I have a friend who just entered the market three months ago, with almost no understanding of candlestick charts, and an initial capital of only $800. Yesterday, when he showed me a screenshot of his account, the net value had already reached $32,600, and he had never experienced a margin call throughout the process. To be honest, this achievement was not luck.

We reviewed his trading logs over the past three months and found that the reason he survived and made money is because he strictly adhered to three rules.

**Rule 1: Funds Are Always Divided into Three Parts**

He split the $800 as follows: $300 for intraday trading, taking profits quickly and exiting fast; another $300 kept for weekly chart opportunities, remaining completely still without action unless there is a clear signal; the remaining $200 stored in a cold wallet as a last-resort emergency fund. The benefit of this allocation is that any single mistake won't wipe him out, and no matter how volatile the market gets, it can't ruin his entire strategy.

**Rule 2: Only Trade When a Clear Trend Appears**

If the 4-hour moving average doesn't form a clear upward trend, he treats all market movements as oscillations and avoids trading. This rule sounds simple, but in practice, it filters out 90% of noise trades. When a genuine trend signal appears, he will lock in profits once they reach 20% of his principal, taking some off the table first, and then continue to follow the rest. When the market is dull, he steps away from his phone and lives his life instead of staring at the screen for that fleeting sense of existence.

**Rule 3: Discipline to Control Impulses**

He sets a 2% loss limit for automatic stop-loss; after closing a position, he immediately turns off the trading app to prevent regret. When he gains 4%, he takes half of the position off the table, and sets a breakeven stop-loss on the remaining part to let profits run while protecting the principal. Most importantly, he never adds to a losing position. If he's wrong, he admits it—no other explanation.

The most interesting thing he told me was: "Making money isn't about how pretty the account balance looks, but about finally being able to sleep peacefully." He used to get upset over fluctuations of ten or twenty dollars, relying solely on intuition and feelings to trade. Now, with this disciplined framework, fear and greed are locked outside the door.

If you're still anxious over market swings of a few tens of dollars and your trading plan relies entirely on intuition, the problem isn't a lack of opportunities but that you haven't yet developed a trading system that truly manages risk and gives you confidence. A beginner with $800 can achieve this—proving that this methodology really works.