Level 2 of 4 · Essential

Build one setup you can repeat under the rules

At this level the goal is not more indicators but one setup you can describe in a sentence: what makes you enter, where the stop goes, where you take profit. A rule you cannot write down cannot be repeated on a funded account.

Sizing is what keeps a setup alive long enough to prove itself. The table shows how many losing trades in a row a 10% maximum drawdown absorbs at each level of risk per trade.

Losing trades in a row before a 10% maximum drawdown

Risk per trade	On $10,000	Losses to breach
0.25%	$25	40
0.5%	$50	20
1%	$100	10
2%	$200	5

Fixed risk from the starting balance, before costs. On the 1-Step the floor trails your highest closed balance, so a losing streak is counted from your best closed balance, not from where you started.

What to focus on

Indicators with a job
Keep one for trend, one for momentum or one for volatility. Two indicators that answer the same question are one too many.
Write the setup down
Entry trigger, invalidation, target and the sessions you trade it in. If two traders would read it differently, it is not finished.
Collect data at small size
Hold risk at 0.25–0.5% while you log the first trades, so a losing streak costs time instead of the account.