Your First Week on a Funded Account: A Day by Day Checklist

Funded accounts are rarely lost to bad strategies in week one. They are lost to week-one behaviour: full size on day one, rules read once and half remembered, a rate decision nobody checked. The first five trading days deserve a written protocol, because everything after them inherits the habits they set.

Day one: verify everything, trade nothing

Before the first position exists:

• Confirm the account matches what you bought: balance, plan and leverage as shown on the dashboard.
• Walk the order ticket end to end. Confirm you can attach a stop at entry, set a target, close a position partially, and see commission and swap for your instruments.
• Find where the platform shows live distance to each loss limit, and keep it visible.
• Note the pip or tick value for every instrument you intend to trade, at the sizes you will actually use.

None of this needs a position, and because FFUNDED plans have no time limit, a flat day one costs nothing. The account is simulated and the balance is virtual capital; the fee you paid and the payouts ahead are real money, which is exactly why the checks come before the trades.

Day two: turn the rules into money

Percentages do not govern behaviour under stress; dollar numbers do. On a $100,000 Advance 1-Step account the translation looks like this:

• Daily loss limit: 4 percent, which is $4,000 in money.
• Max. loss line: 7.5 percent and static, a floor at $92,500 that never moves up behind you.
• Personal day stop: flat for the day at $1,500 down, far inside the firm's line.
• Risk per trade in week one: $250 to $500, which is 0.25 to 0.5 percent, with two open positions at most.

The personal day stop is the load-bearing number. Hitting your own $1,500 line is a controlled bad day with room to spare; needing the firm's $4,000 line to stop you means the plan, not you, is doing your risk management. Write the four numbers on paper before the first entry, then let position sizing for a funded account convert the per-trade dollars into lots for each stop distance.

Every day: check the calendar first

Week one should not include discovering a rate decision mid-trade. Once at the weekend and again each morning: scan the week's high-impact events for your instruments, central bank decisions, inflation prints, employment reports, and decide in advance which of them you will sit out flat. Around major releases spreads widen and slippage grows, so a stop guarantees an exit but not its price, at exactly the moment moves are biggest. In week one the answer to "should I trade this release" is no.

All week: goals that fit the week

The correct profit goal for week one is roughly zero. The real goals: no rule proximity events, every stop attached at entry, size inside the written band, five days that all look the same. On an Advance 1-Step account the first payout window opens after 14 days with a minimum of three profitable days required and a split starting at 85 percent, so a quiet clean week costs you nothing structurally. Read how payouts work now, while nothing is urgent, so the cycle never surprises you later.

Every evening: log five things

Five fields, two minutes, no essays:

1. Distance from the daily line at each entry.
2. Total open risk whenever more than one position was on.
3. Rule check for the day: yes or no.
4. One sentence of context per trade, written at entry, not after the result.
5. A screenshot of each entry with levels marked.

On Friday, fifteen minutes with a journal built for review answers the only week-one question: can this account trust its trader at the next size up? If yes, week two runs 0.5 percent. If no, week two repeats week one, and repeating it is the professional move, not the failure.

Frequently asked questions

Should I start trading immediately on a new funded account?

No. Spend the first day verifying the platform, the order ticket and the exact loss limits in dollars, with no position open. FFUNDED plans have no time limit, so a flat first day costs nothing and prevents the expensive kind of surprise.

How much should I risk per trade in the first week?

A deliberately small fraction of what the limits allow: 0.25 to 0.5 percent per trade is a sound opening band. The first week is for proving execution under real stakes, and proof is cheapest at small size. Scale toward your normal risk only after a clean, reviewed week.

What happens if I hit the daily loss limit?

Crossing a drawdown line is a breach that ends the account, at FFUNDED and at many firms besides. That is why the protocol sets a personal day stop far inside the line, at $1,500 on the worked example above, so an ordinary bad day never gets to negotiate with a fatal one.

When can I request a first payout?

It varies by plan. At FFUNDED, Instant Standard allows the first payout on demand, while plans like Advance 1-Step open the window after 14 days, with minimum profitable day requirements applying. The first-week protocol treats payouts as a later chapter: clean execution now is what makes them routine later.