From Risk to Rigor: Tools That Build Better Traders

By making market participation so accessible, retail trading has never been more popular. But too many novice traders are learning risk management the hard way.

The problem is not one of knowledge. Today’s traders are better-informed than ever about chart analysis, trends and market news. Instead, the issue is one of capital. In trading, as in much of life, you need money to make consistent money. 

A trader with $1,000 to invest may grow frustrated by grinding lower-level profits on small daily swings in Forex pairs or gold futures. In the worst cases, this can prompt them to take on too much leverage as they dream of generating profits large enough to fund a nice meal out or a short holiday. Even those who resist the urge to lever up can discover that their cash buffer isn’t enough to ride out a serious run of adverse volatility.

“The biggest issue most retail traders have is that they are undercapitalized. When you’re undercapitalized you tend to trade too big a size, take on too much leverage and ultimately blow up accounts,” says Greg Rubin, Head of Axi Select, a funding program offered by broker Axi.

A true trader’s program

In recent years, dozens of prop trading firms have entered the market. Many offer generous funding that appears to address the undercapitalization conundrum.

The catch? Traders typically pay a fee, which they lose if they fail a trading challenge. These challenges are difficult: Industry-wide, the rate of traders failing to qualify can reach 90%. “The bet is you pay registration fees to pass certain challenges, but the challenges are very difficult to pass because the trading conditions are very restrictive,” says Rubin.

Axi Select was created to offer a fairer, more structured pathway to secure funding. Over 42,000 traders have joined since its launch in 2023. Roughly $400 million has been allocated, with more than $10 million paid out to traders.

The program carries no registration or membership fees. A $500 deposit is required to enter the initial seed stage, but traders can withdraw these funds at any time. Seed offers $5,000 in funding without profit sharing—modest by prop industry standards. Rather than the pay-to-play model that has become the industry standard, progression depends on demonstrating genuine trading skill.

“This is a real trader’s program; you're not going to get rich quick. You have to commit,” says Rubin. “But ultimately, this will scale with you. As you improve as a trader, you'll get access to more money.”

Reaching the top Pro M stage, which includes up to $1 million in funding and 80% profit payout from Axi Select, requires a minimum of nine months of consistent, profitable trading. For even the best traders, patience and consistency are required to achieve success.

A million-dollar experience

Sofea, a trader from Southeast Asia, became the first woman to reach the $1 million level earlier this year. Despite her 15 years of trading experience—much of it in gold—she needed three attempts to advance from the Pro 500 stage to Pro M. Along the way, she gained valuable lessons in risk management.

“During my first attempt, I got overconfident, I didn’t put a stop loss and that was a very bad mistake,” she admits. A spike in volatility cratered her strategy.

For her second try, Sofea found herself chasing losses by increasing lot sizes beyond those recommended by her trading system, leading to another large drawdown. “What I thought was a shortcut was a much longer way,” she says. For her third attempt, she acknowledged that “I need to follow the rules.” She was rewarded by securing $1 million in funding. 

Progression through the program is governed in part by Axi’s proprietary Edge Score, which calculates performance across the key metrics of skill, risk, consistency and experience, offering tips on how traders can improve their scores. The Edge Score ensures that Axi Select users trade with risk exposure in mind. For Rubin, it serves as a reminder that live accounts and real money are in play, with the program giving traders up to “a million dollars of our money,” he says. “We need to know that you're not taking crazy size bets and that you're cutting your losses in time. If you’re going to manage big sums of money from us, we need to know you are looking after it.”

Let traders trade

Axi Select has a clear-eyed commitment to transparency and fairness. It allows traders to trade freely, without many of the restrictions—including news bans, bans on holding positions over weekends, daily drawdown limits and high watermark levels—that are common elsewhere.

The lack of restrictions is vital for Sofea. “For me, as a technical analyst, I do not look at news and I don’t know when there is news so if I had to follow the rules of those prop firms, it would be such a headache for me to check because there is news almost every other day,” she says.

Similarly, weekend holdings restrictions prevent traders from deploying some of their most profitable strategies. “Over-trading is a big problem for retail traders. So by cutting them out on a weekend, they are forced to trade more,” says Rubin.

Axi Select’s commitment to fairness extends to the ratio between the gain needed to progress (7%) and the stop-loss that leads to quarantine (10%). “If you look at the industry, it's always one-to-one or worse,” says Rubin. “We are still the only firm in this space where it's in the trader's favor.” 

Rubin emphasizes that trading is difficult enough without firms tilting the playing field against the trader. “We don't guarantee you'll be a pro, we don't guarantee you'll make money, but we do guarantee a fair opportunity,” he says. 

For Sofea, and the other four traders who have so far achieved the Pro M level, that opportunity is turning into a successful trading career.

The Axi Select program is only available to clients of AxiTrader LLC. CFDs carry a high risk of investment loss. Information contained in this material is of a general nature. Axi does not consider your financial objectives or personal circumstances. Axi recommends that you seek independent advice. This content may not be available in your region. For more information, refer to our Terms of Service. Standard trading fees and minimum deposit apply.