Max Profit-Sharing Trader Interview: Just One Step Away from Profit Sharing—Why Did He Cut His Position in Half Instead?

Exclusive Interview with a Max Profit-Sharing Trader: One Step Away from Profit Sharing—Why Did He Cut His Position in Half Instead?

More than a month after launch, EagleTrader Max mode has welcomed its first batch of profit-sharing traders! Faced with the strict risk control that once felt “somewhat difficult,” the first successful traders proved with results: Max rules were never meant to impose limits, but to help traders kick those bad habits of acting on impulse.

Just how hard are these bad habits to break? Zhao Hanxuan, the first guest in the EagleTrader Max profit-sharing trader interview series, may be the most qualified to speak.

Unlike the “glamorous successful trader” many people imagine, he frankly admits that his entire trading career to date is still in a losing state.

However, it was precisely while participating in Max mode that he did something he had never managed to do in the past three years

So how did such a trader, still “on the road to recovery,” successfully obtain a $1789 profit share under the tempering of Max mode’s rules?

The Beginning of Trading

Zhao Hanxuan’s earliest exposure to trading began with ETFs.

After switching to domestic futures in 2023, chasing rallies and selling declines, frequent trading—these typical beginner problems in hindsight—he had experienced almost all of them.

He later turned to overseas trading, and his losses expanded further.

In the interview, he did not avoid his past.

He said that even now, if his entire trading career is calculated as a whole, the cumulative result is still a loss, with losses of about $70,000.

The period that left the deepest impression on him occurred during last year’s gold market.

From January to around Qingming, he kept trying to short against the trend by picking the top.

But looking back now, gold was actually gathering strength for a subsequent rise during that period, yet at the time he had already become obsessed with the “top.”

The market continued to surge higher, while he kept adding to his short positions.

In just a few months, he accumulated losses of about $50,000, accounting for a large portion of the losses across his entire trading career.

The Cost of Growth Is Blowing Up an Account

He still remembers one trade before Qingming very clearly.

At the time, he still judged that the market would move downward, but because his position was too heavy, his account was blown out just before dawn.

As it happened, the point where his account was blown was very close to the high of that day’s market.

Right after he was forcibly liquidated and left the market, gold began to move downward as expected and subsequently staged a one-sided move of more than $100.

The most painful part was precisely this: the market ultimately did move according to his judgment, but the trade still ended in failure.

The problem was no longer just direction, but position sizing and risk control, which left him no chance to wait for his judgment to be realized.

He later summarized this experience into a simple principle: learn to wait.

In the past, when he first started trading, he wanted to exit once he had a profit of 1—3 points, and rarely truly held a move of more than 10 points.

Now, although he still mainly does intraday trading, he pays more attention to the risk-reward ratio and usually handles trades according to a roughly 1:2 approach.

Position management also became a red line he was especially vigilant about afterward.

He mentioned in the interview that the blown account made him fully realize that even if the direction is ultimately judged correctly, if risk is exposed to a level beyond what one can bear, the result is still losing all principal.

So afterward, he often reminded himself: do not do things beyond your capabilities.

Starting to Plan Again

Zhao Hanxuan had actually previously participated in another EagleTrader mode once, but failed to pass.

When reviewing it afterward, he attributed the failure to: adding to positions at a floating loss and not trading according to plan.

So this time, before entering Max, he first set a new process for himself:

Every day before the market opens, first write an analysis of the previous day’s market and the market outlook for the day;

Plan in advance the long and short price levels and trading strategies he might focus on that day;

After the close, write another review report, clearly recording why he entered and exited each trade.

He said that this time he basically executed according to this discipline and ultimately received the profit share.

Of course, there were also times during the process when he lost control.

After two consecutive days of profit, one day he “got lazy” and did not seriously make a plan; his account subsequently had a clear drawdown, with the maximum extent once exceeding 2%.

But this time, he did not stay in the market and tough it out as he had in the past.

After decisively stopping out and closing the position, he chose to leave the screen for four or five hours, calm himself down, organize and analyze the market, and only then decide on his next move.

Approaching the target, yet reducing position size

When the trade reached a return of about 5.5%, Zhao Hanxuan said his psychological pressure began to increase noticeably.

At that time, he was already very close to the first 6% profit-share target. In the past, this would absolutely have been the dangerous moment most likely to make him get carried away and want to 'push for one more run'.

But he made a completely opposite choice.

He had originally been trading 0.2 lots, and just as he was about to reach the target, he took the initiative to cut his position size directly in half to 0.1 lots.

After that, he kept cautiously maintaining a smaller position size until he smoothly crossed the 6% threshold.

The moment the target was completed, he immediately stopped trading and did not place a single additional order.

This almost 'conservative' choice precisely reflects his transformation after suffering a major loss: the closer profits got to the finish line, the less he thought about 'how much more can I earn' and the more he thought about how to steadily protect the fruits he had already secured.

The hardest thing to control is oneself

When talking about what is hardest to control in trading, he almost said 'the market' at first, then immediately corrected himself: 'Definitely myself.'

Because the market itself has no right or wrong; the only thing a trader can do is adjust his own behavior according to market changes.

The moments when he is most likely to lose discipline are often after his first two trades have been stopped out.

Especially when he has just been stopped out and the market immediately surges in the original direction, that unwillingness of 'I was clearly right just now, so why did it hit me first' wells up and tempts him to rush in immediately for revenge trading.

Zhao Hanxuan calls this state FOMO (fear of missing out), and it is an emotion he still deliberately works to control to this day.

For this reason, he set an iron rule for himself: if there are more than three stop losses in a day, he resolutely stops opening positions.

No matter how wildly the market surges or plunges afterward, it has nothing to do with him.

What if he really cannot control it? His answer is even more direct: 'Turn off the computer.' He physically cuts off the possibility of continuing to trade.

'Everyone always talks about overcoming human nature, but human nature itself is actually very hard to truly overcome.

In the end, trading is not only about facing the market, but also facing one's own personality and weaknesses.'

Discipline above results

After a year of refinement, Zhao Hanxuan has developed a relatively fixed trading system, with the main changes in how he handles take-profit, while his stop-loss principles remain unshakable.

Compared with three years ago, he has another very interesting change: he talks less.

In the past, before the market had played out, he liked to share his judgments with friends in advance; if he was right, he would also enjoy others' praise.

But over time, he found that this kind of excessive expression made him blindly optimistic, which in turn affected his execution.

Now, he prefers to let the market play out first and then look at the result.

When we asked him, 'What do you value most now when judging whether a trade was done well or not?' his answer was just one word: discipline.

'Even if it ends up being a losing trade, as long as the whole process was within the plan, it is a good trade.'

First Max profit share

When talking about why he chose EagleTrader Max, Zhao Hanxuan said the reason was simple: the profit-sharing time is faster, and the overall value for money is also high.

But after actually receiving the profit share, what he valued was not the return itself, but the affirmation this result gave to his trading system, and also a 'reward' for his strict adherence to discipline during this period.

After receiving the profit share, what he most wanted to continue improving was still discipline.

Because he is very clear that it is impossible for him to never make mistakes at all; all he can do is reduce the number of mistakes he knows should not happen.

At the end of the interview, we asked him to leave a piece of advice for novice traders.

He said, 'Before preparing to open an order, don't first think about how much money this can make; instead, first assume that your judgment is wrong.

If this trade ultimately hits the stop loss, can you accept this loss? If you can accept it, then open it; if you cannot accept it, give it up immediately.'

Receiving the first profit share from EagleTrader Max is only a stage-ending comma for Zhao Hanxuan.

Seeing him go from once blindly chasing highs and trading frequently to now revering risk and executing according to plan, what we see is not just one trader's breakthrough, but also a microcosm of countless ordinary people who have struggled in the market and ultimately chosen to make peace with themselves.

The road of trading is still long, but this time, Zhao Hanxuan has an extra pass in his hand called 'discipline'.

And this is just the beginning!