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sorry, @olaag, I don't take apprentices, but you can find a top of information, examples and screenshots in this theme as well as links to free videos I published including one presentation/webinar on order flow.
Trade to live. Not live to trade.
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
I have pretty much formalized my updated trading plan with regards to current market conditions and live execution complications. I will post it some time later here. Still the same ideas and principles, but different ways to enter, different approach to stops.
Well today I am officially not a live trader for TopStep anymore. Yep, been kicked out. It's been a tough period to get started with rather hard conditions to implement during holiday markets. I have been doing ok, was in a plus, but at some point realized my setups weren't working without participation, no stop clusters to hunt. Basically treading water. So I came up with a bit different approach based on the same idea of significance of key levels in gold. It got approved as risk was different from that stated in my approved initial trading plan. Unfortunately it could not come at worst time, as we got some moves last week in gold with relatively weak volume but very directional. Unusual at least. And the worst came as on Thursday Obama dropped a tape bomb about cancelling exercises with Egypt which sent the gold high like a blast. I wasn't doing good that day, but it wouldn't be a catastrophe if I wouldn't decide to short market with a limit order based on previous failure to go higher in the range (sweet idea, would do that again), and using AOCO in T4. Gold just annihilated that resistance level and gapped quite a lot. Needless to say my stop placement by AOCO got rejected by CME and I was left holding a short in rising market with no stop. Sure I did close it but lost 36 ticks as opposed to planned 6.
Even though I did not hit even 25% of my Max Drawdown nor I got any close to DLL, I messed up stats with regards to the rule that your biggest losing day should be lesser than your biggest winning day. This rule is enforced after 10 days. That happened on day 11. I did not realized it counts backwards, I was mistakenly under impression I would have to post larger winning in next 10 days. My mistake. So this is over for now.
A piece of advice for anyone who's passed combine and getting ready to trade live: don't start too shy with stops smaller than normal and taking profits smaller than normal. If you do and then you decided to scale up you will have a risk your increased position or risk will result in a loser that is bigger than winner you previously achieved with taking smaller risk (dollar-wise). If you do so you you are fried after 10 days moratorium unless you post a larger winner within these 10 days. So even though a good trader should not really strategize and pay attention to stats thinking that good trading will sort itself out, that is not necessarily true when you trading with TST, as you need to be always aware about few rules that can bite you hard in the very beginning if you don't build a solid risk approach right from the beginning keeping this rule in mind.
As for now, I don't see much point either do another combine (I have 3 combines left, as a former live trader I am entitled to 2 free 10 day combines and I have another free combine as CTD student), before I get more confident with a different approach to risk and entry style, and that will likely to happen in second half of September.
As in regards to my combine-winning strategy, it certainly works but I grew tired of trading it. I had to start at 2 PM my time (7 AM CST) as junior traders aren't allowed to start earlier, and sit in front of PC for 5-6 hours straight, as my setup dictated close attention and placing order only when starts align. During LTP and later live trading stage I became a prisoner of my house, not leaving it for days, gain weight as I was unable to go out for a run or a ride on bike being glued to screens, and still I usually would have to struggle with what was left as better moves happened around my noon, at least those that were tradeable.
This is certainly a point to consider seriously if I want to do another combine and if I want to trade again live for TST. I will check out with Hoag later too see if that would be possible provided I have a strategy that benefited from earlier setups.
For now I plan to limit my trades to 1-2 per day and use larger stops, trying to capture bigger moves on failures. I won't be trading breakouts per se, as most of them fails and comes back and there is no way of knowing if they will continue in the break out direction of reverse. Trading reverse is more sensible as it is more probable. My idea will be taking a trade with up to 30 ticks risk, reducing it when possible and hold to get at least 50-60 ticks, if market permits - more. That should remove any influence of slippage, spread and any execution issue, which I have seen live quite some.
Another small piece of advice to combiners: if you plan to trade volatile instruments such as gold, gas and perhaps even crude and base your strategy on using small stops (like less than 10 or so) and hitting small targets basing your edge on high hit rate - think again. Slippage and execution issues when trading live will reduce your edge so much you would be glad not to lose money. My strategy did work live but frankly I became very bored as after slippage and smaller summer moves I was getting just few ticks left at most cases to collect, so it felt like a charity work - you sit for many hours straight every day and you win so little. So think again.
Don't beat yourself up in any way. It has been a real education.
Many different markets have been murderous in the past weeks in just the way you say. Lots of fake outs. You get mugged by your own enthusiasm. Then you miss the big move. I know that the FDAX has been just like that.
Your methods are sound and your risk management good. Market condition detection is very important.
You also raise a crucial issue, at least for me. Trading a market from your afternoon to your nighttime is an extra strain that your brain and family can do without in my opinion. Let me rephrase that. Trading a market from my afternoon to my night is an extra strain that my brain and my family can do without.
Take a break, catch your breath, take a closer look at the DAX ..
Your last post was a very interesting read. I don't trade the combine, and never plan to, but I found what you had to say to be a fascinating look into your trading mindset.
I am looking forward to seeing what you decide to do in the future. Take some time off and enjoy the freedom of not being connected with a firm for a little while. Allow yourself to enjoy life for a bit before you get back into trading. It will make a huge difference.
Thanks, Paul. I think I should be more disappointed myself than I am, but probably I am just happy this load is finally off my shoulders for now. It had a high toll on my life.
I agree about the critical issue. And I consider it the biggest issue for any European (and even worse Asian) trader to trade with TST. My thinking so far about a possible solution is that I would trade my own account during European session, and since I will be based on slower setups with larger risk and profits, I will be perfectly capable to trade TST account additionally from 2 to 5-6 PM my time, should any good setup arise. If not - pass the day. That should not be very hard at all. T4 is not suited to trade fast markets anyway, neither the fact as live trader you get only the live DOM, not charts, so you have to look at practice account charts and place trades in live DOM not being able to see them graphically on chart. I had to place 2 sets of trades, practice and live to be able to see the picture. It served me pretty bad in my last trading day where practice trade got closed even with 11 ticks slippage, but live trade was still open without stop hanging there as CME rejected my stop. So I got confused for 2 minutes without realizing it is still open. I though my limit was rejected too. So it is complicated to trade rapidly in this configuration, but with strategy that trades less and there is no big rush to place a trade within a second, that would be a possibility.
Thank you, I am looking forward to continue journaling here, now even more so, as I will be developing a strategy for my personal trading and possibly to pass a combine again focusing on trading less but for larger gains.
