Imagine having the opportunity to live the life of a currency god. Your workstation is equipped with every trading gadget imaginable, and an army of anonymous online weirdos follow your every move and pay you tens of thousands of dollars a month to do so. In my two films about the life of a professional forex trader, Jeff, the trader behind FX Viper, was the topic. If I may so so myself, it was brilliantly filmed and depicted an exciting life of trading and money.

Well… I’d come to deflate your balloon.

Being a professional trader, in reality, is pretty different. Most of my trading with him consisted of him gazing at charts for hours, days, and weeks while I waited for the market to move in his favor. It wasn’t entertaining 98 percent of the time; it was mind-numbingly monotonous.

He doesn’t utilize a stop loss or profit objective, which made it a bit more fascinating. As a result, even while we were out for breakfast, he would be glued to his phone—30 times throughout a 45-minute dinner.

After spending so much time observing Jeff’s trading, I believe it would be beneficial to discuss some of the components that go into his FX Viper trading method.

How does his trading approach function?
It is straightforward. Choose a direction, then place trades based on technical levels in that direction. Take positions at potential reversal points such as daily pivots, swing highs and lows, and congested locations. Once you’ve determined your entry point, use extremely little leverage while trading. This is crucial because it will allow you to resist significant changes against your position, and ultimately the market should turn in your favor.

Sounds a little too simple, no?

It’s the type of thing that, in principle, should be simple, but it is challenging to control the swings. Could you keep your composure while holding 20 transactions that were 500 pip out of the money for six months?

However, keeping your composure is just one component of an FX Viper sandwich. You also need a lot of money. How would you manage your finances if you trade for six months without earning any money? Who will cover the bills?

Do not ever question your abilities. Now… I realize that this goes against the conventional wisdom in trading and investing, which is to “be ready to confess when you’re wrong,” but if you want to trade like FX Viper, that approach won’t work. You can survive practically anything if your account is large enough and your transaction sizes are modest.

I wouldn’t say I like it since the advantages aren’t worth the stress and danger. However, he has made a tonne of money trading over the last four years, so there must be something to it.

My top five suggestions for trading like FX Viper

• Learn to understand the market’s underlying forces so you can predict a currency pair’s long-term future course. Important! Because the results, if you’re incorrect, will probably be devastating.

• Stay away from greed. Reduce the magnitude of your trades if the market goes against you. Close your transactions as quickly as possible when they turn a profit. 5–10 pip is plenty.

• Obtain a sizable account and a second source of income. Sorry… If you’re going to hold trades for months in a losing position, I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but you need to be able to cover your expenses while you wait for the market to come around.

• Find a trade partner or mentor. The majority of Jeff’s waking hours are spent communicating with a mentor, a purported former hedge fund genius who trades in a way that is quite similar to Jeff’s: modest, frequent gains and long-term losing deals. They often bounce ideas off of one another, which seems to keep them pretty sane. In Jeff’s workplace, which is relatively alone, I can picture one going quite mad if there was no one to speak to.

• Find a woman who will let you do whatever. His wife Courtney allows him to get away with murder. He is cut off from everything but the market during market hours. If I had lived that way, I would have gone through seven divorces. But if it seems adequate for them, do what feels right to you!

My years of trading with Jeff have taught me one important lesson: To succeed, you do need to immerse yourself in the practice of trading and the forces influencing the market.

Please keep in mind, however, that holding trades for a very long time with the hope that they would ultimately move into profit is stressful, and the majority of us aren’t designed to handle it for a very long time. When errors occur, we suffer financial loss. Even if Jeff can do it, I don’t know anybody else who can, and I don’t advise it as a method to use when choosing how to spend your life as a professional trader.