Maverick74 and marketsurfer's TopstepTrader Combine (daily trade reports and journal)
- Thread starter TST_Hoag
- Start date
I tried splitting my focus between usual trading thru ninja and combine trading thru T4... did a poor job of execution in both.
Tomorrow I'm set to begin a ten-day, $150k project and that will have my complete focus other than CL trading for myself. The -$3,000 / +$12,000 parameters are plenty on either side for risk-reward. The -$1,000 daily is not enough room for multiple CL contracts and I do not trade just one contract in/out for my own style of execution.
imo if someone does not take this project dead-serious, they will not succeed. If someone takes it seriously, they have a good chance to succeed. What happens after the conbine completion remains to be seen. I'm just dedicating the next ten sessions past this one to that, and we'll see how it shakes out then.
the attraction is mostly psychological: that's what everyone talks about and reads about, therefore the only way to "measure up" is play the same game.
imo ES is the worst possible symbol for individual traders to try and profit from. But its popular allure trumps reality of price action and actual results in traders' account balances as stone cold proof.
Quote from austinp:
Why would it be any easier trading strictly and correctly in sim versus cash? Other than the mental aspect, which of course has nothing to do with a methodology or system on its own.
Markets don't know and don't care if a trader pushes buttons in sim or cash. This program does not reward sim traders who dick around with martingales, plunging or faking it. Therefore, the degree of difficulty is very parallel between sim and cash... as always, when accountability is the same
There's lots if guys who have serious issues with money. Most have never made or lost money so quickly then in the futures
markets-- they can't handle it ad they gave been taught "work" for money rather than gamer like talent. That's why there's a difference for many between sim and real. surf
Whoa, that's some serious parameters you have set for yourself. Please post your daily results here, trade or no trade, looking forward to it. Need to give you major props for stepping up to the plate in public with full transparency--- good luck! surf
I'll do that... and there will be trades every day. I'm going to work with CL and ZS in equal fashion, sometimes NQ added if conditions warrant. Next week 10/18 - 10/19 is monthly CL rollover, it often gets squirrely then. ZS sometimes makes a lock-limit move this time of the year. So NQ will be my backup, TF is apparently not available to work with.
If I do my part, we'll finish profitable and hopefully within performance parameters. If I break discipline and tilt, it'll cost me $350. I look at is as I'm trading for a $150,000 "profit" for ten sessions' "work".
That's as far ahead as I'm looking with this project from here. At the end of ten sessions on Tuesday 10/23 we'll see where it all shakes out. Simple as that
Man what a dead day. Five handle range in the ES. Bond market closed. Should have known. One trade in crude for a 20 tick loser. Even that trade took a half an hour to lose 20 ticks. Crude usually moves 20 ticks in each five minute bar. This is basically a market where you just don't trade. Especially if you are a momentum trader. Unfortunately I need volatility to generate p&l. So this is basically a course in not losing your ass when volatility is dead. I remember back in the old days we use to have volatility in October. LOL.