Paraphrasing Ed Seykota, in Market Wizards by Schwager ---

The task is to:

1. Create an objective trading plan that is shown to be profitable by backtesting. (I emphasize the word "objective.")

2. Trade your plan scrupulously.

The objective: If you can create such a plan and trade it scrupulously (among other things, keeping your emotions in check), you are "winning" despite whatever profits and losses you observe.

The point is not to make money --- the point is to create a winning plan and trade it robotically.

At least in my experience, this is not as easy as it sounds.

03.24.2023 - Day 10 of 100 Day Challenged - PASSED - 0 trade: average down, 0 trade: moving stop loss. hit my daily S/L - $1k . Weird PA in the morning, I blew up two of my 300k eval accounts.
03.27.2023 - Day 11 of 100 Day Challenged - FAILED - 1 trade: average down. Weird PA in the morning, 300k eval account: -3k from trailing. Taking a break from 300k, opened a couple 50k eval accounts.

So, I blew up a few of my 300k eval account. I was tilted by the way things were going both Friday morning and today. I was able to stop myself and walked away. I wasn't able to do it perfectly, but its progress. I still got some sitting at -3k from max trailing (~14k). I'm going to take a break from the 300k challenge. I haven't decided if I will trade them again tomorrow or next week, I still have time. Either way, I've been to "money" focused on the 20k and losing sight of my true goal. I want to become consistent, and the way I've been trading doesn't reflect that.

I did open a few 50k eval account, before 80% sale ends. I'll be trading/posting on these, in the mean time.

Thanks for dropping by everyone. Hopefully, your trading week has started off much better than mine.

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@Salao: haha, thanks. Not yet there, we will see what happens. I need to take a page from what you are doing! I need to be more discipline, and follow through with my rules.

@benmarkal: thanks will check it out!

@doyalalexander: lol love it, i'll give that a shot

@maxmeier: It was a great read, I read it a few weeks ago. Still trying to implement it in practice. What are your thought or what should be done, if Action: "I am letting my loss run." Reason: "indicator/fib/price action say so. Subconscious Reason: "No Pain". This is expected right?

@phantomtrader: makes sense, I'm chasing the money.

@algotrendz: yup I think so too.

@mewddsltd: yeah 20k-50k is more favorable. I've had some weird behavior lately with RTP. Both today and last friday, I had to manually close the positions even though NT8 had close them all out because my S/L got hit.

@seattle7 yeah, I agree. I try not to be focused on the money, but it's apparent to me now. I need to realign my objective. My goal is to be a consistent trader, and my logs aren't showing that.

Wise words

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doyalalexander 

RTP has trader imposed trails or SL most props will let you set. I break copy trade rules and copy trade my Sim leader account use it to manage my max contract and stop loss for the day. // I just need to keep my positions tab open to make sure if sim closes the followers hit too. (Right click flatten)

Wise words, my friend!

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injpowwetrust 

I did open a few 50k eval account, before 80% sale ends. I'll be trading/posting on these, in the mean time.

Nice injpowwetrust > I also wouldn't be too upset about losing the 300K accounts - those are NOT worth it IMO anyways. Stick to the 25K or 50K and focus on passing a bunch of those and you will make significantly more than you would on the 300K accounts. I would also stress not doing these programs until they run there huge discount sales (as you mentioned / typically around the holidays). The one you mentioned is a perfect example > 80% OFF + 80% OFF all recurring months thereafter until you pass (coupon code: QLTOUXTC / maximum 10 uses). I do not do any evaluations until these big events and for the small amount it takes to try, if you pass you get an opportunity to play with real money. Again I personally favor the 50K accounts only as the numbers line up the best with respect to fair odds in my opinion (3K target, 2.5K trailing drawdown). 1.2:1 ratio where the others are too heavily skewed IMO to be considered fair. If you manage to get 10 performance accounts then an easy $100 gain multiplied 10x is a nice day without threatening the draw down limits. Apex sells a trade duplicator that makes doing this very easy.

Anyways, best of luck and keep up the great posts! Very much enjoying following your progress here.

Chad

BlueEye 

Nice injpowwetrust > I also wouldn't be too upset about losing the 300K accounts - those are NOT worth it IMO anyways. Stick to the 25K or 50K and focus on passing a bunch of those and you will make significantly more than you would on the 300K accounts. I would also stress not doing these programs until they run there huge discount sales (as you mentioned / typically around the holidays). The one you mentioned is a perfect example > 80% OFF + 80% OFF all recurring months thereafter until you pass (coupon code: QLTOUXTC / maximum 10 uses). I do not do any evaluations until these big events and for the small amount it takes to try, if you pass you get an opportunity to play with real money. Again I personally favor the 50K accounts only as the numbers line up the best with respect to fair odds in my opinion (3K target, 2.5K trailing drawdown). 1.2:1 ratio where the others are too heavily skewed IMO to be considered fair. If you manage to get 10 performance accounts then an easy $100 gain multiplied 10x is a nice day without threatening the draw down limits. Apex sells a trade duplicator that makes doing this very easy. Anyways, best of luck and keep up the great posts! Very much enjoying following your progress here. Chad

Chad's post speaks to one of my previous posts .. completely agree with him .. the $25K and $50K accounts have greater drawdown ratios and therefore are easier to qualify .. get a $50K account at APEX during one of their sales for 80% off and get it profitable before moving to larger account size .. or maybe you just start stacking $50K accounts ..

BTW .. Darrel ((APEX)) mentioned in one of his videos to learn to get 5 ticks .. if I paraphrase him correctly .. if you can't successfully trade and earn 5 ticks a day (a small trend) then you won't be successful (recognize) a larger trend ..

injpowwetrust 

@maxmeier: It was a great read, I read it a few weeks ago. Still trying to implement it in practice. What are your thought or what should be done, if Action: "I am letting my loss run." Reason: "indicator/fib/price action say so. Subconscious Reason: "No Pain". This is expected right? .

This means that you are not prepared to accept your loss and move or suspend the stop against you because, for example, an indicator shows "oversold". But these indicators do not matter. The market does what it wants, it is incalculable and irrational.
That is normal, fear is normal, you have to learn to accept and even love it (and accept the pain).
At some point it simply becomes a silent companion, you can't fight it or turn it off. But you can make it clear to it that you know what you are doing and have calculated the risk/probability of this trade beforehand, according to your plan.
The only thing we can control is our stop. We need to become a professional at this. Entries are overestimated.

If you move the stop against you or make it too big, you run away from the losses (pain).
In the best case, however, you will lose in 30 out of 100 trades and win in 70 out of 100 trades.
So losses are part of this business. Losses are the price of profit.
Steps:
- Reduce the size of the trades until a loss no longer hurts.
- Trade only one market, a simple market like ES or FESX.
- Define an emergency stop, e.g. based on the ATR, which you always keep.
- Never move a stop against you
- Check after the entry where you have to exit because the trade is no longer valid, without having to wait for the full emergency stop. The goal is to keep stops as small as possible, not to avoid them. That would be like wanting to drive a car but not being willing to pay for petrol.
The stop is your friend.

Practice:
Practice trading for a week in demo e.g. in ES with a very very small stop e.g. 3 ticks.
1) You will suffer a lot of stops, you will get used to it.
2) Your brain will become sesibilised to the topic "optimal stop". Your brain will accept the challenge and always look for the optimal stop for you.

03.28.2023 - Day 11 of 100 Day Challenged - PASSED : 0 trades moving S/L , 0 trades averaging down

I had my moments, overall a good day. I was able to somewhat execute what I had plan on doing today. Its a work in progress. I tried not to added size, but of course I did let the P/L get to me. I switch off sim and add some size on my winners. It was a setup, I was comfortable with and was willing to the L on it. It went my way, and I had some flubbing around switching between APEX and SIM. So, some oversizing trades happen here and there. I wasn't able to stay on SIM till the end, I took another shot at it during the last 30 mins of RTH. The 4000 "momo" push felt strong, so I switch off SIM and added some size. Before each of these trade, I had made it clear to myself that I had to accept the outcome.

I wasn't able to stick to the same size today, Ill try again tomorrow. The goal for tomorrow is to stay consistent with size, regardless of the trade outcome (STAY ON SIM). I took hella trades today, about $400 total in commission. I will focus more on the higher time frames tomorrow, and try to be more selective with my trades.

* In NT8, risk profile only works with SIM. Using SIM as a safeguard to force me to adhere to max size contract/max size position and daily loss limit ($-500).

03.28.2023 - Day 12 of 100 Day Challenged - PASS

Only took 1 trade today, it was in the pre-market, a loss. I was able to get out -6 ticks instead of 12 ticks. So a win in my book. I jumped the gun on it, didnt check the higher time frames. It was an iffy short, that could of went long given time. It eventually did that.

Since, my rule is not to take any trades at open, or until 6:45am PST, I stepped away. I ended up doing a bunch of errands today and got some breakfast while I was out. I don't what it was, I was just in a good mood this morning. I came back later around 7:30, saw the market and said nope. I'm going to sit out for a bit longer. From what I saw, it looked like it price was moving up like a staircase and down like an elevator. It was hard to stay away though, I did get an itch here and there. I had to distract myself a bit. Luckily work meetings started happening and it was able to distract me. The last hour of RTH was wild. I hope everyone was able to catch some of it, got out of that flush down, and got right back in on that pull back. I saw it on the corner of my eye while I was in my sprint stand up. Ooooh, was I super pumped.

Well, I haven't done any work since January, I'm really behind schedule. I haven't started on anything yet, I think my PM is getting suspicious. I guess I could start today, but nah I'm in a good mood. Today, was glorious. Bull market, lets go! (jk). I'm going to crack a couple of blue moons and enjoy the day.

Looking forward to reading everyone's journal, if you don't have one, post your day here. I would love to hear how your day went.

RIP Kobe Bryant - "If you're afraid to fail, then you're probably going to fail."

Trading is tough in the premarket....I lose money everytime I trade premarket. Thanks for the update.