Maverick74 and marketsurfer's TopstepTrader Combine (daily trade reports and journal)

Quote from Maverick74:

Let's put a number on a long time. I have only traded futures once in my life for daytrading and that was 4 years ago. I think it's a good point of reference for people to gauge how hard this combine is. I'm not the best barometer at this point because I just don't have enough hours in this yet.

My guess is, I could pass this combine but I would need probably 4 to 6 more to get there. As I've said before, this is a marathon, not a sprint. Futures trade very different then stocks. I spent two years daytrading stocks. Even that took me 6 months to get profitable and I spent 4 to 5 hours every night going over the tape from each day. It's all about putting in enough screen time.
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Bright and many others I have talked with make it very clear that most accessible edges are in the stock and stock option market rather than futures. Would you agree with this?

With that said, I also believe I could pass the combine criteria provided 3 to 6 more shots at it. How long I could last afterwards day trading oil wold be entirely dependent on controlling greed. surf
 
Quote from austinp:

forever, is the answer

for the life of me I cannot think of a futures symbol that sucks any worse for profitable trading than ES right now. it is hands down the worst short-term trading symbol with by far the largest percentage of losing traders wallowing in that mire
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sorry, just my opinion. have you ever traded prop?
oil traders retire soon they say ..... :)

good luck
 
Quote from marketsurfer:

Bright and many others I have talked with make it very clear that most accessible edges are in the stock and stock option market rather than futures. Would you agree with this?
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Not anymore. I think "most" of the stock edges are gone. Even the biggest HFT firms are only making fractions of a penny now per share. But they do millions of shares a day so the p&l looks sexy. It's very deceiving. Ten years ago there were so many edges in stocks the hard part was focusing on which edge you wanted to focus on.

The "true" edge Surf is in the basis trade. Always has been the case. We're talking about the "physicals" here. I stated that on one of the older TST threads. It was also the advice I gave to any young people still in school and just starting out. Get into the physical market and don't touch stocks!!!!
 
Quote from Maverick74:

Not anymore. I think "most" of the stock edges are gone. Even the biggest HFT firms are only making fractions of a penny now per share. But they do millions of shares a day so the p&l looks sexy. It's very deceiving. Ten years ago there were so many edges in stocks the hard part was focusing on which edge you wanted to focus on.

The "true" edge Surf is in the basis trade. Always has been the case. We're talking about the "physicals" here. I stated that on one of the older TST threads. It was also the advice I gave to any young people still in school and just starting out. Get into the physical market and don't touch stocks!!!!
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Thanks for the knowledge-- it has been several years since my info was updated on such things.

I got majorly burned in an investment in redk*te physical copper fund. ( farmer) Those guys have. Huge huge edge with stockpiles etc--- but we still lost our shirts.
 
Quote from eagle11:

sorry, just my opinion. have you ever traded prop?
oil traders retire soon they say ..... :)

good luck
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no offense, eagle... I meant none either. no apology necessary :)

I began trading OEX and SPX options in 1999. Went to ES futures in 2002, ER2 futures in 2004, good dose of FX along the way. Dabbled with bond futures, traded quite a bit of 6E and NQ as well.

Started trading CL in 2010, part-time alongside TF and ES. Same this year, back & forth between CL and eminis. Now I am focused on CL first, ZS and NQ as secondary symbols. Both are good, 6E is good... but I cannot concentrate on more than two symbols max intraday.

**

Futures trading is no different to me than stock trading... but stock traders have a hard time with futures, generally. The reverse is not true.

Stock traders usually gravitate towards mean reversion tactics but that don't work overall in futures. Trend - direction - momentum trading is what works in futures, long term.

For the veteran stock traders who fondly recall 1998 thru 2002 and again 2008 - 2009 as the glory days of huge $$ ranges and high volatility? That's what CL trading is all the time. Has been that way for years, will continue to be this way for years.

Actually, recent price action (including today) has generally sucked. Wait until the next $10 - $15 trend move with $4,000 and $5,000 per contract daily ranges. That's when CL block trading gets real interesting :)
 
Quote from Maverick74:

When Michael called me I warned him about this. I told him that the "other" message board (BM) was a much better venue for this as the maturity level is much higher. I have no idea why that is. Most message boards have a pretty low common denominator. For some reason BM is a higher quality. But regardless, Michael assured me the trolling would not bother him.

I know people say this a lot, that ET was much better years ago, but it really is true. I challenge anyone to go back into the old archives and find any thread where people behaved so childishly. It simply didn't exist. And I'm talking about the period from 1999 to 2004. If I were Baron I would sell the site and just dump it.
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Well how about that!

I mentioned 'BM' the other day for the very same points, i.e the crap on this thread would not be seen or tolerated on the TST saga, and it got deleted by Magna.

Must be having a day off today.

:D
 
Quote from Maverick74:

I think it's a good point of reference for people to gauge how hard this combine is.
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This combine is damn hard because it mirrors real money in every way. Anyone who dicks around in sim and thinks this is similar will be sadly mistaken. It has rigid structure and 3rd party oversight. There are no do-overs if you lapse and screw up.

In my case, I've got 1,000 - 1,300+ hits per day on a blog where I'd really rather not post something like, "Well folks, I screwed the pooch on this one. Thought I could make it work, but I finished down -$20,000 and washed out"

The personal pride factor is added pressure for me... self-imposed. So I can't complain about something I chose to create. That said, I'm under way more public scrutiny than what's here in this thread.

Overall for anyone else? If you can skillfully trade futures you can pass this combine. If you're not sure, the process will give invaluable feedback you cannot get from random sim programs on your own.

imo this is every bit as tough as trading real money, once a trader gets over the real-money anxiety in our profession
 
Quote from austinp:

This combine is damn hard because it mirrors real money in every way. Anyone who dicks around in sim and thinks this is similar will be sadly mistaken. It has rigid structure and 3rd party oversight. There are no do-overs if you lapse and screw up.

In my case, I've got 1,000 - 1,300+ hits per day on a blog where I'd really rather not post something like, "Well folks, I screwed the pooch on this one. Thought I could make it work, but I finished down -$20,000 and washed out"

The personal pride factor is added pressure for me... self-imposed. So I can't complain about something I chose to create. That said, I'm under way more public scrutiny than what's here in this thread.

Overall for anyone else? If you can skillfully trade futures you can pass this combine. If you're not sure, the process will give invaluable feedback you cannot get from random sim programs on your own.

imo this is every bit as tough as trading real money, once a trader gets over the real-money anxiety in our profession
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Amen, brother. I concur 100% having played the game. surf
 
Quote from austinp:

no offense, eagle... I meant none either. no apology necessary :)


Actually, recent price action (including today) has generally sucked. Wait until the next $10 - $15 trend move with $4,000 and $5,000 per contract daily ranges. That's when CL block trading gets real interesting :)
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I disagree.
Traders who know how to trade bounded markets will succeed over the time.

ht

eagle 11
 
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