Cooltraderdude's TopstepTrader Combine (daily trade report and journal)

[Maverick74]

Quote from Ol' Yella:

You guys are depressing...

Anyone out there making profits in the combine?

We actually have a few ET'ers who have passed that are live. I'm not going to volunteer them though. They can come out when they want. They are in the top 5%!!!!!

 

[CoolTraderDude]

Quote from Maverick74:


Look, this cool trader guy is EXACTLY why guys should not fund their own accounts until they are consistent. He tried to catch a falling knife and scaled into the ES while it fell off a cliff. If they didn't shut him down he would have kept holding. Why should this guy use his own money while he has not even perfected his trading yet. Hell this guy didn't even know how to roll his futures contracts. I'm not trying to pick on him but you would be amazed how many people fund accounts and don't even know the basics of futures 101. It makes no sense to blow through 10k or 20k of your own money when you can work on your game for a few hundred bucks. Then once you get your shit together, go fund yourself. Nobody is making anybody do anything here. It's your choice.

Quit knocking me on that... I already told everyone... I'm a high frequency equity scalper...! First time scalping futures...

Let me explain something to everyone about the Combine... In gambling there's a "POINT OF NO RETURN"... This means that you either make it or you don't. That's why you see poker players go all in without even seeing a card... Your equity gets so low that it no longer matters.

In Combine, I was going to lose anyway... Combine trading has a goal and the payout is specific... Doesn't matter if you lose by $1 or by $1000... You still lose 100%! You can lose by a little or by a lot failure is still failure so you might as well go for it. I think most of you guys don't know how gambling and statistics work.

I was in my fifth day... Finishing that day down was not an option because I would fail the Combine with 100 % certainty, if I did.

I went for it... Had the market turned I would have looked like a genius... It didn't... I blew up...! That's about it...

 

[CoolTraderDude]

Quote from hitnrun:

ptp is not a true propreitary futures firm

sure there are many deals on the street in chicago or wherever

I have heard of deals with real futures props where the traders pay rock bottom rates & trade size for ticks

most of the firms you talk about are true propreitary firms right ?

we have to compare apples to apples ,
these guys offer a hybrid model at best . designed for beginners

ptp has only a small number of profitable live accounts, that has to tell us something about how the transaction costs affect the pnl

at the end of the day , how much you pay in transaction cost is going to affect your profitability

at $ 5.00 r/t that is a tough nut to overcome for new traders to have a chance to be in the green monthly

It's tough for even pro's depending on your style of trading

ptp rates are very high & is a challenge for most to overcome with giving up 40 % of profits

no wonder most don't make any money with live accounts
trading is tough enough without all the high costs involved to take a shot

this is a bad deal , for any profitable trader with skin in the game

They're a proprietary firm with different rules... Michael made it clear to me on the phone that rates make a differene... so I can't complain.

I payed about 20-30 % of my profits and losses to commissions... That's a damn hard negative edge against you to overcome...!

Quote from Maverick74:

Joe, you do realize that a majority of ET'ers trading futures are paying nosebleed rates with TOS and IB right? Very few guys on here actually have accounts with Velocity or Advantage. BTW, I don't think TST is looking for scalpers. I honestly don't even know how a scalper would pass the combine based on the metrics. Furthermore, I think the way to beat the combine is to make as few trades as possible holding for bigger winners. I think cool trader was onto that before he blew out. Why would you want to try scalping against the HFT firms anyway? I can't think of a single discretionary futures trader who is a profitable scalper. I really think commissions is a moot point. You need to trade for the bigger moves. I mean that's just my opinion, but I'm pretty sure I'm right on this.

Sure I was on to that... My way of trading is dying out for sure. But swinging big with 1 trade a day is also hit or miss... You also pay the same commissions against you but most people don't get that. Negative sum, means negative sum...

The thing with scalping is that you get more chances at the bat to get profitable... Unless you bleed to death with too many small losses...! :eek:

 

[Maverick74]

Quote from CoolTraderDude:

Quit knocking me on that... I already told everyone... I'm a high frequency equity scalper...! First time scalping futures...

Let me explain something to everyone about the Combine... In gambling there's a "POINT OF NO RETURN"... This means that you either make it or you don't. That's why you see poker players go all in without even seeing a card... Your equity gets so low that it no longer matters.

In Combine, I was going to lose anyway... Combine trading has a goal and the payout is specific... Doesn't matter if you lose by $1 or by $1000... You still lose 100%! You can lose by a little or by a lot failure is still failure so you might as well go for it. I think most of you guys don't know how gambling and statistics work.

I was in my fifth day... Finishing that day down was not an option because I would fail the Combine with 100 % certainty, if I did.

I went for it... Had the market turned I would have looked like a genius... It didn't... I blew up...! That's about it...

So as a point of reference for anyone out there thinking of doing a combine, please disregard everything this guy just said. The purpose of a combine is not to PASS, it's to improve your trading. There is no "point of no return" as he puts it. This is NOT real money. Therefore you don't have to make it back. The point is build good trading habits, not swing for the fences so you can pass some arbitrary metrics. This guy is a gambler, not a trader. And his knowledge of stats is piss poor to boot. If you are playing a game with negative edge, the optimal strategy is either not to play or play once. Every further bet you make increases your negative expectancy. When you are scalping with futures and paying the spread, the more trades you make, the less the probability you have of making money. The opposite is true when you earn the spread. As a market maker, you want to make as many bets as possible knowing that over (n) number of trades your probability of winning increases.

Anyway, I digress. The reason traders fail at trading is because they can't see the forest through the trees. They are too focused on the big score or making back losses or hitting some arbitrary number ie 1k a day. Trading is about consistency. It's about developing good habits. Over and over. Who cares if you pass the combine. Do it again. And again. And again. Form good habits. One could easily pass the combine with bad habits and bad trading out of sheer luck and what do you think will happen when he goes live? He will fail. So what's the point? Nobody does a combine simply to pass a combine. They do a combine because they want to "improve" their trading. Not go for broke. Let this guy's trading be a lesson to all new traders out there.

 

[CoolTraderDude]

Quote from Maverick74:

So as a point of reference for anyone out there thinking of doing a combine, please disregard everything this guy just said. The purpose of a combine is not to PASS, it's to improve your trading. There is no "point of no return" as he puts it. This is NOT real money. Therefore you don't have to make it back. The point is build good trading habits, not swing for the fences so you can pass some arbitrary metrics. This guy is a gambler, not a trader. And his knowledge of stats is piss poor to boot. If you are playing a game with negative edge, the optimal strategy is either not to play or play once. Every further bet you make increases your negative expectancy. When you are scalping with futures and paying the spread, the more trades you make, the less the probability you have of making money. The opposite is true when you earn the spread. As a market maker, you want to make as many bets as possible knowing that over (n) number of trades your probability of winning increases.

The point of the Combine is to pass so you get funded... Anybody not going for the prize is wasing their time and money... If you don't get funded or make it to a roll you fail at the game and you lose your deposit.

You're playing a negative sum game as well... You're trading 10 days... You're not allowed to just make 1 bet and then hope it works out. You'll be making a minimum of 10 bets... Obviously, you didn't think things through.

 

[Maverick74]

Quote from CoolTraderDude:

The point of the Combine is to pass so you get funded... Anybody not going for the prize is wasing their time and money... If you don't get funded or make it to a roll you fail at the game and you lose your deposit.

You're playing a negative sum game as well... You're trading 10 days... You're not allowed to just make 1 bet and then hope it works out. You'll be making a minimum of 10 bets... Obviously, you didn't think things through.

No, the goal is not to get funded. The goal is to become a consistently profitable trader. Getting funded is a byproduct of that. You are going about this the wrong way. What good is it if you get funded and can't trade? Have you thought "that" through? As far as negative sum, yes you have 10 days, so treat every day as a trade. The point is not whether or not you make 1 trade or 5k. The point is, the fewer trades you make with negative edge, the better. And certainly the more trades you make with negative only increases your chance of ruin. You are probably the reason why most guys who get lucky and pass the combine end up being sent right back down. Because they are not trying to become a consistently profitable trader, they are trying to win a stupid combine.

 

[CoolTraderDude]

Quote from Maverick74:

No, the goal is not to get funded. The goal is to become a consistently profitable trader. Getting funded is a byproduct of that. You are going about this the wrong way. What good is it if you get funded and can't trade? Have you thought that "that" through? As far as negative sum, yes you have 10 trades, so treat every day as a trade. The point is not whether or not you make 1 trade or 5k. The point is, the fewer trades you make with negative edge, the better. And certainly the more trades you make with negative only increases your chance of ruin. You are probably the reason why most guys who get lucky and pass the combine end up being sent right back down. Because they are not trying to become a consistently profitable trader, they are trying to win a stupid combine.

I could probably argue with you about this all day... I'll just say that negative sum, means negative sum regardless of how many trades you do once you do more than one trade. Your example with one trade/one bet only applies to 50/50 games like roulette where you're betting red or black and you don't pay commission.

Doing more trades in a day definitely increased my commissions and took that negative P/L up against me... I know that... Don't worry. But the odds and commission remain the same for every trade... You can't get around that, it just isn't possible.

 

[Maverick74]

Quote from CoolTraderDude:

I could probably argue with you about this all day... I'll just say that negative sum, means negative sum regardless of how many trades you do once you do more than one trade. Your example with one trade/one bet only applies to 50/50 games like roulette where you're betting red or black and you don't pay commission.

Doing more trades in a day definitely increased my commissions and took that negative P/L up against me... I know that... Don't worry. But the odds and commission remain the same for every trade... You can't get around that, it just isn't possible.

Of course each trade is independent. But over a large number of trades your "total probability" is getting worse. How do you think insurance companies make money or option market makers? Any one trade or policy can blow up in their face, but over a large amount of trades or polices, they are going to make money.

 

[CoolTraderDude]

Quote from Maverick74:

Of course each trade is independent. But over a large number of trades your "total probability" is getting worse. How do you think insurance companies make money or option market makers? Any one trade or policy can blow up in their face, but over a large amount of trades or polices, they are going to make money.

You're close... Your total loss gets worse but your probability remains the same.



Nevermind I'm reviewing my probabilities right now...

 

[Maverick74]

Quote from CoolTraderDude:

You're close... Your total loss gets worse but your probability remains the same.

A total probability example over 10 trades at pobability of 4.9/10... we figure -.1 due to commission down from 5/10 or 1/2...

4.9/10 + 4.9/10 + 4.9/10 ... etc... = 49/100 = 4.9/10

Meant to say total loss. Look man, I don't want to keep arguing this with you. You said you were going to quit trading and look for a job. Sounds like a good plan for you. I've been trading for over a decade and thankfully, still profitable. You can keep making excuses. The bottom line is, you went about this entirely wrong and I think it explains why your better days are behind you. You have a gamblers mentality. Gamblers NEVER win over the long run in trading. The best thing for you at this point is to get a job. Nothing wrong with that. I'm only making these comments for the other readers of this thread so they know what NOT to do. I've said this for years as I use to run a prop office and mentor traders, this business is not about making money. It's about perfecting a process and being consistent. If you do that, making money is a byproduct of that. Going for the kill, doubling down, averaging into losers and taking shots should be left for Vegas. At least you can have some drinks, get a few girls and have some money and write it off as an expense. This is a business. And it has to be treated like one. It doesn't matter if you are doing a combine, work at a prop firm or trading a retail account. I have been preaching this for over a decade and I'll preach it for another decade. Stop trying to rationalize your failure. To your credit, you stopped bad mouthing TST and gave a fair review. So your obligation to this is over. Time to move on to better things in your life.