Today did not bode so well for me. Had a Red day, and really the last Red day that I can possibly have in this combine. The remaining 2 days need to be green in order to meet that TST criteria of Daily win% greater than 55%. I also now have a negative in the overall account balance, something that really needs to get back up in the positive area, at the very least.

So looking less and less likely for a full funding at this point, but a rollover is certainly still very much in play.

So today I got short #1 with 3 cars when it retested GH and failed to break recent hi and I got my pattern/signal.... got two of them actually . really thought I was in for a good start of the day. NOT the case, I was stopped out for -17 ticks. Ouch! Trade #2, was a poor execution on my part as I thought a pattern was forming while breaking a Trend Line. I had preset my entry as usual, but apparently miscalculated the high/low of that signal bar .. and never got the signal or pattern, but was picked up for my #2 Short trade with 2 cars. (I scaled back to 2 cars to manage risk as 3 would have put me over the Daily Loss limit. Price did break that TL but never closed below it and ended up stopping me out for -15 Ticks. So with fees I am sitting with a -$835 Daily P/L .... hmmm what to do?? I can scale down to 1 car and just try to scalp out of this hole by breaking the "plan." or I can sit out, take the loss, and see what the next two days bring? I decide on the latter and stick to the plan that I tested for months prior to this combine and only trade the patterns/signals that show up, with at least 2 cars, which means I will call it a day, take the loss and see if we can make some lemonade out of this tomorrow.

Here are a few pics of today. I will also post some thoughts going thru my head later as well.


bc

So today was a rough day to read for me. I started off with a loser that got me in the hole, really not how I envisioned things happening. #2 Trade I went short with 3 and pulled 2 off for +15 which got me back to even+ and then ended up locking in +6 on runner which got stopped out. see pics for set up and what I was seeing.

I did not see anything else that I really was liking or wanted to risk the current green day which I needed to have as I cannot have another losing day per the TST combine requirements. So tomorrow, or whichever day I trade the 10th and last day will be a do or die day as I will need to profit a minimum of $401 to have a green overall account balance. If I can do that, I will at the very least get a rollover and take another stab at this. Not sure if I will trade tomorrow Tuesday with the new FED Yellin speaking ... but will watch and see how PA looks going into the open and 1st hour. If it's slow and grindy I will stay away.

Gotta go take care of some J.O.B. stuff ... more later


bc

No trades today .... will hopefully get at it tomorrow and pass this combine for a Rollover.

bc

I did not trade again today. I had a HUGE window job that I am bidding on, and had t get it out by this morning. Was up until 130am and back up by 530 working on it. Figured I really need to be focused on this 10th and last Combine trading day. Hoping tomorrow will be that day!

Not sure how I would have fared today had I traded. Now that I am looking back on it, I most likely would have tried to go long on the retest bounce on Globex High. Looks like I would have hit t1 for 15 ticks, but runner would have been stopped out. I did not get any of the pattern/signals for the rest of the day. I see quite a few good entry signals looking at other time frames and PA. The big question is would or should I take those entries, and essentialy break my trading plan for this combine? It is quite obvious to me now, that this current plans needs some tweaking, but do I dare tweak it on the last day of the combine just to try and ensure a rollover? Decisions... decisions ... decisions. Hey $190 bucks is a $190 bucks eh? At this point I will still try to stick to plan, but if the last half of the day rolls by and I have not hit the rollover parameters . .I just may pull out all the weapons and either make it to the finish line limping and wounded or go out in a blaze of glory

Either way it will be fun!

Thanks for stopping by and checking in

bc

abctrading 

I just may pull out all the weapons and either make it to the finish line limping and wounded or go out in a blaze of glory bc

Thats the spirit !

:

I elected to not trade again today as I still was working this take-off for the J.O.B. .... which will force me to trade tomorrow Friday, because that is the last day that I can trade this TST Combine. Good news, I finished the take-offs and should be good to go for pit open tomorrow.

1 or 2 winners will get me a rollover, shouldn't be too hard .... right??!!


bc

Best of Luck tomorrow !

I really hope you get the rollover tomorrow

Hope you'll get the rollover. Good luck!!!

so, did you limp across, or did a drone missile lock on to your position?

Ok so appologies for not updating this sooner, I had started to on Friday but being Valentines Day I decided to spend some time with the wifey :-) Then I had intended to post all weekend but kept getting called in to work the boats, so never got a chance to update.

Thanks for all of the comments and PM's of support!! Appreciate them!!!!

Unfortunately, I did get the rollover. I had some weird technical issues with a few orders that I had never experienced before, and it was all downhill from there. I have tried to document it all in the pics, but as things spun out, I did not get as many screenshots for everything I was throwing at the wall in an attempt to see what stuck and try to salvage this rollover.

So I was being super patient waiting for some solid entries. Finally around 645ish my time, I see a great set up and go to pre set my entry to go long. But, a little dialog box opens up, kind of like a properties box. So I keep trying to set this order and it keeps happening as price starts to move thru where my entry should have been. It gets to the point that I do not want to chase price and let it go. I start taking screenshots to document this, and the retest happens and another opportunity to go long. HA! the same thing happens again, I cant get long . WTH!! Price moves away again and I elect not to chase it again. Oh how I should have just hit the BUY market button!! see pics.

So I figure out what happened .. if the cursor is hovering over a drawn object or indicator, right clicking will pull up the options box to either go to properties or whatever. In the heat of the excitement I did not figure it out and missed out on the trade of the day!!

SO, from here I never see a great signal, and 0800 pst rolls around, and I am getting a bit antsy to get some trades off. Only 2 1/2 hours left until the pit closes. Lets pull out all the guns and go out in a blaze of glory!!

#1 Trade gets stopped out. #2 I get it back and then a little green. #3 I give it all and then some back ... and then it starts turning into a frenzy! At this point I didnt get too many screen shots as I was too busy trying to stop the bleeding

Ended up going until after the pit close to try and make it, but of course on a Friday of a Holiday weekend price goes deadly sideways for the last part of the day. I try loading up 5 contracts with tight stops, which of course does not work well, and did not here either. I end up real close to the max drawdown and tried to get one more off, and must have gone over with commish/fees as the system shut me down automatically with a full blow out of Daily Max Loss.

Not exactly how I envisioned this Combine thing pan out, but it's ok, I will trade another day. I learned alot during this Combine, and will be tweaking the trade plan to try and work within the parameters of TST's rules. I may even try to approach them with a "Personalized" combine and see what that looks like. but need to figure out exactly what to approach them with.

I am on the fence with doing either the big one so that I have a little more wiggle room on the Daily max loss, or doing the smallest one as the profit target is only 1500. on a 10 day that is only a $150/day average.

The tough part for me is the tight risk parameters. It's almost like you must move stop to a b/e position just to protect profits and or to not get near a daily max loss limit. It's like get your entry and hope for a quick runner that never retest your entry. Or maybe pull stop up after one retest of entry. But at the same time this seems to me to be creating a plan of fear of losing money which really should have no place in a plan. But how do I deal with the tight daily loss limit? How often does a trade or two go against you and then that 3rd trade is the big winner?!! but if already close to a Daily Limit, you would need to let it pass or really risk a blowout? Or maybe build up some daily profit before going in with multiple cars? but then the best trades happen at the beginning of the day, so why would you want to trade more and expose yourself to more risk if you don't have to? Like I mentioned ... I will be wrestling with a new trade plan customized just for the TST parameters. I will test it and then try another combine. Thinking it will be at least a few weeks for me to figure it all out.

I "think" I understand TST's thinking and the why's of their rules ... I may not like them, but I guess if I want to trade OPM . I need to adhere to "their" rules. I will investigate the "personalized" combine and see what can be tweaked and what can't ... and try to update this thread when that happens. Also, if/when I do another combine, I may do another journal, but would more than likely start a new thread for that.

Thanks for following along and all of your support and comments .... this has been fun :-)

bc