hi, thanks for the congrats, appreciate it!

1. You can pass in 10-20 days accordingly if your profit target and metrics are done, but maximum it can take is up to 20 to 40 days (for 10 and 20 days combine)
2. LP can take as long as 2 months but the minimum number of days is 10, profit goal for me was 4500 usd, I have heard others were getting a modest profit goal too. I had mine completed after 3rd day but still traded the rest like I did not, not changing to piking, I guess this is what they want to see there in LTP
3. For me the interview with Hoag (not the public interview conducted in chat room) happened 2 days after I emailed them I am ready for the LTP review, after 10 days were completed
4. Pretty much what you expect at job interview: tell about yourself as person, trader, your circumstances, your expectations, legal questions about not being in debt to any future commission merchant (broker) etc.
5. I already have a practice account and a login to live traders room, so considered live trader already, however actual account can arrive in 2-3 weeks as they said, I believe the public interview will be conducted when all is set

I can't answer your question about custom combine - I did a regular 150/20 combine and my holding time metric wasn't good, but you only need to be right on 2 metrics out of 3, my win size was ok and win percentage was ok too. No reason to go custom because just one metric will fail.

True, time factor makes things interesting, but even then 20 days combine allows over 40 trading days, so for 150k combine it means 400 usd average days, which is not that difficult.

I would like to say too that the time factor was the number one disciplining factor for me. I wish to share the 20 days of my $150,000 combine to demonstrate how I held on to a loser for SIX HOURS (check day 2) in a bid to 'make it a winner' and finally had to cover well before DLL:



I am not ashamed to post it now because I have made huge improvements to my trading post such mistakes.

P.S.: I am not attempting at 'recovering' the stats for this combine anymore.

Sorry, 1 more:

I have done 3 personal 150K combines (myself only with the same restrictions TST has) my question to you is: lot size do they look down on averaging trades?

Other wise known as adding to a loser...

Also, I am very comfortable trading 5 contracts at a time is that sufficient for TST? Or do they prefer 10 contracts?

Thanks!

I can tell you for sure they will fail you in LTP or JT is you add to a loser, there is a clear requirement not to do that. So even if you complete a Combine this way, they will ask you not to do that in next stage.

I think they are happy with you trading less contracts than maximum allowed but at some point if you trade well they might ask you to take more risk on if you see you are too risk averse. This is something I have heard from others.

So think or swim shows CLQ3 as the active contract now...when does TST/T4 switch to Aug (Q3)?

Thanks

Traded a hell lot on practice today. Since volume was bad again and hardly any orderly trading was expected I was shooting different trade ideas from the hip. 35 trades or so. Some good, some bad and some evil. Obviously down a lot and long series of losing trades. Low volume day obviously exaggerated it a lot, but it is a good thing: too good day may get you into believing that inferior setups work better than their average expectation. Sure, setups did work today too, but generated sequences of losses that would be insane to trade live with even if a good winner would pay off a large chunk of it. Scalping gold with a small stop is not a viable option, something I have proven for myself today. So I can put a stop finally on streaks of trade ideas I am having all the time. For me gold is great to trade with momentum when present, but pretty much nothing else. When gold is not moving fast it is largely chaotic, and while it is still possible to trade it will require a larger stop loss to sustain chaotic ticking up and down. This makes bringing to break even very hard with gold - you get stopped by the weird tick and then it moves away. So the best to trade gold is when it is moving unidirectionally. Then it is most orderly and entries and stops make more sense. Avoid any areas when it stops and just hang in there. Better to bail at BE, it gives opportunities to bail often enough. It should move fast or bail.

So this is something I will practice starting tomorrow:
1. My main setup, look to improve entry and fill given the good order flow, or fade the level if order flow is weak on approaching
2. Mark the key levels, after they worked and price is through, look to fade price action it these points, assuming order flow is not strong on approach, and that level significance is reinforced with mean-reverting pressure, so the best entries are coming from price action spiking through the keltner channel (or BB or something similar, based on statistical distribution)
3. Fade price on VWAP like given that market has a bias and VWAP is skewed from the VPOC, so the volume area is skewed towards market direction, in this case VWAP fade can get me in for the huge ride, check if 10 ticks stop will be better. Risk reward can be 10:1 on a trade like this. Also run few weeks worth of charts checking possible historic VWAP setups and what stops were working. Consider using up to 20 ticks stop for initial entry. Adding to the position can be done at breaking through the key level.

This is 3 simple ideas, I need to work them out to perfection. Rinse and repeat.

Although I'm certainly in no position to critique your trading as you are much more advanced than I, but just a thought on your comments:

I've learned (too much) to just not trade the market if it is (or I am) not ideal, but it definitely has turned into under trading - looking for balance now.

Why? I picked up too many bad habits trading too loose (SIM or live).

So far my tightness has improved my overall results but now need to add a little looseness slowly if that makes sense.

Question, this blog you have posted is a book in English, and very well written, as English is not your first language. You race motorcycles, as you mentioned in this journal. I think that speaking in several languages and putting yourself "out there" in a motorcycle race has given you an ability to speak the markets language and to trade instinctively? Please comment on your mental confidence when trading gold, racing bikes or speaking a foreign language?

Sorry if this sounds corny, but I believe that successful traders have to succeed at many other endeavors in life.

A master of the tea ceremony in old Japan once accidentally slighted a soldier. He quickly apologized, but the rather impetuous soldier demanded that the matter be settled in a sword duel. The tea master, who had no experience with swords, asked the advice of a fellow Zen master who did possess such skill.

As he was served by his friend, the Zen swordsman could not help but notice how the tea master performed his art with perfect concentration and tranquility. "Tomorrow," the Zen swordsman said, "when you duel the soldier, hold your weapon above your head, as if ready to strike, and face him with the same concentration and tranquility with which you perform the tea ceremony."

The next day, at the appointed time and place for the duel, the tea master followed this advice. The soldier, readying himself to strike, stared for a long time into the fully attentive but calm face of the tea master. Finally, the soldier lowered his sword, apologized for his arrogance, and left without a blow being struck.

There is a legend from Japan about a tea merchant who was challenged to a duel by a samurai.

So .. are you saying Xelaar is a bit of a swordsman ?

Have a nice weekend !

p

Hi,
First thanks for the nice journal.
Can you please explain how you choose the area where you put your Entries?
Did you test this method for other market?
Volatility is a key in your trading, how can determine if the volatility is good to execute a trade?
Thanks in advance and happy trading day
Adam ribica

Hi Xelaar, what do you mean by "price action compression"? I think you mean those 1 tick range candles, right?

Pretty good summary

Jumpers, Dreamers, and Pretenders - ****understanding, knowledge, and tools for*Intuitive Performance

Pretty good summary

Jumpers, Dreamers, and Pretenders - ****understanding, knowledge, and tools for*Intuitive Performance

P.S.: Ray's courses are highly recommended for anyone contemplating of developing their intuition.

Have you guys actually done his course? It sounds great from the description but it actually tells me not very much at all that I can use to judge whether the course content is something I would benefit from. I've been looking at the psychology of trading pretty intensely now for the last few months because that's where my problems all lie, so maybe this course will only tell me stuff I know already - and the only benefit would be the personal 'coaching' element.

Have you guys actually done his course? It sounds great from the description but it actually tells me not very much at all that I can use to judge whether the course content is something I would benefit from. I've been looking at the psychology of trading pretty intensely now for the last few months because that's where my problems all lie, so maybe this course will only tell me stuff I know already - and the only benefit would be the personal 'coaching' element.

I'm in week 1 of CTD right now. Also did IDT. IDT gives you a road map of the other variables you need to have down, entries and exits are only part of the equation.

Hope this answers the question. If anybody curios about concepts that I use I recommend to read first a bible of markets "Trading&Exchanges" by Larry Harris published by Oxford Press for basics of market internals, price discovery, liquidity, exchange matching mechanisms, etc. Another great book about the principles of Order Flow Trading by Daemon Goldsmith "Order Flow trading for Fun and Profit". Also check out Jigsaw trading website for some free material. I am doing several videos for Peter Davis on trading fast markets with Jigsaw tools that I used last two weeks in my Combine trading, so check out those too when they are out.

Hi Xelaar,
I was following up on your recommendation to read "Order Flow Trading" and I can find it on Amazon apart from one copy for over £100 - is it so rare? It says it was published 2011. Is it an ebook?

I am currently looking at levels in the market and I can't find a description on your journal about what you use to establish your key levels. Do you mind sharing again?

Have you ever thought about who is participating in the foreign exchange market besides your fellow retail traders? If the answer is no, you should certainly change that. Although we can not have directly an insight into the order books of the large banks, we can identify some of the characteristics of important market participants and use this information in our trading.

In order to try to reconstruct what other traders might do, you have first to have a basic knowledge why the trade, how they trade and other known characteristics. Not all participants in a certain group share the same characteristics, but there a few that most of them do. So who is trading in the FX market?

Just wanted to update those who asked previously, my newest funded trader interview on TST Squawk will be next Tuesday, tune in if you want to hear my story.

I'll likely miss it Xelaar, do you have the same username as futures.io (formerly BMT)? I get emails from TST on the interviews so I'll watch for it...

Its a little late for me usually. Congrats again buddy, well done!

XS

I have reviewed the first week of my Combine journal today. It's amazing how memory can be misleading when you smoothly drifting along the way and it seems that it was all the same always. Journal can help you to reveal what memory hides from you. I could see I traded differently during the first week, and later started to go onto loss minimization route, taking only stop run trades for lesser amount of ticks. It worked well of course because I had enough firepower to exploit it. But I doubt this is the best strategy for the real life trading. Fighting with slippage, for every tick, and by adding more contracts making the problem and struggle worse.

I like some conclusions I have drawn from last week trading with these mini-consolidations, but I also this I had a very good idea in the beginning that waned away after volatility in gold subdued, by trading with momentum bars. Now it seems we are having decent volatility again, so I will look to re-introduce momentum setups back, maybe I could combine they with breakouts, by treating a large momentum candle high/low as a key level and trading it as such, finding a mini-consolidation or a compressed pullback and trading its break in a direction of momentum. This week I will try to trade all setups with 10 ticks initial stop to avoid rogue tick stop outs, but will reduce it after initial movement and put to break even or around when one entry retest is done. In reality putting to break even is a bad thing, as rarely a level where your break even is bears any technical significance in the market, so you are trying to impose you view on the market and it never works. In reality you should apply some trailing technique right from the start, so at some point the stop will be past your breakeven and lock in some profit. I know that 10 ticks is a very small stop in gold to employ that tactic, so I will be looking for some healthy compromise and instead of technical points or swing high/low will use high/low of the 6s momentum candles in my direction.

I will start trading my practice account with this technique in my starting today as if it was a live account. I am tired of doing 50 trades a day just to see "what if" might work better or not. I think I stuck a bit in a search of perfection.

I have reviewed the first week of my Combine journal today. It's amazing how memory can be misleading when you smoothly drifting along the way and it seems that it was all the same always. Journal can help you to reveal what memory hides from you. I could see I traded differently during the first week, and later started to go onto loss minimization route, taking only stop run trades for lesser amount of ticks. It worked well of course because I had enough firepower to exploit it. But I doubt this is the best strategy for the real life trading. Fighting with slippage, for every tick, and by adding more contracts making the problem and struggle worse.

I like some conclusions I have drawn from last week trading with these mini-consolidations, but I also this I had a very good idea in the beginning that waned away after volatility in gold subdued, by trading with momentum bars. Now it seems we are having decent volatility again, so I will look to re-introduce momentum setups back, maybe I could combine they with breakouts, by treating a large momentum candle high/low as a key level and trading it as such, finding a mini-consolidation or a compressed pullback and trading its break in a direction of momentum. This week I will try to trade all setups with 10 ticks initial stop to avoid rogue tick stop outs, but will reduce it after initial movement and put to break even or around when one entry retest is done. In reality putting to break even is a bad thing, as rarely a level where your break even is bears any technical significance in the market, so you are trying to impose you view on the market and it never works. In reality you should apply some trailing technique right from the start, so at some point the stop will be past your breakeven and lock in some profit. I know that 10 ticks is a very small stop in gold to employ that tactic, so I will be looking for some healthy compromise and instead of technical points or swing high/low will use high/low of the 6s momentum candles in my direction.

I will start trading my practice account with this technique in my starting today as if it was a live account. I am tired of doing 50 trades a day just to see "what if" might work better or not. I think I stuck a bit in a search of perfection.

Thanks guys and gals.

Today wasn't the best trading day. Gold wasn't too good, but gave some setups.

.
.
.

First trade gave me a headache - I put TP to entry but could not get filled on numerous attempts and 100 contracts or more traded there, my order was always the last. No FIFO in this Sim is very annoying, it's gold for Christ sake, it's not ES! I should have moved to -1 or flatten but could not believe I can't get filled.

The exit is always 10-ticks.

This is the rule that tests whether my discipline is in place.

I sat on my hands (ouch) till the 10-tick target was reached.

Okay, I did move the stop down to 9-ticks to account for the horrible algorithm used by T4 simulator to trigger the exit - if there are 9 orders before me and then I am filled my target is the 10th order.

But I see T4 not filling it sometimes when the number of orders increases to say a higher number (say 24 randomly chosen) and then I see the ask contracts decreasing from 24..23...22...21.... ..... ..... 8,7,6,5,4,3,2, and I am still NOT filled.

And voila it fills me at last when I should have been filled when the number was 14 (I was 10th in line).

However next time I will take all 10 ticks with patience.

Congrats, I am listening now... Volume is unfortunately extremely low, so having to crank it up!

Mike

Hi Xelaar,

You are right about missing the huge winners with a small profit target. Before you implement this strategy across the board there are a few things you can do to make sure the odds are better for you.

1. Looking at the reason for the breakout. If it is a trend continuation or if the stops that cause it are caused at the end of the trend ( the screencast video that you shared recently about stop hunting was focused mostly on stops put by people going in the direction of a trend that get stopped out when a a reversal happens)

2. Something that I have huge issues with is just holding on to winners - especially as I do focus on the whole day range as a possible target. You should be sure that you keep your stop and profit taking in some sort of balance and make sure that you know what your target looks like. That might not be a solid number of ticks but it could be something like exhaustion signs.

If you have 5 tick stops but never take 10 tick profits then you can be stopped out 5, 6 , 7 times (meaning now you need 3 big trades to get out of the hole) and the weight of this will cause you issues. This can of course work because your instrument can have 100 ticks runs easily. It will only work if you don't get gun shy on the 7th or 8th trade !!!!!

Changing your strategy in terms of targets and stops is something you should look at .. but my suggestion would be to incorporate some sort of trend filter and only let them run in the direction of the trend.

p

The setup I trial now is generally a breakout of tight consolidation inside the wider range or in a trend direction for a clearly trending day. In any case it is in a direction of sentiment and prevailing order flow.

simply on a large scale, its a narrow range doji . ?

Here we go. I applied for a Combine yesterday and today is my first trading day. I have introduced myself in my first thread now moved from Elite to regular forum, so if you are interested - feel free to check it out. It also includes my pre-combine practice with both methodology and CTS T4 platform.

I am a momentum trader. I like to go with the flow and be done fast. I don't like to nurse winning trades and I despise keeping losing trades on a life support. So I trade with a small stop and large target, not being afraid to be wronged by the market even if it continues to move my way after stopping me out. It's not about direction only, much more important is anticipating volatility and timing the trade.

I am not married to a trading system or an instrument. I use what suits me best and what works best at the moment. I have found success previously trading news releases on Forex market, being consistently profitable. I could still do it, but I have chosen to move up to the professional arena and not be a subject of brokers' manipulations and tricks they play constantly in retails FX, having heated conversation with brokers confiscating profits and promising to have an FSA Ombudsman to go after them. Enough is enough. I traded different styles from 3 pip scalps to trades off daily charts with 500 pips stops. I am most comfortable however with intra-day trading and with fast trades that prove you wrong or right without unnecessary delay. Thus momentum trading in fast moving markets.

The reason I am taking a Combine is first and foremost I want to test myself as a trader, I want to force myself to improve my discipline and patience, and I want to place myself into a more professional atmosphere than trading from home lonely staring at charts and having zero accountability. I love very strict risk management of Combine and I believe it will improve my trading. I also wouldn't mind getting funded with a larger account, since I prefer not to put together a sizeable trading capital myself at this point, having other financial commitments. Perhaps when I am funded and if I like the way it goes I will look at option to trade both PTP and my own funds.

I believe there are two type of people in markets: analysts and traders. First group is much more populous. Most people with technical degree and analytical skills and mindset naturally assign themselves into a first group. These people concentrate on what market did before and trying to find out what it will do next. They find all the reasons to support their argument. They also find all the reasons why they are wrong and they wrong often enough. Another group is traders. These people trade what they see, not what they think. Paralysis by analysis never applies to them. I had started in the first group like most people, having a masters degree in IT and natural aspiration for analysis. It took me a long time to cross the border and get into a second group. I am by no means is master trader and I do have lots of faults like impatience, periodical lack of discipline. However I understand them and control them as much as I can.

Trading plan.
It is very simple. I trade with momentum. I start my day by doing a basic top-down analysis from daily to trading time frame. I mark major support and resistance zones and channels. I don't use any predictive indicators or oscillators. I use EMA 21 for general guidance and I use zig-zag for anchoring and knowing sizes of rotations and legs. I trade normally from just one chart but currently I use a secondary chart with range bars and Keltner channel to look inside bars of my main chart.
I have decided to trade Gold for the Combine, because this is the most appealing market right now with shocking volatility and huge swings. I have chosen 2 minute GC chart as my trading chart and 2 ticks range chart as my peeking-inside-candles chart. I use EMA21, 50 ticks zig-zag and volume on my 2 minute chart and 20/20/4 Keltner channel on my 2 tick range chart.

I have just one setup. I establish the direction of market sentiment by comparing recent rotations on 2 minute chart, which must be at least 50 ticks in size (zig-zag does it for me). I want to see a current rotation to be in the same direction as a previous one, so to play a reversal of sentiment I need to see one rotation completed before I will enter on next one. My trigger bar is a large 2 minute bar with little or no wick in a direction of sentiment. For current volatility is should be 20-30 ticks tall at least. During quieter times I would settle for at least 15 ticks. I enter with a stop market order 2 ticks above high or below low (for up and down markets respectfully). My stop is 10 to 20 ticks wide depending on volatility.

Normally I use 10 ticks even if market making large swings. I only opt to 20 ticks if price discovery is malperforming and spread is jumping, like it was last two days. I still try to decrease my exposure as soon as possible by reducing stop and putting to break even as I am 10 ticks in profit. If I use 20 ticks stop I use 2 times smaller position size. That simple.

I strive to trade less. This method allows me to take just few trades per day. I look to trade 3 to 5 trade per day tops and maximum 3 full stop losers. Then I just stop. Even if I had winning trades that day I stop after 3 losers, as it means either I can't read the market or market is too erratic.

I target 50 to 100 ticks depending on recent rotation sizes (I look for no more than 70% of rotation). I look to add to a winning trade once it is at BE and I have a new signal - another strong closing bar. Therefore I never risk more that just 1 position.

For 150k Combine I have chosen 5 cars position as my base position. Relatively large DLL can be deceptive and the Max DD is only 1.5 time of it, so it's foolish to risk a full DLL per day unless a sizeable cushion of profit is already established. Certainly not at the beginning of Combine. I will start first day with 1 contract positions striving to make some cushion to move to 2 contracts per trade. If I have a losing day and I stopped myself, next day I go down one car on my base position until my cushion is re-established that day or later. I will only trade maximum of 7 cars as a base position by the second half of the Combine when a large profit is already there, allowing for 1 scale-in. Normally I will use 5 cars as a base and allow 2 scale-in 5 cars each. (In reality last one will be just 4 cars as T4 has funny ways of calculating exposure but I don't care). This tactic will allow me survive much longer than I would with an inflexible position sizing.

20 day Combine required average of 800 usd net per day profit. In reality it can be as low as 400 as you can trade 40 trading days, not 20. But let's leave as a backup plan. My ambitious target is to look for 3100 usd per day target at which I stop trading. This figure assumes I trade with 5 cars base position size, I have 50% winning day rate and my losing day is 1500 and I need to make 800 per day, therefore 3100 will cover 1500 of losses and still make 1600 per two days. This is of course very simplistic approach and I do plan to have much less losing days than 50% and have few or non 1500 losing days, but I need to put some sort of boundaries in place.

Here I am, hope you weren't bored to death by reading it and let's enjoy this ride together!

@ nakachalet
Hi, thanks. I believe if you would have been following TST related topics all your questions would be answered. I believe some of your questions shows you did not study their website that is quite clear with information you are seeking.

But here it is in a nutshell:
1. There is a list of permitted products on their website. You select those you want to trade in Combine. This is what you will trade in LivePrep and also live once you passed and while in Junior Trader phase. For me it is gold.
2. I paid 400 usd to enter the Combine and got it all back once finished the LiveTrader Prep. So for me monetary cost is 0. Only my time and efforts but since they improved my trading a lot, this is an asset, not a liability.
3. I don't understand this question. There are very precise rules, when they are broken by trader he goes back to Combine. You can see them on their website, in a sample trading plan for junior traders. And they do make sense to me.

for your info, i did read their enticing ads many months ago and eagerly sought clarification and assurance. there were also many live calls placed to me seeking my participation but it was not 400 usd for sure. it was more like three times that amount just to buy their materials.... lol

your candid response would help several other traders around here and perhaps several more who visited bmt infrequently.

you did say that it only costs you 400 usd to participate from the beginning to the point where you are now, receiving funding and all?

you did not pay any more than the 400 usd all inclusively, correct?

if what you said is factual in terms of dollars and cents, then newbies should flock to them. 400 usd to learn how to trade profitably and consistently, is really a small sums to pay.

you wanna ascertain that again so everyone on board here would get the fact straight, especially myself and my perhaps faulty memory?

and all the best to you.

will follow your progress as you report it here, with intense interest and thx again for posting.

AND since their lead traders were not willing to show even once during my conversation with them as to where (not how--which might be a closely guarded secret) their entry and exit were on their live trading chart. would you be willing to show us a pix or two of your own trading screen, perhaps so as to quiet many critics abound. thx again.

@ nakachalet
Hi, thanks. I believe if you would have been following TST related topics all your questions would be answered. I believe some of your questions shows you did not study their website that is quite clear with information you are seeking.

But here it is in a nutshell:
1. There is a list of permitted products on their website. You select those you want to trade in Combine. This is what you will trade in LivePrep and also live once you passed and while in Junior Trader phase. For me it is gold.
2. I paid 400 usd to enter the Combine and got it all back once finished the LiveTrader Prep. So for me monetary cost is 0. Only my time and efforts but since they improved my trading a lot, this is an asset, not a liability.
3. I don't understand this question. There are very precise rules, when they are broken by trader he goes back to Combine. You can see them on their website, in a sample trading plan for junior traders. And they do make sense to me.

it was not 400 usd for sure. it was more like three times that amount just to buy their materials.... lol
...
if what you said is factual in terms of dollars and cents, then newbies should flock to them. 400 usd to learn how to trade profitably and consistently, is really a small sums to pay.

"Trading&Exchanges" by Larry Harris published by Oxford Press for basics of market internals, price discovery, liquidity, exchange matching mechanisms, etc. Another great book about the principles of Order Flow Trading by Daemon Goldsmith "Order Flow trading for Fun and Profit".

Is their a special reason you are not using sierra charts? I just ask since you appear to desire to have a trailing stop that works better for the TST, and since sierracharts connects directly to the T4 and has a decent trailing stop/atm options it would appear to be a good solution for you. just wondering.