FundingPips: when payout anxiety changes your entries

[LondonScalper]

I'll keep the firm out of it beyond the title, since this is about my head, not their rules. But it was on a FundingPips account earlier this year that I first noticed something uncomfortable about how I trade as a payout date approaches.

The pattern. In the week before I could request a payout, my entries changed. I wasn't aware of it at the time. I only saw it afterwards in my journal.

My average stop distance shrank by about 20%. I was placing stops tighter, presumably so that any loss would be smaller and not threaten the payout.

My average holding time on winners dropped by nearly half. I was taking profits early, often at 0.6R instead of my usual 1.2R target, because a small sure gain felt better than a larger possible one.

My number of trades dropped, which sounds good, but the trades I skipped included several valid A setups.

The net effect was a worse week than my average, but not a disaster. What bothered me was that I'd changed my trading without deciding to.

What I've done since. I treat the payout as invisible. My journal doesn't show the date, I don't check how close I am to it during the session, and on the days before a payout I trade from the same checklist as any other day.

I suspect this affects many funded traders, whatever the firm. The money starts feeling real right before it becomes real.

[Shadow Trader]

Coming back to this from another side: what happens the week after the payout? For me that was the more expensive week, not the one before it.

Once the money had landed I felt like I was playing with a cushion. Size crept up a notch, I took two trades on GBPUSD that weren't on my list, and I gave back most of a normal week in four sessions.

So I now treat the five sessions after a payout as a cooling period. Same checklist, but I cap trades at my usual daily median rather than letting it run, and I review every ticket that evening instead of on Sunday.

The odd thing is that the before and after behaviour look opposite, tight and fearful then loose and careless. I think they're the same problem, the account balance becoming the thing I'm trading.

Has anyone else seen the rebound effect, or is the run up to payout the only week that shows up in your journal?