One Prop Trader a Day - Hamza El Missouri: A Loss Is a Business Expense, Not a Failure

One Prop Trader a Day - Episode 103

Hamza El Missouri

My name is Hamza El Missouri. I am 28, from Morocco, and I hold a Master’s degree in Business Law. I trade CFDs full-time on the Nasdaq 100 and I am preparing for the CMT designation.

Age28

FromMorocco 🇲🇦

TradesNAS100, Gold, Oil, DXY

StyleSwing, top-down macro

FirmFTMO

My name is Hamza El Missouri, I am 28 years old, and I am from Morocco. I hold a Master's degree in Business Law, which I completed in 2022. Today, I trade CFDs full-time, focusing heavily on the Nasdaq 100 while selectively diversifying into other major assets like Gold, Crude Oil, and the US Dollar index.

I officially became a funded trader on October 6th, 2025. At that precise moment, the biggest shift for me was transitioning into a highly disciplined trading framework and a rigorous approach to risk management.

The very first thing I bought with my trading profits was a new office desk paired with an ergonomic gaming chair, to create a comfortable, professional workspace.

I failed three evaluations with different prop firms before finally succeeding with FTMO. What kept me going was my deep understanding of one thing.

Instead of letting these setbacks discourage me, I used every single failure as a data source to optimize my trading systems, adjust my rules, and refine my execution until I became a consistently funded trader.

The single most expensive nominal loss on a single position was $1,000, which represented exactly 2% of my capital at that time. There was no catastrophic emotional breakdown behind it. It was simply a high-probability setup that turned around and hit my invalidation level.

The real expensive lesson for me during my two years of learning was understanding that a loss is just a standard business expense. Accepting that a trade can simply go wrong, without trying to fight the market, was the most valuable lesson I ever paid for.

My lowest point in trading was experiencing an accumulated series of consecutive losses. Dealing with a drawdown streak is the ultimate test for any market participant. However, I never once considered quitting.

Instead, I remained cold, rational, and fully disciplined. I strictly maintained my trading system and executed the exact same risk management parameters, because I deeply understand that a losing streak is simply part of the game. Accepting this reality is what kept me moving forward.

Did trading ever affect me mentally or emotionally? Yes, absolutely, especially at the very beginning of my journey. Like many, I was affected by the illusion of quick profits, which led to overtrading, stress, and constant system-hopping in search of a miracle strategy.

However, through deep experience and self-education, I overcame all of it. Today, I have completely eliminated overtrading because I wait 100% for my exact setup to display before taking any action.

That structural shift entirely removed the emotional weight and stress from my trading.

Today, my trading style is focused on Swing and Position trading, utilizing a strict trend-following approach. My primary market is the Nasdaq 100. My framework is built on a top-down macro perspective, where I analyze higher timeframes, specifically the Monthly, Weekly and Daily charts, to establish the macro trend and bias.

For position management and managing short-term market volatility, I scale down to intraday units such as the 4-Hour chart. This allowed me to avoid the noise of lower timeframes and align my execution entirely with major institutional flows.

Once I wake up, my day starts with a comprehensive intermarket analysis. I examine charts for the US Dollar, Crude Oil, Gold, the crypto markets, the Bond Market, and my primary asset, the Nasdaq 100. Next, I study the financial news to understand the dominant narrative driving market participants, while monitoring incoming macroeconomic and microeconomic statistics and how the market reacts to them.

Because I am a Swing and Position trader, I only check my active trades every 4 hours on the H4 chart, to monitor volatility without emotional interference. During the day, I invest my time into scaling my skills. I systematically backtest systems, analyze historical correlations, and merge technical analysis with fundamental data, as I am currently preparing for the CMT, the Chartered Market Technician designation.

At the end of the day, I re-examine the market structure on higher timeframes like the Daily chart, to align my portfolio with the major macro signals generated by my system.

My most recent losing trade came from an advanced position management setup on the Nasdaq 100. I had successfully captured the major bullish rally that started back in April. Recently, as the market began to stagnate and pull back, I decided to scale into my position by adding a buy order on the retracement, fully expecting the macro trend to continue. However, the market structure shifted, and price action turned against my thesis.

Instead of letting my emotions take over or hoping for a reversal, I remained calm. I monitored the sudden shift in volatility, executed my risk management rules, and manually cut the position while strictly respecting my maximum predefined risk. For me, it was business as usual. What would I do differently? Nothing. Scaling into a winning macro trend is part of my statistical edge, and cutting the trade when the criteria change is how I preserve my capital.

I completely ignore the popular rule of setting a fixed Take Profit. Many retail traders are taught to exit as soon as a predefined target is hit. However, as a Swing and Position trend follower, I believe that technical targets are often just the minimum price objectives. In strong impulsive trends, the market frequently extends far beyond these levels.

Therefore, I prefer to remain in the flow and ride the institutional momentum as long as possible. Instead of using a fixed take profit, I wait for clear signs of institutional exhaustion or structure shifts, and that is the exact moment when I start hedging or locking in my profits. In my view, limiting your upside with a hard take profit is a major mistake when trading micro and macro trends.

Coming from a Master's degree in Business Law, my entourage initially expected me to pursue a traditional legal career. When I first transitioned into trading, there was some natural skepticism because they didn't fully understand the business. However, as they witnessed my absolute discipline since 2022, my analytical routine, my CMT preparation, and my funding milestones with top firms like FTMO, their perspective completely transformed. Today, they see it as a highly intellectual and legitimate corporate business. They have become incredibly supportive, encouraging me daily and pushing me to never give up on this journey.

Trading has profoundly reinforced the core concept of discipline within me, and this emotional management has naturally extended to every single area of my life. It has fundamentally reshaped how I operate daily: I have become far more patient, I completely accept risks and losses without anxiety, and I have eliminated emotional nervousness. The rigor required to remain calm during market drawdowns has translated into personal emotional stability. Ultimately, trading hasn't just built my financial framework, it has made me a much more structured, resilient, and patient individual in my everyday life.

What separates me from someone who washed out at their third evaluation comes down to perseverance, self-investment, and my relationship with failure. Many traders treat evaluations like a lottery ticket. When they fail three times, they give up. In contrast, I possessed the resilience to keep pushing forward. I invested thousands of hours in self-education, continuous backtesting, and system optimization.

Most importantly, I understood early on that failure is simply the price of admission to the markets. You cannot achieve true profitability without navigating through losses. For me, those failures weren't dead ends, they were the most valuable educational phases required to truly decode market behavior and refine my edge.

If I could go back one year ago, I would look myself in the eye and say: trust the process, stay patient, and keep collecting your data. You don't need a flawless miracle strategy to succeed. Your shift toward macro-driven Swing and Position trading is your true home. Stop focusing on the short-term market noise, embrace the routine you are building, and always remember that a loss is not a failure, it is simply a standard business expense necessary to unlock your long-term consistency.

If prop firms disappeared tomorrow, would I still be trading? Yes, absolutely. I would definitely continue trading even if the industry vanished overnight. Prop firms are an incredible leverage tool that I highly value, but they do not define my career. I am deeply passionate about the markets, this is my definitive profession. If the industry vanished, I would simply adjust my position sizing to trade and grow my own personal capital.

Furthermore, given my background in Business Law, I would leverage my track record to convince my entourage and close network to let me manage their savings. For me, navigating global macro-economic flows is a long-term life path, with or without third-party platforms.

If you gave me a $1,000,000 funded account today, I would change absolutely nothing. In the first 7 days, and every day after, I would strictly maintain the exact same routine, the exact same top-down macro analysis, and the exact same risk management discipline that I use to manage my current accounts.

My priority would simply be to respect the capital parameters with the exact same corporate rigor I apply today.

Verified funded - the receipts