One Prop Trader a Day - Zayn Baber: A+ Setups Only

Zayn Baber

Zayn Baber is a 21-year-old gold trader from London who blew around ten challenge accounts before passing the last one he could afford. He trades XAU/USD and shares his journey as @xauzayn. Here is his story, in his own words.

Age21

FromUK 🇬🇧

TradesXAU/USD

StyleSmart Money

FirmFTMOFirmAlpha Capital

My name is Zayn Baber, I’m 21, from London, and I mainly trade gold – XAU/USD. I share parts of my trading journey and market insights on Instagram and TikTok under @xauzayn. Gold is where I’ve built most of my edge, and it’s the market I feel most connected to as a trader.

I became funded in January 2024, and what changed for me was the pressure and responsibility. Before that, trading felt more like trying to prove myself. Once I became funded, I had to treat it seriously, because I was managing real allocated capital under strict drawdown rules. It made me much more disciplined with risk, trade selection and emotional control.

The first thing I bought was a fancy dinner with some friends, and I paid for everyone. It wasn’t about showing off – it was more a moment to celebrate and feel that real sense of achievement. It was the first time trading money felt real.

I blew around ten challenge accounts before passing my first one, and the crazy thing is the one I passed was basically the last one I could afford. What kept me going was the fear of failing and the hunger to succeed in an industry where most people don’t make it. I knew I was close, but I also knew I had to stop making the same emotional mistakes.

The most expensive lesson cost me around £5,000 of my own money, or closer to £5,700 if you include profits I gave back. When I first started, I was copying a signals group. I deposited £1,000, made around £700, and felt on top of the world – then I lost it all by over-risking and taking trades I didn’t really understand. After that, I deposited another £4,000 in separate £1,000 attempts and lost that too. The lesson was that copying signals is not trading.

My lowest point was after losing all that money and having less than £100 left in my bank account. It wasn’t just my lowest point in trading, it was probably the lowest point in my life. I never seriously considered quitting though, because quitting would have felt like accepting failure, and my ego and stubbornness wouldn’t let me do that. I took about a month away, reset properly, and decided to learn everything for myself instead of relying on other people.

Trading affected me mentally and emotionally, every day at one point – especially when I was taking setups that weren’t good enough and then losing because of it. It affected my mood, confidence and self-belief. It took me a while to understand my own psychology and realise that the issue was not always the market; sometimes it was me forcing trades, risking too much or trying to make money back too quickly.

Today I mainly trade XAU/USD. My strategy is based around high-probability fair value gaps, order blocks, liquidity and clean targets. I usually look for FVGs with order blocks resting below or around key areas, then target liquidity or opposing FVGs. I’m much more selective now and only want A+ setups rather than trading for the sake of it.

I open the charts around 2:15pm GMT and check if there is a possible setup forming. If I don’t see anything clean, I close the charts so I don’t tempt myself into forcing a trade. I’ll check again around 2:45pm and 3pm; if there’s still no A+ setup, I’m done for the day. That routine helped me massively, because most of my bad trades used to come from sitting on the charts too long.

One recent losing trade on gold was where I had the right general area marked out, but I entered too early. I saw a potential FVG/order-block setup and expected price to move towards liquidity, but I didn’t wait for enough confirmation. Price tapped my stop before later moving more in line with my original idea. The lesson was that having the right bias is not enough – I need to wait for the exact setup, not just an area that looks close enough.

One popular rule I ignore is that you need to trade every day to be a real trader. For me, that is one of the fastest ways to overtrade. Some days there simply is no clean setup, and forcing one usually costs money.

Most people don’t fully understand what I do. They can understand the idea of trading, but not the psychology of it unless they’ve experienced it themselves – they don’t see what it feels like to manage risk, deal with losses, control emotions and stay disciplined when money is on the line. Trading has made me much more disciplined and independent; it has taught me patience, risk management and emotional control, and it gave me confidence because I built the skill myself from a difficult starting point. At the same time, it has taught me that trading only improves your lifestyle if you control it – if you let it control your emotions, it can do the opposite.

What separates me from someone who washed out at their third evaluation is that I didn’t stop when it became uncomfortable. I failed around ten challenges before getting funded, so I know what it feels like to keep losing and still come back. A lot of people blame the market, the prop firm or the rules; I had to look at myself properly and fix my risk, discipline and psychology. If I could advise myself a year ago, I’d say slow down and stop trying to make everything happen quickly. Protecting capital is more important than making fast money, one good setup is better than five average ones, and sitting out is sometimes the most profitable thing you can do.

If prop firms disappeared tomorrow, I’d still be trading. Prop firms gave me access to larger capital, but the skill itself is bigger than prop trading – I’d continue trading personal capital, keep developing my strategy and probably move deeper into finance, trading or investment roles. The goal was never just to pass challenges; it was to become a real trader. And if someone gave me a $1,000,000 funded account today, I’d trade very similarly to how I trade my current funded accounts, but with even lower risk. Right now I risk a maximum of around 0.5% on my best setups; on a $1,000,000 account I’d reduce that to around 0.2% per setup. The first week would be about protecting the account, understanding the rules properly, staying calm and only taking A+ trades – the goal is not to impress anyone quickly, it’s simply to survive, scale and stay consistent.