Welcome to NexusFi: the best trading community on the planet, with over 150,000 members Sign Up Now for Free
Genuine reviews from real traders, not fake reviews from stealth vendors
Quality education from leading professional traders
We are a friendly, helpful, and positive community
We do not tolerate rude behavior, trolling, or vendors advertising in posts
We are here to help, just let us know what you need
You'll need to register in order to view the content of the threads and start contributing to our community. It's free for basic access, or support us by becoming an Elite Member -- see if you qualify for a discount below.
-- Big Mike, Site Administrator
(If you already have an account, login at the top of the page)
DAY NOTES: Came into the day ready to go. Got cautious on two shorts that showed up near the open and both worked out nicely. So the frustration sets in. Can feel a little choppiness going on but system produces a long signal around 11:15am EST. I get long. And then sit and wait. Patience not being my strongest quality, I exit the trade with a small loss and start to pat myself on the back after sitting in the trade for approx. 30 minutes. Then around 11:50am, price does what I expected – tested the opening range and then blasted through the high of day. I was in this trade 2 contracts to start and had a pending order to add long. So what should have been a full $450 profit is showing a -$35 loss.
And that was my morning, which set the tone for the day and I just shut down the combine platform. Very frustrating end result for the day.
I just noticed my Avg Loss duration has increased (thanks to today’s bonehead trade) so I may need to fire off some quick, 1 tick loss trades to game the time in trade metric (that is removed on new combines). It stinks to be forced to lose 1 tick at a time, a few times, but I need the Avg Loss Duration below Avg Win Duration I believe.
I also want to remove the P-L figures from my T4 dom. Anyone know if this is possible? The constant watching of that I know is not helping the situation.
Click the first button (Properties) on your DOM up top. This brings up a tabbed screen. Click on the "Accounts" tab and then you can toggle what P&L values displayed (or not) on your DOM. Save your settings otherwise it will change back to what it was once you restart T4. I cannot take a picture using Jing because the window goes away when I click elsewhere so hope the directions I am giving are clear enough.
DAY NOTES: I don’t want to concede that I have all the metrics done on this combine (except the ultra-important profit) but I have to be realistic too. I should qualify for a rollover, assuming I don’t get silly and wipe the profit out that I have.
Today started late. I overslept and then had some personal things to take care of so by the time I get to the screens, price has plummeted nicely and I missed a minimum of 3 nice shorts.
I also know I need to watch my TIT (time in trade) and get my average loss TIT down. This combine was started on the old rules, which had a TIT requirement – the new combines do not (unless it changed since I last saw). So I went into a little scalping mode – enter with a 1 tick stop. Either my entry was literally perfect or I would be out quickly with a 1 tick loss in seconds, which should help bring the TIT down. I inadvertently took a winning trade in that so my Avg Loss duration is still higher! I will have to game that stat back down tomorrow. I hope this is the reason they scrapped this metric, because I am now forced to take losing, quick trades – which costs commissions and real account dollars.
I thought when they switched over the old rules no longer applied. I remember the interview Nebraska did and I pretty sure he said if you had a old combine with the old rules that it would it would be switched over to the new rules after the new rule start date. I would check with support. You may be wasting trades for nothing.
1. Be profitable at the end. Even $1 profit makes you pass. But this is for each product traded.
2. Make money 55% of the time. In your case 11 days for the 20 days Combine.
3. Don't hit the daily limit. Ever.
If I recall, that is it... Since you already have 10 winning days, you only need 1 more out of the 4 remaining days. Should be fairly easy, just don't mess up the daily limit...
Oh yes, and don't trade other products, because each product has to have at least 1$ profit.
DAY NOTES: At this point I’m just focused on qualifying for a rollover of this combine. My overall performance was very disappointing. At this point, I should be getting ready to get info on going live. The market I am trading (soybeans) is not the problem. The methodology is not the problem. The problem resides in my head – mental monkeys as FT71 might say.
DAY NOTES: It’s a balancing act watching the combine metrics that I am under and how many trades to take so I can qualify for a rollover. I think I will be ok for the rollover as my combine ends tomorrow. This has been a great process and I think TST should seriously consider keeping this discount going for people that journal their combine progress. Trading a combine is difficult, but the journaling forces you to be up front and center – both good or bad.
Today was just 1 trade taking a breakout to the downside. I was playing a quick whoosh of stops or I was going to be out. Got a small profit from that and called it a day. I was close to firing more than 1 contract but b/c of the impending combine rollover, I didn't want to jeopardize that.
The posted stats from a day earlier shows that you got the trading duration stat fixed, good for you. But then you said you just had a quick winning trade and that might screw up this stat. So my advice for the last day, make sure you have a couple of quick losers ( a few seconds long), to keep the average losing time down.
It would be a shame not getting a rollover just because of this silly stat, that doesn't even count anymore.
