Patak, math and opportunity....

Quote from Jtrader342:

Interesting on the time factor in the combine. I was under the impression that you had to trade AT LEAST that many days within the given time period. ie: You have 30 days to meet the profit level within the requirements and you have to trade on at least 10 of those days.

I thought the idea behind it was so that you did not have to force trades on days that were not conducive to trading. Will have to look into that.

Thanks,
Jeremy
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It is currently not "AT LEAST" ten days or twenty days, it's "ONLY" ten days or twenty days, no less, no more. The combine would shut off after your 10th day of trading on the 10 day combine, and on the 20th day of trading on the 20 day combine. You can still use their chat room, even if you finish the combine early.

So the idea is you DO have to "force" trades, especially if you take a draw, since you have to make up for the average p&l on the remaining days. If you're watching the market for the entire calendar month in order to find those ten days which are conducive to trading, then my suggestion was for TST to allow a trader to trade on ANY of those days, with a MINIMUM of 10 days.

Remember, the average p&l is NET of commissions. So on the 50k 10 day combine, it's not $350/day, it's $350/day NET of commissions. If you're trading the max 5 lots r/t per day, then ADD $25/day to that number, for a $375/day average p&l. The more contracts you trade, the greater your avg needs to be in order to meet the objective. Therefore, if you have a draw in just one or two days, the average goes up incrementally more.

This is probably why the majority of traders who pass the combine are trading CL, since it's one of the most volatile products. If TST simply allowed traders to trade ANY day of the calendar month, while keeping the minimum 10 days and the other parameters, then traders would probably be inclined to trade other products that aren't as volatile.
 
Quote from Maverick74:

I think if there is one thing ALL of us agree on here, is that Oil is going to give you the best shot at hitting those numbers. Oil moves about 2k a day per contract and that's with a narrow ATR. It can get up to 4k or 5k when it's volatile.
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I definitely agree. Given all the recently funded CL traders, perhaps TST will change their motto from "Become A Successful Futures Trader" to "Become a Successful CL Trader".

:D
 
Playing around with 6E with an entry of 12833, a stop of 12826 and a initial target of 12846. So far doing OK.

Actually the T4 is not horrible once you play around with it live. A few things I have not figured out yet, but right now all I need it to be able to buy/sell and set a stop. I see where it can be collared, but I didn't figure out how to actually get it to execute the order.

This is actually much easier execution wise than my equities trading. I like it.

Thanks,
Jeremy

P.S.---I'll post how it turns out
 
You are knocking on open doors....

Quote from ScalperJoe:

then my suggestion was for TST to allow a trader to trade on ANY of those days, with a MINIMUM of 10 days.
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You are misunderstanding something. They allow you to trade on ANY of those days. If there are more than 10 days for you that you can make the daily average (1 ES pt per car), good for you, but really, it is not needed. You probably already made it in your 10 days.... So you are complaining about a nonexisting problem...

I guess tha point of them making the trader to trade at least 10 days to show that the strategy is a valid one and that the opportunity to use it comes up fairly often, and it wasn't just 2-3 lucky trades that made him pass the profit level. Also, they want you to pick the best opportunities and not to overtrade....

Now there could be a trader with a strategy what's opportunity comes up only twice a month but still makes 5-5 pts, thus he would clear the profit level ( again, 1 pt per day per car) but he would have to force himself to trade the other 8 days. For a strategy like that, the forced days are a disadvantage...
 
Quote from Jtrader342:

I think I'm in love.......
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Although your enthusiasm for the game is endearing, I think you are over complicating the approach. I will simplify it for you, using the ES:

Out of the 8 Combines in 4 you have to make 1 ES pt/day/car. In 3 you have to make a little more, in 1 a little less. But basicly that is it, 1 ES per day per car, for 10/20 days, without losing more than 4 pts. (in 2 Combines it is a bit less 3.3 pts)

So all those spread sheets won't do any good for you if you can't make 1 ES point a day. You should adjust the spread sheet.

I mentioned it earlier, if the 4 pts stop loss is too tight, one can use less contracts, but obviously the profitgoal will go up. So if you use 5 cars instead of 10, you need to make now 2 ES pts per day per car, but your stop loss goes up to 8 pts....
 
How can one observe total volume on an hourly basis in order to determine when a particular market is active? While the futures markets are mostly open 23hrs a day, I would think some markets are more active during different time zones depending on who is trading them.

ie:
6E is actively trading right now, but ES and CL seem "asleep".

I assume this is because domestic traders and institutions are not in business hours. Foreign markets however are and actively trading.

Guess I can look for the Nikkei alittle later...

Thanks,
J.
 
Quote from Pekelo:

You are knocking on open doors....



You are misunderstanding something. They allow you to trade on ANY of those days. If there are more than 10 days for you that you can make the daily average (1 ES pt per car), good for you, but really, it is not needed. You probably already made it in your 10 days.... So you are complaining about a nonexisting problem...

I guess tha point of them making the trader to trade at least 10 days to show that the strategy is a valid one and that the opportunity to use it comes up fairly often, and it wasn't just 2-3 lucky trades that made him pass the profit level. Also, they want you to pick the best opportunities and not to overtrade....

Now there could be a trader with a strategy what's opportunity comes up only twice a month but still makes 5-5 pts, thus he would clear the profit level ( again, 1 pt per day per car) but he would have to force himself to trade the other 8 days. For a strategy like that, the forced days are a disadvantage...
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I thought my point was clear, perhaps not. When I meant "ANY" of the days, it was in reference to trading ANY day within the calendar month, with a minimum of ten.

For example, in October there were 27 days when the futures markets were trading (I'm counting Sunday as a day, and let's pretend there were no limited hours during Sandy for the purpose of this example). To pass the 10 day combine, one must have traded in any TEN of those days, no more, no less. You can't meet the parameters in one day, or in seven days, or in nine days, since you have to trade in TEN of them.

However, there were MORE than ten days of trading in October. Say the trader took a draw in days 2 and 5, now he has to MAKE UP for the remaining days, but he CANNOT trade more than ten, EVEN THOUGH there are more days available to trade within the calendar month!

If you've been following the funded trader reports, then you know that many of the traders who passed "gunned the close" at the end. This is what Maverick and I were discussing on the other thread. Once you take a draw, you are going to force trades to make up the difference, since you are capped at ten trading days.

If one meets the objective in ten days with any of the allowable products, then great. I'm not advocating they lower the minimum number of days a trader is required to trade. However, if you have the FULL MONTH of available days, then you increase the chance of meeting the parameters and are less likely to "gun the close", which several traders have done to pass the combine.
 
HOLD ON>>>>NOTICED AN ERROR>>>WILL REPOST PICS IN A MINUTE

Really only the right side of the sheets matter anyways, the rest is just range
 
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