Can I trade if I have a full-time job?

Yes! There are many approaches for how an individual trades depending on their circumstances. It will take you longer than others who have more time to invest in learning but it's not impossible.

How much money can I make?

Potential returns from trading are a factor of just 2 things: 1) Your individual skill set, 2) Your trading account balance. The output of that equation is practically unlimited.

How long will it take to be profitable?

This is down to you, there isn't a set time-frame or 10,000 hours invested and you will achieve profitability, it's about embracing the work, learning from your mistakes, and keep moving forward. Then, one day, it will click, but without action and reflection, you'll be stuck in a loop of drawdown.

Do I need a lot of money to start trading?

No. It's best to invest money you have into education and tools. However, that can get quite costly but this is one of the main reasons I created Meteor Trading, everything you need is here so you can easily total up how much everything will cost you.

Do I need to be good at maths to trade?

Absolutely not. Any maths you do (such as calculating your position size in order to risk 1% per trade) can be done by Magic Keys on your trading platform.

What markets can I trade as a beginner?

Any market. However, I would recommend the most commonly traded forex markets such as EURUSD or GBPUSD due to their low spreads and high volume.

How much time should I spend learning each week?

This is down to your time limits. My ethos is that even if you put in 0.01% you are still making progress. The key is steady practice with quality, not random bursts of quantity with the risk of burnout.

Without an edge, yes. Once you develop an edge, however, trading becomes more like running a casino than playing in one. A casino isn't worried about one lucky spin of the roulette wheel because it knows the odds are stacked in its favour over time. Through the course I recommend, you'll learn how to build that edge. When you combine this with the law of large numbers, risk management, and consistent execution of your trading plan, short-term wins and losses don't matter. Over the long run, the probabilities work in your favour. In other words, you stop being the gambler and become the casino.

What tools do I need to start?

The obvious answer is a computer, good internet connection, and a trading platform. The next step beyond that can be found in the Tools page.

Weekly Overview #5 - Backtesting Series & Live Trading | Progress, First Live Trade, & Mindset

Date

October 26th, 2025

Written by

Daniel Griffiths

Hello Traders!

Apologies for posting this a day later than usual, I had another week away on holiday and was still travelling on Saturday.

So this Weekly Overview will be shorter than my other blogs as I only had a few developments before I went away.

(I went on a hiking trip in Wales in case you were wondering 😃)

Before I left for my travels on Monday afternoon, I managed to get some backtesting done on Sunday and placed a live trade on Monday morning during my session hours.

Backtesting Progression

I only tested one day and I managed to get 3 trades, so the stats have changed quite a bit.

I probably should have tested more days but I had the trade off of rather testing one day and packing my bags on Sunday and being able to trade live on Monday, or backtest 5 days and miss live trading to pack Monday morning.

I chose the former.

Here’s how my overall data looks now:

AsofOct2025no3

Results measured in R (R = % gained).

The current stats are:

73 total trades
42.47% strike rate
60.3% return

If you have seen last week’s blog, I also mentioned how I would go over my backtested trades I took when I was ill. Unfortunately, I have not been able to do so yet but I am hoping to get them looked at this week.

Stats are looking overall quite positive.

Live Trading

As I mentioned in the intro, I did manage to take a trade before I went on holiday.

This wasn’t a serious trade as I mainly wanted to see how the system performed in a live environment, so I only risked 0.01% (using Magic Keys).

Why did I want to see how it performed in a live environment?

Well, backtesting is great and all but when it comes to a clean system that performs well in a backtesting environment, there are some things you may not figure out could be a problem when executing in a live market.

For example:

You may have a pending order to be triggered when price does X but have you considered what happens if price triggers that order but does not actually complete your systems binary requirement for a trade?

That’s what a live market can teach you.

Anyway, the trade was a loss, fine with me. I didn’t care about the outcome because, like I mentioned above, I mainly wanted to see any flaws when executing live.

There were no flaws – I can proceed with the mission.

This week, I will be trading live risking 0.5% as I feel I am ready to go.

Mindset

Before and during the live trade I took, I approached it with a 100% execution focused mindset.

Not caring about the outcome, as we know that we will get losses no matter how good we are, and wins shouldn’t be celebrated (in order to keep you mind at equilibrium – the more you celebrate the wins, the harder the losses will hit)

This is the mindset I want to take when trading live here on out, because that’s the way to become successful at trading.

This is why you (and I when sharing to be honest) should show profit expectancy (PE).

This number is important because it essentially tells you that every trade you execute, will return you X.

So long as this number is positive, it can keep you from celebrating the wins, or feeling the losses as you know whatever the outcome, your overall PE per trade is X.

Mine is currently 0.83

Every trade I take, win or loss, nets me 0.83%

Backtesting is important as it shows you these numbers which keep you grounded trading live. It’s the perfect way to trade and become successful at this game.

Key Takeaway for the Week

Trading is an art.

You need balance across so many areas:

Understanding of how/why price moves
Understanding of POIs
Data collection
Backtesting
Live trading
Mindset
Risk management

These are huge topics with so much more depth they take months and years to master.

Over the 3 years and 8 months I have been trading, this is the first time I have properly leaned into backtesting and actually worked hard on it to gather data, I can feel the final piece of the puzzle slotting into place.

If you are starting out in trading, especially if you take the course I recommend, please do one thing for me:

LISTEN TO THE MENTORS AND FOLLOW THE ROADMAP

This will save you sooo much time. Please don’t let YOUR EGO get in the way of what you are supposed to do like mine did with me.

—

These next few months will be an interesting period, make sure you share and follow along if you are looking forward to seeing how this journey progresses!

If you want to try the tools & course I’ve mentioned for yourself, here are the links:

Magic Keys

Recommended Course (Photon)