How did Rihari go from -$800 to $250K trading forex?

How did Rihari go from -$800 to $250K trading forex?

Rihari says the path ran through four stages: an $800 loss on a $1,000 live account, a slow rebuild of a $200 balance to about $1,500, a reported $110,000 day in February 2023, and recent trades he says made over $250,000. The transcript supplies no statements proving any stage.

The story comes from episode one of the Big Work Energy podcast, made by the Ambitious Investing team and titled “Rihari's Trading Journey From -$800 to $250K”. The first half covers two newer team members, Slade and Ali, and how each started in trading. Rihari's own account follows, and the introduction promises “the recent trades that I got into that have made me over $250,000”.

This article keeps two kinds of statement apart. “Rihari says” and “the video says” mark claims made on camera by the RihariFX speaker. “Independently verified” is reserved for the two external facts cited in the sourced-statistics section below. No broker statement, audit or third-party record appears in the supplied transcript, so every personal figure remains a claim.

The title implies one continuous climb, and the transcript does not support that reading. The $800 loss happened on a $1,000 account. The $250,000 figure refers to recent trades. The video never states account sizes, deposits or withdrawals between the two, so the numbers cannot be joined into a single growth rate. Nothing here is a typical result or a promise of one.

Background, as Rihari tells it. Rihari says he spent six or seven years in real estate, starting at 20 in Wellington and selling houses. He says the pandemic stopped him selling houses, which pushed him to look for another income. Before that, he says, he bought shares weekly, read Robert Kiyosaki's books, played the Cash Flow 101 board game, and held Nvidia, Tesla and Bitcoin. He says he bought Bitcoin at about $1,300 and pulled money out after a large run, although the transcript is garbled at the exact sell figure. He says he then found day-trading content online and a course that introduced forex and day trading.

Where the teaching began. Rihari says friends who saw his social media posts asked him to teach them, and that he began running sessions with them on Discord while still trading himself. He presents this as where Ambitious Investing started. The transcript gives no verified detail on how many people he taught, what they earned or what anything cost, so this article makes no claim on those points.

What does the -$800 in the title actually refer to?

The -$800 is a realised loss, not a negative balance. Rihari says he deposited $1,000 into his first live account and lost $800 within a week, leaving about $200. The video places this early in his journey, before any consistent profit.

Rihari says he started on a live account because he did not understand what a demo account was until about eight months into learning. He says he traded $1 per pip and did not use a stop loss on some trades. His stated reasoning was that price would have to move about 1,000 pips against him before the balance was gone, so a stop loss seemed unnecessary.

He describes a run of small experiments. He says he opened a trade, left it alone and watched it fall about $300 into drawdown before it returned to profit. He says this taught him that price fluctuates inside ranges and follows its history, although he adds that he did not understand the structure at the time. When someone told him to use a stop loss, he says he asked why, and then began losing once he applied stops. He calls that stretch where a bad habit formed, because in his telling he was winning more without a stop loss than with one.

What the -$800 shows is limited. It is a stated loss of a stated deposit. It is not a statement, and the transcript does not say which instruments he traded that week. It is also not the starting point of the $250,000 figure: the video does not say the $200 that remained grew into it. The title uses the loss as a starting marker for a story that the transcript tells in separate stages.

The video also shows a habit that outlasted the loss. Rihari says he still scalps without a stop loss on occasion, but only with very small lot sizes, because of the experiments above. In a separate exchange about learning from mistakes quickly, he says of the stop loss, “listen to what I say not what I do”. Both statements come from the video, and neither is an endorsement of trading without a stop loss.

What steps does Rihari say he took after the $800 loss?

Rihari describes seven steps: shrink the risk on a $200 balance, find an informal mentor, learn smart money concepts, narrow to one setup, overreach and lose again, add backtesting, then add fundamentals. Each step is his account, not a verified method.

The steps below follow the video in roughly the order Rihari tells them. Dates and durations are his.

1. Shrink the risk. Rihari says he traded very small on the remaining $200, about 10 cents by his description, because he did not want to lose it. He says that over roughly eight to ten months he took the balance to about $1,500. He calls this an achievement mainly because he had not lost the full $1,000, and says he did not yet think of repeating it on a larger account.

2. Find someone to ask why. Rihari says he found an informal mentor, whom he declines to name and whom he says he was not paying. He says this person helped him decide what to focus on and answered why price returns to certain areas before moving. Elsewhere he says the lack of a mentor made him slower and cost him a lot of money early, and that he only began talking to a mentor after about 14 months. The two accounts sit awkwardly together, and the transcript does not resolve them.

3. Learn smart money concepts. Rihari says the explanation that made sense to him was smart money concepts, or SMC. He describes it as reading market structure, points of interest, and the reasons behind moves, such as manipulation and market psychology. He says his earlier learning gave rules without reasons, and that he needs to know why before he trusts a setup. He also says the market is not random and is driven by human psychology. That is his view, not a verified fact.

4. Narrow to one setup. Rihari says he traded GJ trend line breakouts on the five-minute chart, mainly in the London session, and skipped days when the setup did not appear. He says sticking to one thing was an early advantage, and that adding other strategies later made trading harder before it improved. He says he now rarely trades GJ because his current approach finds it slow to set up.

5. Overreach and lose again. Rihari says that once SMC made sense he tried to trade everything and believed he had found a cheat code. He says he entered buys in the premium zone instead of waiting for the discount zone, and that he lost money again.

6. Add backtesting. Rihari says he found replay backtesting, which he calls FX Replay, over the Christmas break between 2022 and 2023, and immersed himself in it. He says he still spends 30 to 40 minutes a day on it. He also says practising a strategy on previous data is “going to be the exact same as future data”. That is an assertion. No source supplied supports it, and the article does not endorse it.

7. Add fundamentals. Rihari says that around February 2023 he began getting into fundamentals, meaning news events such as FOMC, alongside technical analysis. He says linking the two lifts a trader's win rate and average win, and he gives an example of moving an average one-to-three reward from risk toward one-to-eight. Neither claim is supported by a source in the supplied material.

The video gives two versions of how long the process took. Asked how long it took to become consistently profitable, Rihari says about 14 months, the same figure he uses for when a mentor appeared. His year-by-year account is different: he says he started learning in November 2020, treated 2021 as the year of losing and rebuilding the $1,000, called 2022 a break-even year, and called 2023 his first fully profitable year. He says he had savings from real estate that carried him through. The transcript does not reconcile 14 months with a first full profitable year arriving in 2023, more than two years after he started. This article reports both versions and does not choose one.

What does Rihari say happened on the $110,000 day in February 2023?

Rihari says he made $110,000 in one day in February 2023 on a live account, after losing about $7,000 the day before. He says he took 137 trades, mostly scalping gold, and tells listeners not to trade the way he did that day.

Rihari says the $7,000 loss left him wanting to prove to himself that he knew what he was doing, and that he told the people he was trading with that he only wanted the money back. He says he was up about $5,000 by late afternoon in the Asian session. After a break he says he returned near the start of London and, using a scalping strategy on gold, reached roughly $20,000 to $27,000 by 10 p.m. The transcript gives both figures.

He says a US Federal Reserve meeting was approaching and that gold had reached 1,960. He says he first held buys, then saw rejection, switched to sells, and kept trading pullbacks as gold kept falling. He says he used five lots on every scalp and repeatedly took $1,500 to $2,000 in profit on the one-minute chart. He describes this as the scalping approach he was using at the time, which he says relates to material taught on the course. This article does not evaluate that material.

He says he then went back into buys, was up around $127,000, lost about $17,000 of it, and stopped because he was mentally done. He puts the final figure at $110,000. The transcript is garbled at this stage, and the $127,000 peak is read from the co-host's recap of a move from a $7,000 drawdown up to 127 and then a loss of 17.

The video leaves out several things a reader would need. Rihari says he does not know the win rate but calls it massive. The account size is not stated, so five lots per scalp cannot be compared with the balance. The number and size of the losing trades are not given. The currency is not stated either, though the exchange in the transcript suggests New Zealand dollars. The transcript names the broker he used then, but supplies no statement from it.

Rihari calls the day a turning point. He says he sent a screenshot to a friend he was trading with, felt he had “all the confidence in the world”, and afterwards got serious about his trading plan. In hindsight he says the 1,960 level was a four-hour point of interest with heavy rejection, and that he would probably have sold on the analysis alone. That is retrospective commentary on a chart, and the article cannot check it.

What are the recent trades behind the $250K, and what does the video leave out?

Rihari says the over $250,000 came from recent trades, and he describes a gold buy held about two weeks that reached roughly $200,000 in profit. The transcript does not itemise a total, state account size, or show a statement.

Rihari first describes an earlier gold buy as the origin of his bullish view on gold. He says news of war in Israel arrived over a weekend, that he told a friend on the Sunday to buy gold when the market opened, and that he could not place an order until about 10:03 a.m. because the platform would not accept one, by which time price had already jumped. He is describing this as background, not as the source of the large figure.

The large figure comes from a separate, more recent gold buy. These are the numbers he gives, with his wording of the sequence:

• Gold buy, about two weeks. He says he set his stop loss below the entire range instead of just below the point of interest. He says he woke up after news with about $40,000 in profit, reasoned that even if price came back he would still win about $10,000, and left the stop in place. He says gold kept rising, citing a new high of 2,430 at the time he was recording, and that the trade reached about $200,000 before he closed it. He says swaps on the long hold were about 18,000 and were “giving me money”, though the transcript is unclear on the direction of that cost.
• Gold sell, first leg. He says he entered a sell near a pullback to roughly the 50% retracement. He says it reached about $90,000 in profit, that he kept holding because he thought it might keep falling, and that he closed at “40K something” after a one-hour change of character.
• Gold sell, around PPI. He says a further sell reached about $60,000 in profit around a PPI release, that he held expecting more, and that he closed with about $2,000. He says trades around CPI were “massive” and gives no figure.

By Rihari's own numbers, open profit fell from about $90,000 to $40,000-something in one trade and from about $60,000 to about $2,000 in another. He presents this as acceptable, saying he is still winning and does not mind missing extra profit. The path shows how far open profit can move once a trade is live, which a single headline total hides.

He also says he now holds some swing trades for a week or two, and that taking a trade to “risk-free” by moving the stop loss into profit removes the psychology of losing. Those are his views on his own method.

The transcript does not itemise the $250,000, and this article does not add the stated figures together. Missing from the video:

• The account size, and whether these trades were on a live or a funded account.
• Position sizes and the risk taken on each trade.
• The dates of each trade.
• Whether $250,000 is net of losing trades, fees and swaps.
• The currency and any tax treatment.
• Any statement, audit or third-party tracking record.

What does Rihari say he would tell a beginner?

Rihari says he would learn from someone who can show verifiable statistics, practise his strategy on FX Replay for 30 to 40 minutes a day, then start with a small live account of about $100. These are his opinions, not tested advice.

Rihari's three points, in his words and order:

• Learn from someone with a visible record. He says many people sell expensive courses without showing profit and loss or win percentage, and that a beginner should look for a trader whose statistics show consistent results. He also says a signal group that gives an 80-pip stop loss is one to leave.
• Practise on replay, with someone watching. He says to backtest the strategy on previous data every day, and to have someone watch for accountability. He says he used to have mentees run replay live on calls so they felt pressure similar to trading real money.
• Start with a small live account. He says most people can afford to lose $100, that the psychology differs from a demo account, and that a journal helps show why each trade was taken. He says fixed risk-to-reward is a sound method.

He says he expects a new trader would take at least six months to become profitable and that the time varies by person. He also says anyone can learn it if they put the work in. Both are unverified claims, and the sourced-statistics section below shows why the second cannot be treated as settled.

Illustrations, not results. The video includes arithmetic examples. Rihari says 5% a day on a $100 account is five dollars, that 5% a week on a $100,000 account is $5,000, and that 20% a week on a $10 million account would be $2 million a week, which he calls his next goal. He also argues that retail traders can post larger percentage returns than hedge funds because their accounts are smaller. These are illustrations and goals, not results. No source supplied supports the percentages as achievable or sustainable, and the article does not endorse them.

The other guests describe less tidy starts. One guest says he paid for two courses, a cheap one and a roughly $10,000 one, and is still in drawdown on that strategy. The other says he flipped a $100 account into about $250 in a night and lost it all the next day. Rihari himself says he does not want to raise hopes if a newcomer does not get the same results as him. These are the guests' claims, not RihariFX results.

Which parts of the story are Rihari's claims and which are verified?

None of Rihari's personal figures are independently verified in the supplied material. The only externally sourced facts are the two market-wide statistics cited below, and neither confirms or disputes any trade Rihari describes.

| Claim | Who says it | Verification status | How this article treats it | |---|---|---|---| | Lost $800 of a first $1,000 live account within a week | Rihari says | Unverified, no statement shown | Reported as his account | | Grew about $200 to about $1,500 over 8 to 10 months | Rihari says | Unverified | Reported as his account | | Needed about 14 months to become consistently profitable | Rihari says | Unverified, and inconsistent with his own year-by-year timeline | Both versions reported | | 2023 was his first full profitable year | Rihari says | Unverified | Reported as his account | | Made $110,000 in one day in February 2023 from 137 trades | Rihari says | Unverified, win rate and account size not given | Reported with gaps listed | | A gold buy held about two weeks reached roughly $200,000 | Rihari says | Unverified, no account size or statement | Reported with gaps listed | | Recent trades made over $250,000 | Rihari says | Unverified, not itemised | Not added up or extended | | Practice on past data is “the exact same as future data” | Rihari says | No source supplied | Not endorsed | | Retail traders can post higher percentage returns than hedge funds | Rihari says | No source supplied | Not endorsed | | 68% of Australian retail CFD investors lost money in the 2024 financial year | ASIC Report 828: Risky business | Independently published | Cited as context only | | Average daily OTC foreign-exchange turnover was US$9.6 trillion in April 2025 | BIS 2025 Triennial Survey | Independently published | Cited as context only |

The table separates who is speaking from what is known. The first nine rows come from a podcast on a brand's own channel, made by people who describe themselves as running a trading education team. That does not make the claims false, but it means the only check available is the speaker's word. The last two rows come from published reports, and they describe markets, not Rihari.

The article draws no conclusion about whether Rihari's figures are accurate. It also draws none about the effectiveness of any strategy, course, signal service or community mentioned in the video. It does not extend any single figure into a claim about typical results.

What do independent sources say about the risks of trading?

ASIC Report 828: Risky business records that 68% of Australian retail CFD investors lost money in the 2024 financial year. That is a population statistic about CFD investors, not a measure of Rihari's results, and the video does not say which product he trades.

The BIS 2025 Triennial Survey reports average daily OTC foreign-exchange turnover of US$9.6 trillion in April 2025. The figure measures trading volume across the market, not profit for any trader. It does not verify or dispute Rihari's view that the market is driven by human psychology, and it says nothing about any individual outcome.

What each statistic does not show:

• The ASIC figure covers Australian retail CFD investors in one financial year. It does not describe a named trader, other countries, other products or later years. Rihari describes himself as based in New Zealand, so the figure is context, not a description of his market.
• The BIS figure is a measure of market scale. A large market does not tell a reader whether any one trader, strategy or account size can be profitable.

Rihari's own remarks on difficulty are attributed to him and are not independent evidence. He says trading is the hardest thing mentally to get through and that watching hundreds or thousands of dollars go into drawdown is what many people cannot handle. He says people see profits but not the work behind them, and that the misconception is how easy it can be, though he says it can be “so emotionally draining”. He says he has had rough times at the computer. He also says many people compare trading to gambling, and that waiting for a setup is the hardest part for beginners.

Treat any trading profit story as one person's unaudited account. Before relying on one, a reader can ask:

• What was the account size, and was it live or funded?
• Over what period, and net or gross of losses, fees and swaps?
• What position sizes and risk per trade were used?
• Is there a broker statement or third-party tracking record covering the whole period, including losing trades?
• What do independent statistics, such as the two above, say about the group the trader belongs to?

This article is education, not personal advice. It does not promise income, investment returns or safety, and it does not suggest that anyone will repeat the results Rihari describes.