Video summary

dont give up on trading... my story

Main summary

Key takeaways

Finance

Finance-Focused Summary

Early prop/“evaluation” trading attempts (Topstep)

  • He first discovered prop/“evaluation” trading at age 14 through Topstep, which uses funded trading evaluations.
  • He tried buying evaluations with about $50, but lost the $50.
  • In senior high school, he attempted two more evaluations, repeatedly failing.
  • After multiple evaluation failures, he attributes the issue potentially to one or more of:
    • Strategy
    • Psychology
    • Trading/investing not being feasible for him

Skill-building via quantitative thinking + poker

  • He initially followed an engineering/math path, then pivoted to quantitative finance after exposure to finance—specifically interest in options/futures pricing.
  • He uses poker as a quasi-quantitative analog, referencing:
    • Expected value
    • Variance
    • Statistics
    • Coded simulations to identify “optimal moves”
  • Poker bankroll progression:
    • Started with roughly $25 in college using $1–$5 buy-ins.
    • Scaled to about $25,000 in ~6 months by playing at local card rooms with higher stakes.

Transition from poker to trading/prop firms

  • He decided poker wasn’t a stable full-time career due to variance and his comfort level with risking large portions of net worth.
  • He switched his major to quantitative finance.
  • Over 2 years of college, relevant coursework emphasized:
    • Pricing options
    • Pricing futures (explicitly noted as what he trades now)
  • He graduated early and moved to New York City for an internship related to risk management.

Internship + prop firm strategy development

  • Internship focus: risk management (NYC).
  • During the internship, he mentions trading “in the background.”
  • He reinvested prior poker earnings into prop firm evaluations, iterating after identifying what went wrong.
  • Timeline details:
    • He turned 19 in May
    • Internship started first day of June
    • He needed enough earnings to trade prop firms full-time (he states: by internship end, at least ~$50,000, otherwise not viable)

Portfolio-management framing + scaling process

  • After the internship, he declined a return offer (starting in 9 months).
  • He frames prop firm trading more like a portfolio management problem.
  • Scaling approach and conditions:
    • Over “the next few months,” he focused on scaling and investing all earnings back into prop firms.
    • He lived under a budget constraint: $1,200/month rent.
  • Strict routine for 8 months:
    • Trade AM session
    • Lunch
    • Trade PM session
    • Dinner
    • Trade AM session again (repeating the daily pattern)
  • Consistency/compounding logic (not quantified with specific returns):

    • If you can make $1,000/month consistently, you should be able to make $2,000/month consistently, and then compound to 4, 8, 16, etc.

    • Core emphasis: consistency + risk management enables scaling.

Key takeaway / caution

  • A strategy seen on YouTube may work, but:
    • Without good risk management and psychology, it’s likely not to make money.

Instruments / Assets Mentioned

  • Topstep evaluations (prop/trading evaluations)
  • Futures (explicitly noted as what he trades now; also referenced as “pricing futures”)
  • Options (referenced in coursework: “pricing options”)
  • Poker (used as a simulated/skill analog; not treated as a financial instrument)

No specific public market tickers, ETFs, stocks, bonds, FX pairs, or commodities were mentioned.

Methodology / Framework

Iterative prop-evaluation improvement cycle

  1. Use prop firm evaluations
  2. Identify what “went wrong”
  3. Adjust strategy/approach
  4. Repeat until it “flips… to something that would go right”

Trading as a portfolio management + scaling problem

  • Treat prop trading as portfolio management, focusing on rules and consistent execution rather than only tactics.

Consistency-based scaling routine

  • Run the same daily trading routine for 8 months:
    • Trade in AM and PM sessions with a fixed structure
  • Scale only once consistency is established.

Quantitative learning loop (poker analog)

  • Focus on:
    • Expected value
    • Variance
    • Statistics
    • Simulations to optimize decisions

Key Numbers / Timelines / Explicit Recommendations

  • $50: starting money for a Topstep evaluation (lost)
  • $25: starting poker bankroll in college
  • $25,000: poker bankroll after ~6 months
  • Internship in NYC:
    • Born May (age 19)
    • Internship begins first day of June
  • Earnings threshold to trade full-time by internship end:
    • At least ~$50,000
  • $1,200/month rent
  • Scaling consistency period: 8 months
  • Daily routine:
    • AM trade → Lunch → PM trade → Dinner → AM trade
  • Compounding example:
    • $1,000/month → $2,000/month → 4, 8, 16, …

Disclosures / Disclaimers

  • None explicitly shown in the subtitles (no “not financial advice” language present).

Presenters / Sources

  • No other presenters or external sources are named besides Topstep.

Original video