One Prop Trader a Day – Meet Ahamed Rizwan: The Schoolteacher Funded on Gold

A I’m Ahamed Rizwan, 27 years old, from Kerala, India. I trade for a living, focusing on gold futures and options inside funded accounts, along with several of my favorite forex pairs.

A I started trading with my own capital in 2017. In 2023 I bought my first funded account, but I struggled to stick to the strict rules and couldn’t make it work. In 2025 I passed a $100k evaluation with Funding Pips in just two weeks, clearing both phases. That brought a significant change to my life, because managing larger capital was incredibly exciting. Since then I’ve kept a disciplined approach, risking 1% per trade to target 2%, for a 1:2 risk-to-reward ratio.

A When I passed the funded account, I felt like I had passed an exam I had been preparing for for years. The joy and excitement were immense. Achieving something I had worked so hard for made me very happy. Becoming a funded trader for the first time also multiplied my confidence. Having a certificate in my name helped me believe in my abilities, and believe I could achieve even greater things in trading.

A I never managed to pass that first funded account. I spent three months trying to turn it around – an account my best friend believed in and sponsored for me – but I couldn’t get it across the line. I lost many funded accounts after that, in several rounds. I failed many times at firms like Alpha Capital and Funded Next. Sometimes I cleared the first two phases but couldn’t manage the account afterward and failed in the second phase. What drove me forward was the belief that once I succeeded, I would be able to manage large capital, and that the financial freedom it brought would change my life.

A I had a really bad time in trading, and what kept me going was my job. I am a teacher. I had a passion for trading and had been doing it alongside my work. Moving forward takes money, especially when you keep adding capital to your trading. My job was there to back up my capital throughout the journey. When things got really bad and my capital was washed out several times, it was the salary from my job that kept me going.

A At times the mental stress was intense, especially when my funded accounts were lost one by one and it was hard to stay disciplined. I found myself unable to properly connect with friends or family, as the weight of the losses consumed me, and at times it led to severe depression. What kept me going was an unwavering belief in my skills and a growing reliance on faith. Despite many setbacks, I persisted, driven by the confidence that I could reach this goal and secure a better future.

A Since I work during the day, my trading is focused in the evening, aligning with the New York session, specifically the London-New York overlap. I mainly trade gold, making decisions based on higher-timeframe top-down analysis and identifying liquidity inducements and demand or supply zones created during the Asian session.

A My day begins before work in the morning, marking the previous day’s highs and lows on the chart along with the major liquidity points. Later, during breaks at school, I occasionally check the markets. After I get home from work, I focus on the London-New York overlap, where I mark the inducements and liquidity points I identified earlier and make my trading decisions accordingly.

A Most of the people around me don’t really understand what trading actually is. I find it very difficult to explain to many of them. When they see the losses I go through, they often make fun of me or criticize me. But they fail to realize the huge potential trading has. Because I understand that potential, I stay committed and focused on it.

A Trading has brought many changes to my lifestyle. I was naturally a very extroverted person, and as a teacher I used to interact with many people. After getting into trading, I had to spend a lot of time studying charts, which gradually reduced my interactions with friends, and I felt myself becoming more introverted. At the same time, I try to keep a healthy balance. This career has taught me to think patiently, keep proper discipline in life, and make every decision carefully and thoughtfully.

A The one thing that kept pushing me forward was realizing that my skills were the only opportunity I had to achieve the things I wanted in life. Trading is where I truly built and developed my abilities. Because of that, I have many goals and responsibilities for my future. I realized I could never fulfill all of them through hard work or my school salary alone. To reach real financial freedom, I needed an opportunity with much greater potential. That is what keeps motivating me to move forward in trading, again and again.

A To the person I was when I first started trading, I would say this: reaching a high-income field takes a lot of hard work and perseverance. So I would advise myself to learn patiently and always follow proper risk management with discipline.

A With a $1 million funded account, I would first study the firm’s rules carefully – daily drawdown, per-trade drawdown, overall drawdown, and any hidden clauses. I would verify the payout structure and review feedback from other reputable traders. With my chosen pair, my approach for a challenge account would be to risk 1% for a 2% reward, then risk 2% for a 1:3 risk-to-reward ratio to pass the first phase. For the second phase, I would risk 1% for a 1:2 ratio, then 1.5% for another 1:2. If it were an instant account, I would execute my strategy based on its specific requirements.