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

[Maverick74]

Quote from icarus618:

I know you are in competition with him, but this is not about Surf. LOL

I don't want to personalize it so that's probably why you think I'm not answering your question. Let me try again.

You keep bringing up the purpose thing. What purpose does it serve to fund someone and just send him back willy-nilly? It serves no purpose to do that. However, I would think that objective performance criteria are in place for sending someone back after funding the person. I haven't read the website so I do not know that, but I cannot see how their business model would be viable otherwise. You cannot just hire and fire people willy-nilly in this country without legal repercussions. Since I have a feeling you will think I'm not answering your question, why don't you make certain that they can do what you suggest before you assume it can be done.

Regarding what a person can get out of being funded after passing the combine even though he "will never see a check in his hand": How do you know he will never see a check in his hand? Are you prescient? By your judgment, the person shouldn't have passed the combine, but he did.

I suggested that a person can extract 14 points per contract ES on a couple of trend days and scratch the remaining days in order to pass the combine and get funded. The owner of the combine and a site sponsor objects to my suggestion as being ineligible for funding based on "scouting criteria" and ET's Number One Shill for the combine says that is gaming the system and would serve no purpose to fund such a person because he won't see a check.

Just another day on ET.

LOL. Let's try using your own words. My whole response to you was based on "your" post listed below:

Quote from icarus618:

The combine is a game. A straightforward plan to win would be to hit $3500 reasonably quickly and then just do wash trades the rest of the days. There are no bonus points for exceeding $3500.

Since 30 days are allowed to trade 10, and off days need not be announced in advance, one strategy would be to wait for a trend day to set up in the stock index futures to trade the AM session. With 5 contracts, that's 14 points per contract ES. Two or three sessions would likely do it, and then the player should "run out the clock" with wash trades the rest of the way.

In my opinion, going for a specific daily profit target over 10 days is very poor strategy.

Run out the clock? Wash trades? That's not trading and THAT is what I was responding to. And my whole argument was based on the idea that one was "intentionally" doing this because they knew they would never pass the combine outside of this "wash" strategy. So my question to you was based on the idea that if one knew that they could NEVER pass this and had to resort to "gaming" the combine, what end purpose would that ultimately serve. I was narrowly focusing on just "this" example.

 

[austinp]

Quote from Samsara:

Starting to see your point. You're paying $ with the expectation of potential gain if you meet x criteria. If those criteria are subjective, then your contribution is at infinite risk, regardless of your performance.

The only way to keep this above the level is to remove all subjectivity and to delineate exactly what, in the minds of the funders, defines a trader worth funding.

The parameters are spelled out before anyone pays... so they either free-will choose to pay and play acordingly, or walk away

Apparently icarus either has me on ignore or simply prefers to think himself right rather than acknowledge the facts.

Bottom line, this is a free-will venture. Read the rules, agree to and participate or disagree and walk away. Those outside the process who insist on persisting a bitchfest about it are stereotypical ET... not those who are inside

 

[Samsara]

Quote from austinp:

The parameters are spelled out before anyone pays... so they either free-will choose to pay and play acordingly, or walk away

Apparently icarus either has me on ignore or simply prefers to think himself right rather than acknowledge the facts.

Bottom line, this is a free-will venture. Read the rules, agree to and participate or disagree and walk away. Those outside the process who insist on persisting a bitchfest about it are stereotypical ET... not those who are inside

Well, as I noted before, I think it's a great business model for a prop firm.

But I think he's got a fair point about the rules. If a contribution is required, then there's a lot heavier burden concerning delineating <i>exactly</i> what criteria defines a trader worth funding. If there's subjectivty there, it's gotta be made objective. I recognize that a swing-for-the-fences trader, even if s/he meets the criteria, is not worth funding. But that burden's on those who make the rules, not the trader, <i>if</i> the latter is forking over $.

It's been a while since I've had to dip into the state laws of this kind of structure but I'd expect there are liability issues there.

 

[austinp]

Quote from ammo:

because when you paid in, this became a lottery and it is a contest,rules should be spelled out,they are not really giving you 50k, they are giving you a 5 lot max and a 1k stop,it might be a $500 stop,in es that's less than 20k margin ,and their risk is 1k,about the deposit of 5-7 entrants out of 200-500,per month

how does it become a lottery when someone pays in? there's no connection to fee-based participation and "lottery"... the parameters of participation and qualification are clearly spelled out.

fwiw: the carbon arrows and broadheads on my bow to hunt deer cost more than $175 alone. sheesh!

who gives a shit how much capital is actually allotted behind contract limits? Give me 5 or 10 or 15 CL contracts to clear and I don't care if they have to fund the account every time I take a loss on the front end. What difference does that make to me?

so long as the contracts clear, I'm happy. Whether there is $10,000 or $1mil behind it is irrelevant to me.

 

[trendlover]

I really think to have 30 days to trade 10 days of the trader's choice is not showing what is the potential of the trader. That time can not show is luck or skill.

 

[icarus618]

Quote from Maverick74:

LOL. Let's try using your own words. My whole response to you was based on "your" post listed below:



Run out the clock? Wash trades? That's not trading and THAT is what I was responding to. And my whole argument was based on the idea that one was "intentionally" doing this because they knew they would never pass the combine outside of this "wash" strategy. So my question to you was based on the idea that if one knew that they could NEVER pass this and had to resort to "gaming" the combine, what end purpose would that ultimately serve. I was narrowly focusing on just "this" example.

Why would you ass/u/me that the person would never pass the combine outside of the strategy I suggested?

Of course my strategy is intentional. It is based on how the stock indices operate and focused on the goal of getting funded. I make the assumption that a person paying for the combine wants to get funded and get paid to trade rather than listen to someone with a trading account pontificate about the benefits of doing the combine as a poor person.

The combine's rules are contrived. The profit goal of $3500 on $50,000 over 10 days is a contrived goal. (The additional specified limit of 5 contracts of anything when there is already a hypothetical account balance makes no sense and is just plain dumb.)

If the market is moving, the goal can be had in a day or two or, to be conservative, three. Recognizing those days and holding through the entire AM to extract what the market is offering requires knowledge, skill, and experience that is evidently beyond the combine owner and the scouts who work for him.

Washing is also a skill that is lost on them. Washing means covering the cost of the trade. For people who think winning% is important, they can count the wash as a winner. The combine people have no category for wash trades; no doubt they would count the wash as a winning trade.

Therefore, I will restate my suggestion:

1. Wait for a trend day to set up in the stock indices.

2. Trade the AMs of trend days and extract the 14 points per contract on 5 contracts ES on those days. Two or three trend AMs should do it.

3. After 70 ES points are extracted, don't wait for trend days but execute brief winning trades to run out the remainder of the 10 days that are not needed. These brief winning trades will ramp up the winning% to an extraordinary level and make you look like a superstar to the scouts who don't know that these are not good trades.

 

[ammo]

Quote from austinp:

how does it become a lottery when someone pays in? there's no connection to fee-based participation and "lottery"... the parameters of participation and qualification are clearly spelled out.

fwiw: the carbon arrows and broadheads on my bow to hunt deer cost more than $175 alone. sheesh!

who gives a shit how much capital is actually allotted behind contract limits? Give me 5 or 10 or 15 CL contracts to clear and I don't care if they have to fund the account every time I take a loss on the front end. What difference does that make to me?

so long as the contracts clear, I'm happy. Whether there is $10,000 or $1mil behind it is irrelevant to me.

when you pay ,you enter a contract, they take the money and offer you something in return, you can sim on your own for free,they should honor it with out reserve ,if they are above board, they already have it so tipped in their favor,the 95% who were never going to make it and they've reduced the chances of a good trader by tieing his hands with size and loss parameters and 50% winning days ,so forth so on..I realize it's a work in progress, but that point should not be soft

 

[volente_00]

Quote from Maverick74:

I'm saying, let's say Surf did not get knocked out. He games the system. Makes 7k in one day and losses the rest but somehow qualifies. What is he suppose to do when he goes live? Can you answer me this?

What you are suggesting would work if there was a cash prize for hitting the mark. Let's say he would get 10k in cash if he "wins" right? Fine, game it all you want. But my point is, you don't win anything by passing the combine and they could give him a live account and send him down immediately after losing money. So what exactly is the point to this? You can't seem to answer that.

I don't support anything btw. I'm simply telling you what is on their website. That's not up for debate. What is up for debate is what would be the purpose of a trader who can't trade to game the system. I'm all ears man.

why does it matter ?


Why does it matter if he makes 7000 on one day and scratches or loses less than 200 on the other 9 ?


In the real world what matters is if you are profitable over the long haul.

It's not really important if your win rate is 90% or 20% as long as your methodology has a positive expectancy and prints money consistently over the long haul.


There are many different ways to be successful at trading.

There is no black and white one size fits everybody criteria

That is what makes trading hard because often people will try to emulate a style that works for someone else but at the same time that style does not mesh with their personality and causes them to fail

 

[londonkid]

strong words but....

some people will never be profitable traders because they poison themselves from the start by not having the ability to FOCUS ON WHAT MATTERS AND IGNORING WHAT DOESN'T MATTER. If left unchecked the human mind will wander around continually looking for 'answers' raising more questions and noise.

For people on this thread to even spend 1 millisecond of time discussing whether legal action is possible to get through the combine on a technicality is beyond a joke. for christ's sake who cares. if you cant work out that that doesn't matter then just give up, seriously just go an get a 9-5 where you can bitch and moan during your coffee break.

Personally I think the combine is a fantastic concept, it's not for everyone, I wont be doing it but it gives people a track to run on. It gives structure to the average joe sat at home on their own trying to learn how to trade.

New traders who have no structure left unchecked will most likely fail, giving them a set of rules to follow to see if they can follow them is a test in itself. Of course we know the average Joe will not read the rules properly and just plough on regardless then likely bitch and moan when they fail. Then it will be 'the rules need changing' lol. give me a frickin break.

People these days are more lazy than ever, I tell you there is a lot of dumb money in the market and if people were just disciplined and focused they can extract money from the market every day.

If I started my own combine and said GOAL is: all you have to do is 10 trades, enter at random and you can only take a 2 tick loser or a 3 tick winner, no other result. I guarantee most people would not be able to do that, they would let one of the losing trades run, let one of the winners run. It's all a game about controlling yourself that's what people dont get. Of the few people who can actually do that initial goal then just add in some rules for getting a 'low risk' entry and a directional bias and that's it you are now profitable. (make sure you trade an instrument where you can get your round turn cost to <15% of the tick size)

I cant remember if it was on this thread or somewhere else but someone was talking about obese people. It was a great analogy. It's like everyone knows they are supposed to have 2500 calories per day and do light exercise 3 times a week, how damn simple can it be, yet 30%+ people are the size of a frickin house and cant control themselves. put the cake down !!!!!!!!!!! oh wait it's not your fault, some people will go and sue the cake company 'they made me eat it', sue the government 'they didn't tell me I should only eat 2500 calories at school so therefore they are to blame'. I am suing you because I ate 2499 calories for a week and put on weight, you gave me wrong advice, now I cant fit out my front door and they have to cut off the side of the house to get me out. give me a fkin break

Then we get the shower of people saying 'the only winner is TST', since when is making money in this world a crime? get over it. if you dont like it start your own business, make some money for yourself.

Rant over, I feel much better now.

carry on as you were lol

 

[austinp]

Quote from ammo:

when you pay ,you enter a contract, they take the money and offer you something in return,

what they offer in return is an opportunity to meet their position interview requirements. that's all.

if you don't want to interview for the position and all of it's prestated conditions, keep your paltry fee.

if you want to enter and participate within the prestated guidelines, pay up and play.

how simple is that to grasp for everyone?