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Anybody heard of topsteptrader (review)


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Anybody heard of topsteptrader (review)

  #341 (permalink)
 
josh's Avatar
 josh 
Georgia, US
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Surly View Post
@phantomtrader - I'm curious what bugs you've found? CTS is actually quite a robust platform in my experience - the DOM is quite a bit better than Ninja's and from what I understand far more professionals use T4 than Ninja. I'm curious to hear about your experience as I'm still using T4. Thanks.

Not saying this is the case for phantomtrader, but the vast majority of people who I talk to who use NT have never really given anything else a chance. It has the advantage of being free for life unless you trade real money, so it's a favorite of many people. T4 did have a couple of issues, but the DOM alone is reason enough to trade using T4. It's not as good as Sierra in overall package IMO, but the DOM is pretty nice, at least it has a volume profile (as does SC, XTrader, Tradestation, etc.), unlike NT.

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  #342 (permalink)
 mfootlick 
Chicago, Illinois
 
Experience: Beginner
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josh View Post
Not saying this is the case for phantomtrader, but the vast majority of people who I talk to who use NT have never really given anything else a chance. It has the advantage of being free for life unless you trade real money, so it's a favorite of many people. T4 did have a couple of issues, but the DOM alone is reason enough to trade using T4. It's not as good as Sierra in overall package IMO, but the DOM is pretty nice, at least it has a volume profile (as does SC, XTrader, Tradestation, etc.), unlike NT.

Hello all,

Just as an FYI, Sierra Charts is available to use in the TST program. All you need to do is email support @ topsteptrader.com Trading Program Online | Learn to Trade | TopstepTrader[/url] and let us know you would like to use Sierra Charts as your platform while in the trial, Combine or Membership.

Melissa

If you have any questions about TopstepTrader please send me a Private Message or contact us at [email protected] or 312.252.9490.
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  #343 (permalink)
 mfootlick 
Chicago, Illinois
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: T4
Trading: Futures
Posts: 8 since Sep 2012
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Silver Dragon View Post
Looks like they moved to the minimum day combine.

Trading Simulator | Trading Program | TopstepTrader Combine

New field added which is Max Draw down. Although it is blank when I look at combines. In the help text it says the max draw down for a 50k account is 2,000 which is double the loss limit. Assuming this would be true for the other account sizes.

Robert


Silver Dragon, if the Max Drawdown amount is not appearing on the page, please clear your Cache and it should work properly. This seems to be an issue predominately with the Chrome browser. As an FYI though, here are the Max Drawdown amounts for each of the Combine accounts:
  • The $30K Combine has a Max Drawdown of $1,500 (meaning at the end of all trading days, the Account Balance appearing on the Trade Report may NOT be equal to or less than $28,500)
  • The $50K Combine has a Max Drawdown of $2,000
  • The $100K Combine has a Max Drawdown of $3,000
  • The $150K Combine has a Max Drawdown of $4,500

If you have any questions about TopstepTrader please send me a Private Message or contact us at [email protected] or 312.252.9490.
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  #344 (permalink)
 
Daytrader999's Avatar
 Daytrader999 
Ilsede, Germany
Site Moderator
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: NinjaTrader 8
Broker: Rithmic / CQG / Ninja Trader Brokerage
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mfootlick View Post
Silver Dragon, if the Max Drawdown amount is not appearing on the page, please clear your Cache and it should work properly. This seems to be an issue predominately with the Chrome browser. As an FYI though, here are the Max Drawdown amounts for each of the Combine accounts:
  • The $30K Combine has a Max Drawdown of $1,500 (meaning at the end of all trading days, the Account Balance appearing on the Trade Report may NOT be equal to or less than $28,500)
  • The $50K Combine has a Max Drawdown of $2,000
  • The $100K Combine has a Max Drawdown of $3,000
  • The $150K Combine has a Max Drawdown of $4,500

Thanks @mfootlick, that's really good to know when I start my Combine again at the end of January !

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  #345 (permalink)
 
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 josh 
Georgia, US
Legendary Market Wizard
 
Experience: None
Platform: SC
Broker: Denali+Rithmic
Trading: ES, NQ, YM
Posts: 6,216 since Jan 2011
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mfootlick View Post
Hello all,

Just as an FYI, Sierra Charts is available to use in the TST program. All you need to do is email support @ topsteptrader.com Trading Program Online | Learn to Trade | TopstepTrader[/url] and let us know you would like to use Sierra Charts as your platform while in the trial, Combine or Membership.

Melissa

Melissa, I never notified TST yet I am using Sierra without any real issues. Is there something special that you guys do on your end that changes anything?

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  #346 (permalink)
 
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 phantomtrader 
Reno, Nevada
Legendary Market Wizard
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: NinjaTrader
Trading: ZN, ZB, CL
Frequency: Daily
Duration: Minutes
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Surly View Post
@phantomtrader - I'm curious what bugs you've found? CTS is actually quite a robust platform in my experience - the DOM is quite a bit better than Ninja's and from what I understand far more professionals use T4 than Ninja. I'm curious to hear about your experience as I'm still using T4. Thanks.

Hi: The "flatten all" button didn't work. And if you clicked it more than once, it placed additional orders on the DOM. During the live training session with John Hoag he acknowledged that there was an issue with that.

As far as functionality is concerned, scaling trades is somewhat cumbersome. On Ninja, you can design a scale setup in 30 seconds with targets, stops, etc. On the T4, you can use the auto OCO function, but if you want multiple targets and stops, you have to set each one individually every time you trade. For instance, I may trade 6 lots with an intial stop of 6 ticks with targets of 1 pt and 2 pts and let the last 2 lots ride the market if a trend develops. On Ninja, I can design this setup for single click execution. On T4, I could use the OCO for all 6 lots, but immediately would have to cancel the 6 lot target and replace with 3 separate targets. And the stop would have to be moved manually and adjusted every time a target is hit.

So I guess it depends on how you manage your trades. If you're a single lot trader, all this doesn't matter. It may be suitable for some, but overall I think it's a dinosaur.

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  #347 (permalink)
 
josh's Avatar
 josh 
Georgia, US
Legendary Market Wizard
 
Experience: None
Platform: SC
Broker: Denali+Rithmic
Trading: ES, NQ, YM
Posts: 6,216 since Jan 2011
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phantomtrader View Post
So I guess it depends on how you manage your trades. If you're a single lot trader, all this doesn't matter. It may be suitable for some, but overall I think it's a dinosaur.

The issue with the flatten button sounds pretty bad, and I would not want to deal with that either. I had 3 or 4 issues with T4 charting that made it a no-go for me, but the DOM is quite nice IMO.

Regarding the above statement: as T4 is used in the pit of the CME, it's quite clear that it's not for single lot traders. Rather, the logical conclusion is that professionals don't care about automated order management. They place their 100 lot order to open, and if they use stops, which many don't, they place that order separately. They scale out of the trade, and if they have a stop (again, many/most do not), they update the quantity.

If you will notice, T4 has quite a few ways to quickly change order quantity (the XYZ panel, along with the delta option). This allows the professional several ways to quickly get the desired order quantity, and this being a priority is evidence that automated strategies are not nearly as important to the T4 audience as is the ability to quickly change quantities. Compare that to Ninja, which has a single quantity button with a spinner to increment and decrement by 1. Thankfully, Sierra has 6 quick quantity buttons which is not as extensive as T4 but far better than NT's input method.

Likewise, XTrader does not normally include a tool to manage trades like Ninja does, though there is an add-on available (if I understand correctly, I have not used such an add-on). However, what both XTrader and CTS do have (though I have issues with the visual implementation in T4) is a volume at price display, and they both have the ability to show ten levels on each side of the book. NT only shows 5, and despite years of continued requests for this simple change, they have not done it. In fact, Sierra, Tradestation, Infinity, T4, XTrader, Multicharts, etc., all support 10 levels, and most have volume at price.

One upside of not using an automated strategy to open an order is that if you leave your order in the market for a while, there is a chance that you will lose internet connectivity or power, and you can be filled in the meantime with a naked position in the market. For limit orders, you can safely place your stop order as well (however, not so with a stop order to enter the market). I appreciate that Ninja is good at automated strategies, and I also am happy that Sierra has this functionality too (with 5 levels possible instead of only 3 with NT if you need it). But, I don't think that most large traders care about it, thus, it's not probably requested very much for T4, though if they at least got scale in/out implemented it would be nice for its users.

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  #348 (permalink)
 
phantomtrader's Avatar
 phantomtrader 
Reno, Nevada
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Experience: Advanced
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josh View Post
The issue with the flatten button sounds pretty bad, and I would not want to deal with that either. I had 3 or 4 issues with T4 charting that made it a no-go for me, but the DOM is quite nice IMO.

Regarding the above statement: as T4 is used in the pit of the CME, it's quite clear that it's not for single lot traders. Rather, the logical conclusion is that professionals don't care about automated order management. They place their 100 lot order to open, and if they use stops, which many don't, they place that order separately. They scale out of the trade, and if they have a stop (again, many/most do not), they update the quantity.

If you will notice, T4 has quite a few ways to quickly change order quantity (the XYZ panel, along with the delta option). This allows the professional several ways to quickly get the desired order quantity, and this being a priority is evidence that automated strategies are not nearly as important to the T4 audience as is the ability to quickly change quantities. Compare that to Ninja, which has a single quantity button with a spinner to increment and decrement by 1. Thankfully, Sierra has 6 quick quantity buttons which is not as extensive as T4 but far better than NT's input method.

Likewise, XTrader does not normally include a tool to manage trades like Ninja does, though there is an add-on available (if I understand correctly, I have not used such an add-on). However, what both XTrader and CTS do have (though I have issues with the visual implementation in T4) is a volume at price display, and they both have the ability to show ten levels on each side of the book. NT only shows 5, and despite years of continued requests for this simple change, they have not done it. In fact, Sierra, Tradestation, Infinity, T4, XTrader, Multicharts, etc., all support 10 levels, and most have volume at price.

One upside of not using an automated strategy to open an order is that if you leave your order in the market for a while, there is a chance that you will lose internet connectivity or power, and you can be filled in the meantime with a naked position in the market. For limit orders, you can safely place your stop order as well (however, not so with a stop order to enter the market). I appreciate that Ninja is good at automated strategies, and I also am happy that Sierra has this functionality too (with 5 levels possible instead of only 3 with NT if you need it). But, I don't think that most large traders care about it, thus, it's not probably requested very much for T4, though if they at least got scale in/out implemented it would be nice for its users.

Good points, Josh. Thanks. Yes, I like the auto order capability of Ninja - not really familiar with Pit traders and how they execute their orders - so you're right - if they are concerned with quantity and not trade management, then T4 works well for them.

I've designed about a half dozen trade management scenarios in Ninja depending on market conditions - everything from smaller to larger size, all in for a point, and different scale setups. Yesterday for instance was a nice trend day once it took off after the intial open auction/reject and my 3 tiered scale worked very nicely.

Your point about leaving an order on the DOM and losing connectivity is valid. My entries are generally limit orders within 1-2 ticks of the current price and if they're not filled asap, I will either move them or cancel. But yes, leaving an order hanging on the DOM could be distasterous!

So "dinosaur" is probably not true as T4 seems to function well for others. Just from my point of view and the way I trade, I really like the ability to design my trade setups and execute with one click.

I also use TradeStation for designing and coding my strategies. I do not automate them - just design and backtest. Interestingly, when I had a brokerage account with TS, it was not easy to design my scale setups with them either. I worked with the tech and finally got a few setup, but it really was a lot work to get all my trade setups working. I'm with Mirus now and use Ninja for my live account.

Good trading to you. Regards

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  #349 (permalink)
 
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 HollywoodTrader 
San Diego
 
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lancelottrader View Post
Your post reminds me a bit of a thread that was very popular on here called, "Catching Big Waves." Gary, the originator of the thread, documented week after week his successful live trading in the oil market . He had a great system and could consistently make anywhere from 20 to 50 ticks a day. He appeared to have a sizable account and seemed to be making decent profits . Everyone who read the thread was impressed by Gary...except Gary himself.

Even though he demonstrated he had an edge, he was unsatisfied because he felt he should be holding his trades longer and going for much bigger targets like 100 tick moves , etc. He then started to berate himself daily..even when he made great 20 tick trades. He felt that he needed to change his style...never mind that he was getting results..that 95% of all traders would have loved. You could see as his journal progressed he was at war with himself. He became convinced that holding trades longer and having huge targets was the only way he could call himself "successful."

Then he started to lose his edge and he became less consistent. It was almost maddening to watch. All because of some "concept" he had of what good trading is supposed to be. Well, in my opinion, good trading is achieving consistent results..regardless of the methodology. Who cares if you're a scalper or a swing trader..What are your results ? That's really what counts.. Otherwise, you join the majority of retail traders on Forums that are always seeking the Grail and switching from one system to the next..wasting years of time and effort. If you find something that works....stick with it.

Anyhow, back to Gary..if you read his thread, he finally has a meltdown and decides not to honor his stoploss on one trade (Presumably because he read that Pro traders don't use tight stops) and he loses virtually his entire account on one trade. And now, he apparently quit trading. It was painful to read because the guy had all the potential to make 2 or 300 k a year, but he couldn't see he had already found his edge.

Now, I'm not comparing you with Gary..nor do I even know if you already have a consistent system or not. Maybe you just had a good streak going. But if you truly did have an "edge" and you find after a period of time that your new method isn't giving you good results, I hope you have the common sense to switch back.

I hope you don't mind my comments.

I quote lancelottrader here because I took his insight seriously and it was much appreciated because I probably wouldn't have recognized it on my own because I get too focused on the task at hand when I should be taking a step back to analyze -- so thank you for raising the issue because I am hardly ever satisfied.

Moving on, in my last post I detailed how I asked to go back down to the combine from the "live prep" so I could move up to the 10 contract combine from the 5 which is the one successfully completed. I, for several reasons, I felt that having more contracts at my disposal would really be a boon to my system/methodology. Well, I'm happy to report that it looks as though I was right about this. Furthermore, I am much more relaxed while trading and a loss doesn't have the negative affects it did in the lower combine or even for lower dollar amounts -- although the money isn't much of a consideration for my, making the most of each individual trade is always that task at hand.

So the good news is that I'm doing well in my new 10 day, 10 contract combine -- in fact out of 9 trading days I have 9 winning days -- but, it doesn't look like I'm going to hit my profit target. I do have one day left to hit the target but if I don't, no biggie, because the whole point of moving down was to really develop my edge and what I believed was best for me and I feel I have done that and it's only going to get better. As a matter of fact I have acted with an abundance of caution in this combine, protecting taking profits too early and not letting them run even when I was sure the bias was in my favor. So, I'll get 'em on the next combine, but, as I am always looking to advance it will be in the 15 contract combine this time. I finally feel that I have found my edge and this is the one that I have been on the quest to find and is the one that I will stick with!

HollywoodTrader


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  #350 (permalink)
 
omni72's Avatar
 omni72 
Tulsa, OK
 
Posts: 348 since Jan 2012
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HollywoodTrader
I quote lancelottrader here because I took his insight seriously and it was much appreciated because I probably wouldn't have recognized it on my own because I get too focused on the task at hand when I should be taking a step back to analyze -- so thank you for raising the issue because I am hardly ever satisfied.

Moving on, in my last post I detailed how I asked to go back down to the combine from the "live prep" so I could move up to the 10 contract combine from the 5 which is the one successfully completed. I, for several reasons, I felt that having more contracts at my disposal would really be a boon to my system/methodology. Well, I'm happy to report that it looks as though I was right about this. Furthermore, I am much more relaxed while trading and a loss doesn't have the negative affects it did in the lower combine or even for lower dollar amounts -- although the money isn't much of a consideration for my, making the most of each individual trade is always that task at hand.

So the good news is that I'm doing well in my new 10 day, 10 contract combine -- in fact out of 9 trading days I have 9 winning days -- but, it doesn't look like I'm going to hit my profit target. I do have one day left to hit the target but if I don't, no biggie, because the whole point of moving down was to really develop my edge and what I believed was best for me and I feel I have done that and it's only going to get better. As a matter of fact I have acted with an abundance of caution in this combine, protecting taking profits too early and not letting them run even when I was sure the bias was in my favor. So, I'll get 'em on the next combine, but, as I am always looking to advance it will be in the 15 contract combine this time.

Excellent, excellent news! Sounds like you had a very good idea what you needed to do and that you are getting it done.

It's also encouraging to me b/c in the very beginning I toyed with the idea of stepping through the different combine levels - start at 30k and keep working up. Earning my size. It's what I've started doing as of my current combine and glad to see you were able to benefit from a similar approach.

HollywoodTrader
I finally feel that I have found my edge and this is the one that I have been on the quest to find and is the one that I will stick with!

HollywoodTrader

Well, it just doesn't get much better than that Congrats and continued success, Hollywood!


HollywoodTrader

Speaking of doesn't get much better ... I started to snip the image from my reply but c'mon now it's a great looking image

Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. ~ Seneca
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