Atharva Bhosale
Atharva Bhosale is a 20-year-old ICT trader and student from Pune, India who got funded on his first attempt, breached an account the day before a payout, and learned that discipline matters more than money. Here is his story, in his own words.
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My name is Atharva Bhosale. I am 20 years old, from Pune, India, and I mainly trade US100 and Gold using ICT concepts. Over the last three years I have spent most of my time studying risk management and market structure rather than chasing signals.
I became funded after my first evaluation attempt, which I was lucky to pass. Getting funded gave me confidence, but more than that it made me realize that protecting capital matters more than making money. I had failed one evaluation before that, and it showed me my real weakness was risk management and discipline. I kept going because I knew consistency is a skill you build with time, not something you are born with.
My first payout was not huge, so there was no flashy purchase - I used part of it to cover personal expenses. The most expensive lesson came soon after. I lost around $300 on a funded account in a single day, right before a payout, and I breached the account. Weeks of good trading were gone in one day. That was my lowest point, and it taught me that one undisciplined day can erase everything you built.
Trading has definitely affected me mentally. I have dealt with stress, overtrading and self-doubt. Over time I learned that confidence does not come from winning every trade - it comes from following a tested process.
Today I mainly trade US100 on the lower timeframes using the ICT 2022 model. I mark the 1-hour order block to set my bias, then wait for an entry on the lower timeframe using concepts like a market structure shift or an inverse fair value gap. I prefer taking trades during the session kill zones, use a fixed 50-point stop, and target the next liquidity point with a 1:1 take profit, sometimes higher.
A typical day starts at 7 AM when I get ready for college. Before I leave I check what the market did overnight. College runs from 9 AM to 4 PM, and in my free time I watch charts or ICT videos. In the evening I go for a walk, come home, wait for the New York session to open, and plan my trades around my setup.
My toughest stretch was in April, when I had eight losing trades in a row on my system. It was frustrating, but losing streaks are part of trading - the important thing is to manage risk. I have a mental stop for my system: if it hits a 12% drawdown, I stop trading it until I review it and get my confidence back.
There is one popular idea I completely ignore: that psychology is everything and strategy does not matter. I disagree. You first need a strategy that has been properly tested and proven. Good psychology matters, but without a clear plan and real confidence in your system, psychology alone will not make you profitable.
Most people around me do not really understand what I do. Some think trading is gambling, others think it is easy money. My family does not know I trade, so it has never been a topic at home. What trading has given me is patience and discipline. It has not made me a lot of money yet, but it changed how I think and work. I used to score around 60% in school, and this year, after building that discipline, I topped my college with 96%. I believe trading played a big part in that.
What separates me from someone who washed out at their third evaluation is that I stopped looking for shortcuts. Instead of switching strategies after every loss, I review my trades, learn from my mistakes, and follow my plan with better discipline. The advice I would give myself a year ago is to keep learning and never get too comfortable, because the market always changes and no single strategy works forever. If prop firms disappeared tomorrow I probably would not trade full-time - I would focus on an AI-related career, build my own capital over time, and keep trading my personal account. Prop firms make it much easier to grow without needing a large amount of your own money. And if someone handed me a one million dollar funded account today, I would trade it exactly the same way I trade a $10k account. If you have a real edge, the account size should not change your process.
To Omer and the team, thank you for giving real traders a place to share the honest version of this journey. To anyone starting out: build a tested strategy, protect your capital, and let discipline carry you - because in this game, surviving the bad days is what keeps you in it.
About the writer - Atharva Bhosale
Atharva Bhosale is a 20-year-old trader and student from Pune, India who trades US100 and Gold using ICT concepts on the lower timeframes. He got funded on his first evaluation attempt, learned discipline the hard way after breaching an account the day before a payout, and balances trading with college, where he went from scoring 60% to topping his year at 96%. He trades through firms including MyFundedFutures, Blue Guardian, Apex, The5ers and Funding Pips, and believes protecting capital comes before making money.
