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TopStep Trader Update
I continue to make progress on my trading skills. If I could define levels in trading I would tell you I have leveled up over the past year. My mindset toward the combine has changed. Not really worried about passing the combine vs learning to trade; because once I learn to trade I will pass the combine.
The last combine I finished was the 150K. I deliberately took this one knowing I could not pass it because I wanted to trade within the combine setting without having to worry about hitting the loss limit or max dd. Doing this I was able to focus on just the trading aspect. I made real progress on my setups and taking the trades. The current combine I am in (50K) I will be focusing on breaking down the mental roadblocks.
For the most part I have stopped getting excited about good days or being upset about bad days unless I dont follow my rules in which case I have a mandatory one day off from trading. Looking back at my personal journal and my futures.io (formerly BMT) journal I can say I have grown as a trader over the past year. Below are excerpt's from my personal journal to contrast the difference 9 months can make:
Entry from 1/18/13
Entry from 9/2/13
Big difference.. In January I was just trading blindly. Now I am trading with confidence and vision. What I have now that I did not have in January: I have a goal; I have a plan; I have a trading method which works for me; I have the right attitude and I now have trading experience. All of this is adding up to progress toward my goal of becoming a professional trader.
It lacks the robustness of order entry when compared to Sierra and NT. There are no custom setups. and order entry is cumbersome unless you are entering a market order. I would never use it for day trading.
The indicators are solid and draw very well on the charts. They are as good if not better than NT and better than Sierra. However, it lacks Market Profile and Volume Profile. The charts themselves are well drawn. Biggest complaint is you cannot scroll back in time in a live market. Every time a new tick comes in takes you back to the beginning of the chart.
The time frames appear to be limited to standard set. All of them in minutes and hours. I have not found a way to add a custom time frame. Note: I have not searched for a way to either.
I love information box at the bottom of the screen which shows positions, acct value, alerts etc. Its very easy to see where you are at a glance.
They have a decent community, not as good as NT but better than Sierra. They have a good set of custom indicators to choose from. Automated trading is simple to implement. I took a look at he coding section which is in C#. It is not as intuitive as NT.
Overall (IMO) MetaTrader is designed for buy and hold traders.
in metatrader you have on the top a button named "autoscroll" which is on by default.
If you switch it off you can scroll the chart to every point in livesession.
Today while watching times and sales and the chart I was able to recognize buying and selling absorption. I missed the first move off the absorption but caught a second move later in the day. This was really cool to watch. I have seen it before but never knew what it was and of course took the trade in the wrong direction.
Understanding the previous days value area and range in relation to where the market opens can help predict what type of day it is going to be and what type of moves to expect. The last couple of days I have been able to predict what type of market to expect for the upcoming days and adjust my trading to fit the market.
I am starting to see how order flow, volume profile and market profile overlap and work together to give a complete picture of the market. These tools are also starting to answer long standing questions I have had about why some breakouts , bounces, trends, etc.. fail and why others succeed.
TopStep asked their chat community to share "lessons learned" from the combine's last week. Received good feedback from my submissions so I am re-posting here to share with the futures.io (formerly BMT) community.
Delving deeper into the world of MP, VP & OF and seeing the market in an entirely different light. Below is a chart from Fridays action in CL. See how CL stayed within yesterday's range but stayed out of yesterdays value area. There were two chances to catch the waves from the bottom. I capitalized on the first one in my combine but had doubts about the second one so I took it in SIM.
I was also able to see the the buying absorption on the open and capitalize on the move down. Watching time and sales and the chart can sometimes's give a clear indication who is charge.
What I am learning from all this is waiting for these key area's to be tested and understanding where the upper and lower areas might be gives a trader an edge to catch the really big moves. Had I been able to capitalize on those 3 trades and let them play out I would have been up nearly a 100 ticks for the day on a single contract. I am learning! Now I need to put practice and observation into action.
CL opened lower tonight but is still within a balance area and is contained within last Tuesdays price range. It should be noted, with the exception of a couple of hours, all the price action for the last 3 days has been above the value area on Tuesday. Sunday's open poked into Tuesday's value area and was rejected.
