GoldPlan

JANUARY 2027 · THE START, STEP BY STEP

Nothing is bought until the record says go.

The plan starts with a decision, not a purchase. This checklist is the order of operations for January 2027 — what gets reviewed, who does what, and what to expect from the first challenge.

1 · The decision point — Jan 2, 2027

  • Review the gold prop sim's full record — every trade of Attempt 1 (and any later attempts), where it stands against the Phase 1 / Phase 2 lines, plainly stated: passed, failed, or still running.
  • Review Gold Reality's record and its total lag cost — what entering ~15–60 seconds late actually cost across every mirrored trade, beside the parent sim's figures.
  • Check Hola Prime's then-current pricing and rules for the $200,000 2-Step Prime. The October 2026 promo ($647.40) will have expired — expect the list price (~$1,079) unless a new promotion is running, and re-verify the rules on the Firms page against the live offer before paying anything.
  • Restated plan, then go / no-go. One firm (Hola Prime), one strategy (B2 at the adopted 0.3–0.4% risk per trade), withdrawals only from the balance above ~$210,000, the 10-minute re-entry wait, the 30% tax habit. Jay decides. A no-go costs nothing — the sims keep running.

2 · The purchase — Jay's own step

  • Jay buys the challenge himself — his own account, his own card, his own tap. Nothing is bought automatically, by this site, or by anyone on his behalf.
  • Account in Jay's name, with the email and ID Hola asks for; credentials go into the secure vault, never into chat or email.
  • Platform: MT5 is included. cTrader is +$20. Add-ons are NOT in the plan unless decided separately (Swap-Free +10%, EA trading +10% — B2 is traded by hand from the rulebook, so no EA add-on is needed).
  • Keep the receipt and the rule page as bought — fee paid, plan name, account size, and the rules in force on purchase day.

3 · First-phase expectations

  • The challenge can take months. In the corrected firm-rules runs, full passes took ~315–327 days (Hola: 327 days from its Nov 2024 start; FundedNext: ~315), and three of the five accounts were still in their challenges when the window ended. Plan for the long end.
  • Expect $0 in payouts during the challenge. Challenge profit is exam marks — it is never paid out. The funded account starts fresh at $200,000, and the first payout cannot come before 14 funded days and a qualifying payout cycle (≥3 profitable days in the cycle).
  • Losing months are part of the shape. The strategy wins ~29% of trades (28.6% in the corrected backtest); the backtest's own first stretch included three straight losing months (Dec 2024 – Feb 2025) before the pass. The rules do not change mid-challenge.
  • The 30% tax set-aside starts with the first payout — ~30% of every payout into a separate pot the day it lands (see the tax notes on Models).
  • One open question to ask, not assume: whether extra income affects anything with the Bromwich & Smith consumer proposal. Proposals have fixed payments (unlike bankruptcy), but the plan is to ask the trustee's office directly when the first payout is real — not to guess.
  • Nothing else gets bought. The plan is one account. Other firms were modelled as scenarios (see Models) and stay on the shelf unless Jay separately decides otherwise — they are never a fix for a slow month.
  • Your hands are ready. By January, placing a B2 trade should feel routine: the Learn page practice — shadowing the paper sim and placing demo trades through November–December — is the preparation, and January's start only happens when the demo trades feel boring.

The gate is the record. Everything before January is paper: two sims running, a 2-year backtest, and models rebuilt on each firm's own rules. If the paper record breaks — a sim fails its challenge, the lag cost turns out to be heavy — the honest move is to stop and re-examine, not to buy anyway. The Jan 2 review exists precisely so that decision is made on evidence.