054 - Kieran Duff - Trading for a Living

<p>Trading your own account was never going to replace a salary — the compounding you need gets wiped out by the withdrawals you need to live on. The more commercial option is to trade investor capital, but the options are limited.</p><p><br></p><p>In this video we get a look inside a trader&#39;s journey with Darwinex, quickly establishing a track record and attracting external capital.</p><p><br></p><p>In the Substack article I break down why prop firm evaluations are built for the firm to win, not you: daily loss limits, trailing drawdown, and consistency rules that quietly punish traders with genuine edge. I talk about why fixed stop-losses backfire to explain exactly why trailing drawdown is the worst offender, and why the industry&#39;s real ~10% pass rate says far more about the rules than about trader skill. Then I cover the alternative most traders never consider: platforms like Darwinex, where there&#39;s no evaluation to survive, just a certified track record and capital that&#39;s actually incentivised to see you succeed.</p><p><br></p><p>Check it out: https://algoadvantage.substack.com/publish/post/207723117</p><p><br></p><p>I&#39;ve just released an incredible &#39;Trading Breakthroughs with AI course&#39; for members of the Collective. You&#39;ll also get the bonus chat with Kieran (and all my other guests).</p><p><br></p><p>https://algoadvantage.io/collective</p><p><br></p><p>Contents:</p><p>0:00 From Crypto to Systematic Trading</p><p>7:31 Switching From Discretionary to Systematic</p><p>12:44 Building a Live Track Record on Darwinex</p><p>18:05 Trading Styles That Attract AUM</p><p>25:47 FX, Breakout and Trend Following Systems</p><p>32:20 Choosing Timeframes and Trade Frequency</p><p>37:18 Mentor Lessons for Trading Psychology</p><p>42:48 Scaling Into Futures and Better Execution</p><p>49:12 Metrics Darwinex Uses to Fund Traders</p><p>57:03 How Darwinex Allocates Trader Capital</p><p>1:00:33 Track Record Length and Strategy Fit</p><p>1:06:59 Using AI and Claude Code for Trading</p>