Matthias's Trading Journey
Matthias, a funded trader at Audacity Capital, achieved consistent payouts—including an $8,900 milestone—by following strict risk management and disciplined trend trading.
Trader Snapshot
Attribute | Details |
|---|---|
Name | Matthias |
Trading Experience | 5+ years (since 2020) |
Full-Time Trader | Yes – consistent payouts support full-time trading |
Trading Style | Trend trading using technical analysis and market structure |
Primary Assets | Gold (XAU/USD), DAX, Dow Jones, EUR/USD |
Risk Management Rule | One trade per day to maintain disciplined risk |
Funded Trading Firm | Audacity Capital |
Current Program | Ability Challenge |
Largest Recent Payout | $8,900 |
Typical Payout Frequency | Every 1–2 months |
Matthias's Trading Journey
Key Insights
- Consistent risk management (one trade/day) is crucial for long-term success.
- Market cycles dictate trading activity; scale back during sideways markets and capitalize during trends.
- Patience and discipline in handling drawdowns and losing streaks prevent impulsive and damaging changes to strategy.
- Technical analysis and trend trading are preferred over fundamental speculation for consistent edge.
- Avoid trading during highly volatile or unpredictable events to minimize risk.
- Limiting asset focus deepens understanding and improves trade quality.
- Prop firm environment is becoming more restrictive, but Audacity’s recent rule softening benefits traders.
Summary Table: Key Quantitative Data
Metric/Aspect | Details |
Start with Audacity | Beginning of 2025 |
First payout | ~$6,000 (summer 2025) |
Recent largest payout | $8,900 |
Typical payout frequency | Every 1–2 months |
Trading experience | 5+ years (since 2020) |
Trades per month (trending) | ~10 |
Trades per month (sideways) | ~5 |
Dry trading period | Late July – Mid October 2025 |
Funded account duration | Current account held ~4 months |
Introduction and Background
- Matthias is interviewed for the second time, providing an update on his trading journey since the last interview in July.
- He started trading with Audacity approximately one year ago.
- In his previous interview, Matthias mentioned a first payout of around $6,000. Since then, he has experienced stronger and more frequent payouts.
Recent Trading Performance and Payouts
- Matthias has received multiple payouts ranging around $3,000 every 1–2 months.
- Recently, he achieved his largest single payout of $8,900 from one account.
- He emphasizes that if such a payout can be made monthly, it provides a sustainable living for a full-time trader.
Start Your Funded Trading Journey
Become a Funded TraderFull-Time Trading Insights
- Matthias confirms that trading with consistent monthly profits above $2,000 is sufficient to trade full-time.
- He acknowledges that traders will face dry or unprofitable months, but the key is balancing those with profitable months.
- Key insight: Not every month needs to be profitable 100%; the goal is to have winning months cover losses or breakeven periods.
Timeline and Journey Overview
- Started with Audacity at the beginning of 2025.
- First payout of $6K received by summer 2025 (~5-6 months after starting).
- Progressed to larger payouts recently, with the biggest payout received last week.
- Trading career began during COVID in 2020, totalling over five years of experience.
- Early challenges included trial with demo accounts and a difficult start with prop firms.
Philosophy on Success and Practice
- Matthias reiterates a favorite quote: “The more success you get in passing challenges and getting payouts, the easier it gets.”
- Practice is critical in trading, as repeated execution leads to ease and better results.
- He continues to follow his strict risk management rule of one trade per day, which has been consistent over years.
- He believes in not changing a working system, especially during profitable periods.
Consistency and System Stability
- Since developing his system over several years, Matthias has remained consistent with his strategy and framework.
- He actively monitors for potential optimization but avoids drastic changes triggered by short-term losses.
- Recognizes the market moves in different cycles with winning streaks and losing streaks.
- Focuses on maintaining the same strategy but adjusting activity levels based on market conditions.
Adapting to Market Cycles
- Prefers trading during strong trend phases (big uptrends and downtrends).
- When the market becomes sideways or choppy, he scales back:
- Reduces the number of trades from about 10 to 5 per month.
- Takes fewer, more selective setups.
- Risks less capital during these phases.
- Emphasizes patience and waiting for favorable market conditions rather than forcing trades.
- Notes a dry period from late July to mid-October 2025 with lower payouts and some losses, including losing funded accounts.
- Maintained discipline by not overhauling his system during this dry period.
- November 2025 marked the start of a renewed profitable cycle with a rising win rate and better payouts.
Focus on Win Rate Over Risk-to-Reward Ratio
- Matthias prefers monitoring win rate rather than risk-to-reward ratio to capitalize on momentum.
- During periods of momentum loss (e.g., July–October), he re-evaluated but did not abandon his strategy due to strong backtesting over five years.
- Journaling trades helped him stay disciplined and aware of performance trends.
- Warns against common pitfalls like revenge trading or increasing risk size to recover losses quickly.
- Asserts that advanced traders must accept natural win rate fluctuations and maintain patience until the market reverts to favorable conditions.
Handling Loss of Funded Accounts
- Matthias lost a funded account during a challenging period but quickly passed the challenge again on a single attempt.
- His approach is to recognize bad market cycles, avoid forcing trades, and wait for better phases.
- Reinforces the concept that trading is a probability game, not a guaranteed win every time.
Impact of Broader Market Conditions
- Matthias acknowledges a connection between his profitability cycles and broader financial market factors such as:
- Geopolitical risk
- Market volatility
- Seasonality
- However, he does not rely heavily on fundamental analysis or attempts to predict specific events like interest rate announcements.
- Prefers technical analysis focusing on supply and demand dynamics and market structure.
- Notes extreme volatility events, such as gold moving $200 in a single day, are unprecedented and affect his trading approach.
Get Started with the Free Funded Account Challenge
Free Funded Account ChallengeTrading Big Market Moves and Uncertainty
- Big market spikes caused by fundamentals or news can disrupt his standard setups.
- Such spikes offer potential for big wins but also big losses, which reduces overall profitability for his system.
- He tends to avoid trading during uncertain times triggered by unpredictable events (e.g., tweets from influential figures).
- Emphasizes trading with an edge and probability rather than guessing or luck.
Preferred Assets and Trading Focus
- Matthias mainly focuses on:
- Gold (trend trading on large moves)
- Major indices like German DAX and Dow Jones
- Forex majors, especially EUR/USD and USD pairs
- Avoids frequently changing assets to build deep experience and “gut feeling” for price action in chosen markets.
- Advocates for traders, especially beginners, to limit the number of assets they monitor to avoid confusion.
Feedback on Audacity Platform Updates
- Matthias primarily trades the Audacity Ability Challenge, which fits his trading style.
- Notes the industry trend of many prop firms tightening rules and making payouts harder.
- Appreciates that Audacity has softened some rules, such as:
- Removal of the consistency score rule
- Adjustments to daily drawdown limits
- Views these changes as favorable to traders, helping them focus on long-term consistency rather than single lucky trades.
- Considers Audacity a positive partner for prop traders due to these accommodating changes.
Closing Remarks
- The interview concludes with well-wishes and openness to future follow-ups.
- Matthias’s journey reflects steady progress, disciplined risk management, and adaptation to market cycles.
- His experience offers valuable lessons on patience, system consistency, and market awareness for prop traders.
Certification
Certification
Certification
Certification
Choose The Best Plan
Designed to reduce stress by removing deadlines 👍 Unlimited trading period for Challenge, Verification and Live stages.
1st and 2nd Steps:
You only need to trade on 4 different days. A trading day is defined as a day when at least one position is opened.
Live account:
No minimum trading days
The Daily Drawdown resets every day at midnight (MT5 server time – GMT+2 / GMT+3 depending on Daylight Saving Time).
It is calculated as 7.5% (5% for Verification and live stage) of the account’s balance or equity at rollover, whichever is higher.
Your equity cannot fall by more than 7.5% (5% for the 2nd step and live stage) in a single trading day. Once the day resets, a new limit is set based on your updated balance or equity, following a static-based model.
Example:
Account balance at rollover: $120,000
Daily Drawdown (7.5%) → $9,000 → Equity must not fall below $111,000 that day.
If equity or the balance rises to $130,000 by the next rollover, the new daily drawdown will be $9,750 (7.5% of 130,000).
The Absolute Drawdown (Maximum Drawdown) is 15% (or 10% for the 2nd step and live stage) of the initial account balance and remains fixed throughout the challenge.
If either the daily or absolute drawdown is breached, the account will be terminated.
Example: Account balance: $120,000
Absolute Drawdown (15%) → $18,000 → The account will be closed if equity drops below $102,000.
The profit target is 10% on the Challenge stage and 5% on the Verification stage. Achieving these targets while following the rules will qualify you for a Live account
Profit sharing starts at 75%, you can reach up to 90% with consistent performances in line with our scaling plan.
Once on Live stage, traders can request withdrawals biweekly (every 14 days). After the request is approved, traders will receive the profit share in their wallet on the same day.
Once traders earn a payout, they'll be eligible for a Reward Bonus equal to the initial registration fee. This will be included with the first payout from the Ability Live.
Not anymore
You may hold trades over the weekend and trade during news events. Simply avoid opening, closing or adding to positions within 3 minutes before or after any high impact news release or speech, as that can be identified as excessive risk.
EAs are allowed if they follow our prohibited-strategy rules and are not sourced from third-party signals. Please see our prohibited trading practices here.
Copy trading is allowed between your own accounts within Audacity Capital. Copying from an external account is allowed only if the account belongs to you. Third-party copying is not permitted.
Select Program:
Select Account Size
phase 1
Max Drawdown
$750
Based on Initial Balance
Total Loss 15%
Daily loss: 7.5%
Profit Target
$500
Based on Balance
Target : 10%
phase 2
Max Drawdown
$500
Based on Initial Balance
Total Loss 10%
Daily loss: 5%
Profit Target
$250
Based on Balance
Target : 5%
live
Max Drawdown
$500
Based on Initial Balance
Total Loss 10%
Daily loss: 5%
Profit Target
More than 10%
Less than 10%
Challenge
Designed to reduce stress by removing deadlines 👍 Unlimited trading period for Challenge, Verification and Live stages.
1st and 2nd Steps:
You only need to trade on 4 different days. A trading day is defined as a day when at least one position is opened.
Live account:
No minimum trading days
The Daily Drawdown resets every day at midnight (MT5 server time – GMT+2 / GMT+3 depending on Daylight Saving Time).
It is calculated as 7.5% (5% for Verification and live stage) of the account’s balance or equity at rollover, whichever is higher.
Your equity cannot fall by more than 7.5% (5% for the 2nd step and live stage) in a single trading day. Once the day resets, a new limit is set based on your updated balance or equity, following a static-based model.
Example:
Account balance at rollover: $120,000
Daily Drawdown (7.5%) → $9,000 → Equity must not fall below $111,000 that day.
If equity or the balance rises to $130,000 by the next rollover, the new daily drawdown will be $9,750 (7.5% of 130,000).
The Absolute Drawdown (Maximum Drawdown) is 15% (or 10% for the 2nd step and live stage) of the initial account balance and remains fixed throughout the challenge.
If either the daily or absolute drawdown is breached, the account will be terminated.
Example: Account balance: $120,000
Absolute Drawdown (15%) → $18,000 → The account will be closed if equity drops below $102,000.
The profit target is 10% on the Challenge stage and 5% on the Verification stage. Achieving these targets while following the rules will qualify you for a Live account
Profit sharing starts at 75%, you can reach up to 90% with consistent performances in line with our scaling plan.
Once on Live stage, traders can request withdrawals biweekly (every 14 days). After the request is approved, traders will receive the profit share in their wallet on the same day.
Once traders earn a payout, they'll be eligible for a Reward Bonus equal to the initial registration fee. This will be included with the first payout from the Ability Live.
Not anymore
You may hold trades over the weekend and trade during news events. Simply avoid opening, closing or adding to positions within 3 minutes before or after any high impact news release or speech, as that can be identified as excessive risk.
EAs are allowed if they follow our prohibited-strategy rules and are not sourced from third-party signals. Please see our prohibited trading practices here.
Copy trading is allowed between your own accounts within Audacity Capital. Copying from an external account is allowed only if the account belongs to you. Third-party copying is not permitted.
Select Program:
Select Account Size
phase 1
Max Drawdown
$750
Based on Initial Balance
Total Loss 15%
Daily loss: 7.5%
Profit Target
$500
Based on Balance
Target : 10%
phase 2
Max Drawdown
$500
Based on Initial Balance
Total Loss 10%
Daily loss: 5%
Profit Target
$250
Based on Balance
Target : 5%
live
Max Drawdown
$500
Based on Initial Balance
Total Loss 10%
Daily loss: 5%
Profit Target
More than 10%
Less than 10%
Designed to reduce stress by removing deadlines 👍 Unlimited trading period for Challenge, Verification and Live stages.
1st and 2nd Steps:
You only need to trade on 4 different days. A trading day is defined as a day when at least one position is opened.
Live account:
No minimum trading days
The Daily Drawdown resets every day at midnight (MT5 server time – GMT+2 / GMT+3 depending on Daylight Saving Time).
It is calculated as 7.5% (5% for Verification and live stage) of the account’s balance or equity at rollover, whichever is higher.
Your equity cannot fall by more than 7.5% (5% for the 2nd step and live stage) in a single trading day. Once the day resets, a new limit is set based on your updated balance or equity, following a static-based model.
Example:
Account balance at rollover: $120,000
Daily Drawdown (7.5%) → $9,000 → Equity must not fall below $111,000 that day.
If equity or the balance rises to $130,000 by the next rollover, the new daily drawdown will be $9,750 (7.5% of 130,000).
The Absolute Drawdown (Maximum Drawdown) is 15% (or 10% for the 2nd step and live stage) of the initial account balance and remains fixed throughout the challenge.
If either the daily or absolute drawdown is breached, the account will be terminated.
Example: Account balance: $120,000
Absolute Drawdown (15%) → $18,000 → The account will be closed if equity drops below $102,000.
The profit target is 10% on the Challenge stage and 5% on the Verification stage. Achieving these targets while following the rules will qualify you for a Live account
Profit sharing starts at 75%, you can reach up to 90% with consistent performances in line with our scaling plan.
Once on Live stage, traders can request withdrawals biweekly (every 14 days). After the request is approved, traders will receive the profit share in their wallet on the same day.
Once traders earn a payout, they'll be eligible for a Reward Bonus equal to the initial registration fee. This will be included with the first payout from the Ability Live.
Not anymore
You may hold trades over the weekend and trade during news events. Simply avoid opening, closing or adding to positions within 3 minutes before or after any high impact news release or speech, as that can be identified as excessive risk.
EAs are allowed if they follow our prohibited-strategy rules and are not sourced from third-party signals. Please see our prohibited trading practices here.
Copy trading is allowed between your own accounts within Audacity Capital. Copying from an external account is allowed only if the account belongs to you. Third-party copying is not permitted.
Select Program:
Select Account Size
phase 1
Max Drawdown
$750
Based on Initial Balance
Total Loss 15%
Daily loss: 7.5%
Profit Target
$500
Based on Balance
Target : 10%
phase 2
Max Drawdown
$500
Based on Initial Balance
Total Loss 10%
Daily loss: 5%
Profit Target
$250
Based on Balance
Target : 5%
live
Max Drawdown
$500
Based on Initial Balance
Total Loss 10%
Daily loss: 5%
Profit Target
More than 10%
Less than 10%
Designed to reduce stress by removing deadlines 👍 Unlimited trading period for Challenge, Verification and Live stages.
1st and 2nd Steps:
You only need to trade on 4 different days. A trading day is defined as a day when at least one position is opened.
Live account:
No minimum trading days
The Daily Drawdown resets every day at midnight (MT5 server time – GMT+2 / GMT+3 depending on Daylight Saving Time).
It is calculated as 7.5% (5% for Verification and live stage) of the account’s balance or equity at rollover, whichever is higher.
Your equity cannot fall by more than 7.5% (5% for the 2nd step and live stage) in a single trading day. Once the day resets, a new limit is set based on your updated balance or equity, following a static-based model.
Example:
Account balance at rollover: $120,000
Daily Drawdown (7.5%) → $9,000 → Equity must not fall below $111,000 that day.
If equity or the balance rises to $130,000 by the next rollover, the new daily drawdown will be $9,750 (7.5% of 130,000).
The Absolute Drawdown (Maximum Drawdown) is 15% (or 10% for the 2nd step and live stage) of the initial account balance and remains fixed throughout the challenge.
If either the daily or absolute drawdown is breached, the account will be terminated.
Example: Account balance: $120,000
Absolute Drawdown (15%) → $18,000 → The account will be closed if equity drops below $102,000.
The profit target is 10% on the Challenge stage and 5% on the Verification stage. Achieving these targets while following the rules will qualify you for a Live account
Profit sharing starts at 75%, you can reach up to 90% with consistent performances in line with our scaling plan.
Once on Live stage, traders can request withdrawals biweekly (every 14 days). After the request is approved, traders will receive the profit share in their wallet on the same day.
Once traders earn a payout, they'll be eligible for a Reward Bonus equal to the initial registration fee. This will be included with the first payout from the Ability Live.
Not anymore
You may hold trades over the weekend and trade during news events. Simply avoid opening, closing or adding to positions within 3 minutes before or after any high impact news release or speech, as that can be identified as excessive risk.
EAs are allowed if they follow our prohibited-strategy rules and are not sourced from third-party signals. Please see our prohibited trading practices here.
Copy trading is allowed between your own accounts within Audacity Capital. Copying from an external account is allowed only if the account belongs to you. Third-party copying is not permitted.
Select Program:
Select Account Size
phase 1
Max Drawdown
$750
Based on Initial Balance
Total Loss 15%
Daily loss: 7.5%
Profit Target
$500
Based on Balance
Target : 10%
phase 2
Max Drawdown
$500
Based on Initial Balance
Total Loss 10%
Daily loss: 5%
Profit Target
$250
Based on Balance
Target : 5%
live
Max Drawdown
$500
Based on Initial Balance
Total Loss 10%
Daily loss: 5%
Profit Target
More than 10%
Less than 10%
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