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I just signed up for Leeloo's 150k tryout. They had a promotion for 60% off, so I'm paying $122 per month for 15 contracts, $5k trailing drawdown, and $9k target. If my recent performance in demo is any indication (heh), I should be able to pass in a few weeks. I'm planning for two months.
As background I've been trading for about 5 years. I started seeing consistent profits a few months ago and am hoping it's a permanent condition. I scalp indices, mainly ES, on tick and 5M charts. My average trade is for 1-2 points and lasts 2-3 minutes, and on a good day I might put on 40 trades.
Challenges:
Trading the same way in the evaluation as in demo. When money's on the line I get conservative. I skip setups I'd otherwise take and exit profitable trades early to lock in profit.
Revenge trading/overtrading. Happens when something throws me off. Like a trade in profit that turns into a loss, or a lucky trade that makes me feel invincible.
Milestones. If I'm at $999 profit, my OCD will kick in, and I'll trade some dodgy setup to get to $1000. I'll lose, then spiral into revenge trading. I must resist the urge.
Ninja Trader. I don't know this platform well. I already dislike it. I like Tradovate, but only TST, uses it, and their tryout terms are ridiculous compared to Leeloo's.
My aim is a funded account where I can trade 2-4 contracts at a time, lose 5 trades in a row, and still have a viable account afterwards.
But first I have to get up to speed with Ninja Trader.
I figured I'd have some hiccups with NT, so I used MES for my first few trades. Turns out I was in the Sim101 account, so those wins didn't count.
After I got the accounts sorted, I switched over to ES and put on two trades, both wins for +3p. I used my usual sizing of 2 lots, so this amounted to $300 profit - $16 commissions = net $284. I consider that a good start.
Not sure I like Ninja Trader, but it has the key features I need:
- 50t charts
- Buttons to buy at the bid and sell at the ask (part of Chart Trader)
- A way to add a 1p TP and 4p SL to every trade (ATM Strategy)
- A way to add stop or limit orders directly on a chart (right clicking on the chart with Chart Trader turned on)
One thing I haven't found yet is a way to see a summary of all my trades, with the P&L on each trade. I found in the Trade Performance module, in the pull-down menu, under "Trades" I can see a list of all of my trades.
I corrected the title of the thread as you requested, but edited your original post by mistake.
So, would you mind posting it again, because I think there's no way to correct this from our side....
Best of luck with your evaluation, and I'm very sorry for the mistake !
"If you don't design your own life plan, chances are you'll fall into someone else's plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much." - Jim Rohn
A few thoughts on the Leeloo funded trader program:
1. It’s not $150k in funding, or even $150k in buying power. It's more like $8k in buying power (the day trading margin requirement for ES is around $500).
2. I'm also disregarding the max lots - with 15 lots, a 6.5p loss in ES would blow the account.
3. Trailing drawdown is the key metric - it's $5k.
4. Managing losses:
• I've set my default trade to 2 contracts in ES. My scalping stop loss is -4p, so about -$400 per loss when the full SL is hit (noting I usually exit early if a trade isn't working).
• If I hit -$1k for the day, I stop trading.
• This should allow me 3 bad days in a row with sufficient headroom under the trailing drawdown to trade my way back.
5. Managing wins:
• Need to have a TP on every trade.
• The aim is to avoid a big spike into profit, as unrealized profit moves the trailing DD.
• If had been in a profitable trade two Thursdays ago, with SL at breakeven and no TP, the 60p spike in ES would have moved the trailing DD up by +$6k, and the retracement would have blown the acount.
Today's trading was a struggle. I have a cold. Maybe it threw off my timing with the Asia session algos, as I lost a couple trades that hit my full -4p SL. I recovered during the London session and clawed back most of the losses, ending down -$117 for the day.
Fun observation: I started taking practice trades in the sim account that Leeloo provides in NinjaTrader. That account is up +1.3k over two days, while my evaluation account - where I place the 'serious' trades - is at a paltry $184. I need to hire a shrink to fix the glitch in my head that's causing this.
I should mention I'm based in Melbourne Australia, and the NinjaTrader charts (ES 1M) show UST+11. I usually trade the Asia session and the early London session. Sometimes I might stay up late to trade the first hour or two of the NY session.
Today I was feeling well and started trading early. I never got into a good rhythm but managed to grind out a decent day. I picked up +19.75 points in ES for $988, less $295 in commissions for a net of $693. (Just to be clear, when I'm counting points, I mean points on 1 ES contract, so if I make 2p on a trade with 2 contracts, I count it as 4 points.)
Summary for the three days I traded the Leeloo account this week:
ES points: +28
Gross P&L: +$1,400
Commissions: +$537
Net P&L: +863 Win rate: 72%
I traded MYM and MNQ a few times but I'm excluding these trades to keep the stats simple.
I'm not sure if I'll keep posting charts. I prepare them for my trading journal, much of which gets copied and pasted here. I don't see many scalpers who show their trades, so I thought I'd try it for at least a few days.
Adding on to my previous post - unfortunately I didn't stop trading.
I thought there was a good long setup on a pullback from the bull trend that started early in the London session. It was a bad call, and it cost me. After that I changed my bias from long to short and scalped most of the loss back. Revised tally: +8.5p in ES for $425. Updated balance: +$1,193.
My first trade hit my TP... but didn't fill, then retraced for a -1.5p loss. A few minutes later an unexpected bear spike led to an even bigger loss. I started grinding out small trades to claw back some of the loss but couldn't put together a good string of wins.
I didn't think I was trading differently than any other day, but nothing I did worked.
Eventually I shut down my PC in disgust, after 20 trades for -29p in ES and -$1,450. My account balance is now negative, -$201.
Going back to review, it looks like I actually followed my protocol to stop trading after 3 losers in a row and/or -1k daily loss. For a while. But then later, when I passed by my PC and saw a setup, I started trading again. Twice!
