarios, Execute Cleanly, Review Without Drama
Callum Barratt treats every session like a checklist: write the bias, script two “if-then” scenarios, mark levels, and set alerts. When price arrives, he follows the script—no impulse adds, no chasing, no tinkering mid-flight. If a trade doesn’t meet the prewritten conditions, it’s a pass, not a debate. That calm, mechanical execution is how Callum turns good plans into good fills.
After the close, Callum Barratt grades the trade on process, not P&L: Did the setup match the playbook? Were entries at planned levels? Were exits rule-based? He screenshots charts, tags mistakes, and writes one small tweak to test next week. The tone stays neutral—no victory laps, no self-flagellation—because the goal is a tighter process tomorrow, not drama today.
In the end, Callum Barratt’s edge isn’t a magic indicator—it’s ruthless consistency. He sizes trades by volatility so every position carries a known, controlled bite; he diversifies by instrument, strategy, and timeframe so no single theme can wreck the day; and he executes only when predefined mechanics fire, not when an opinion feels right. Defined risk is his default; hard stops protect him when it’s not, and his session routine—bias, scenarios, alerts, review—keeps emotions from steering the ship.
If you take one thing from his approach, let it be this: process compounds. Build clear triggers, anchor position size to current range, cap daily damage, and let the market come to you. Keep swing ideas and intraday clips in separate lanes, reduce or hedge around risk events, and judge your work by rule-following, not by one trade’s P&L. Do that long enough, and you’ll find what Callum found—the results take care of themselves when the rules do the talking.
