95% Of Traders Quit Before They Understand This - Yvan Byeajee

Finance-Focused Summary

Yvan Byeajee described co-managing the Alignment Capital fund for roughly five to six years, starting shortly before COVID. The fund managed money for a small group of wealthy South African investors.

The fund used a mix of strategies and assets:

• Trend trading, including swing trading in stocks
• Some cryptocurrency trading
• A limited amount of day trading
• Options strategies to adjust or hedge positions, managed by Byeajee’s options-specialist colleague

Byeajee said the fund was profitable in every year it operated. He described 2021 as an exceptional year, saying the fund caught the COVID-era market bottom in stocks and cryptocurrencies and rose to an all-time high. These are the guest’s reported results; no performance figures were provided.

The investors later voted to shift the fund toward a cryptocurrency investment model that included staking. After that change, and amid philosophical differences with his partner, Byeajee left the fund. He said the chapter ended in July.

At the time of the interview, Byeajee had not traded for a couple of months and was in no hurry to resume. He was considering trading through prop firms, while noting that their risk rules and restrictions create additional challenges.

Byeajee emphasized that trading income is irregular. He said he had sometimes lost money for two to five months in a row and had also experienced losing years, despite being profitable over a longer record. He cautioned against expecting profits every day, week, or month—even when a system has a high win rate.

He framed trading as a probabilistic activity: a strategy needs positive expected value over enough trades, while short-term outcomes remain uncertain. He argued that traders can undermine a viable approach by switching strategies, chasing short-term wins, or reacting emotionally to losses.

Framework and Practices Discussed

• Accept uncertainty: A correct trade can still lose. Evaluate a system over a sufficiently large number of trades rather than by its immediate results.
• Stay consistent and accountable: Practice a defined approach in live markets, with appropriate support and oversight, and assess results over time.
• Focus on behavior, not just strategy: Learning a pattern, indicator, or system is not enough; traders also need to manage their responses to risk and uncertainty.
• Build tolerance for discomfort: Byeajee recommended regular meditation, starting with five minutes a day, to notice self-critical thoughts and emotional reactions without automatically acting on them.
• Set realistic income expectations: Do not assume trading will provide a steady salary or produce a profit every day, week, or month.

Assets and Instruments Mentioned

• Stocks
• Cryptocurrencies and other crypto assets
• Options
• Staking, as part of the fund’s proposed crypto-focused model
• Prop-firm trading, with firm-imposed risk rules

No specific tickers, prices, yields, valuation multiples, or quantified returns were given. No explicit “not financial advice” disclaimer appeared in the subtitles.

Presenters and Sources

• Yvan Byeajee: Guest and trading-psychology educator
• Etienne Crete: Interviewer and host of Desire To TRADE