Keep us posted on the demo account RDK and hopefully you'll go live again. History shows that we all have to endure some hard times in order to enjoy the good times. Typical case that's one quarter out of four and seems like it was just bad timing with the live account this go around.
The following user says Thank You to Boilmakrjs for this post:
Is there any thing diff from your sim days; account balance? number of contract? broker? software? data feed? Beside high level of anxiety on the first day switching to live I didn't see market behave any diff. I replicated the sim environment exactly the same way as the live environment.
No differences at all, everything exactly the same.
If you look closely to the dates once i started trading the live sim account vs when i made the highest returns in my Gauntlet (going from beginning of January until half of February) you will notice that the intra day moves on the NQ (or NDX since i only traded during US sessions, then the differences are more obvious) during this period where much stronger, much more volatile (on average) then during the days i traded the live sim.
My system is a reversal system so slow trending day's or slow ranging day's are useless to me. I need some volatility.
Alright, i have made some screenshots to show the difference between my live sim period and the Gauntlet period from my volume charts. As every one can see the intra day moves during the Gauntlet where much more volatile as during the live sim. My system NEEDS volatility and strong momentum (or strong change in momentum) to be profitable.
Each screenshot (roughly) represents the same amount of bars and only shows US session.
I am not going in to detail in what i am looking for to spot reversals but i think it is very clear from these screenshots that there was a major difference in intra day volatility and reversals comparing the live sim vs the Gauntlet.
I think it’s great to are doing different analysis on the markets... curious though, have you done an analysis of how much mistakes or errors cost you?
By mistakes, do you mean losing trades? Or trades done by me which where not according to the rules and should have been avoided?
In the last case, during the Gauntlet i made quite a few mistakes. During the live sim just 1 actually.
I had some huge lag issues with Rithmic one day just when i had a trade going on and i was unable to exit it up until i restarted the platform multiple times.
Without looking at the exact numbers right now i would say this lag issue and the one mistake i have made resulted in a loss of around $250.
I’m referring to all errors and mistakes.... not just ones that lose you money.
For example, not taking a trade even though it’s part of the signal... we can often do this when under pressure.
Or exiting early, just because we want some profit (myself today because I had to leave the house early and didn’t want a trade on, but trade went right to target and that cost me 40 ticks of profit)
I did everything exactly the same, if i had a signal i took it and calculated the stop and target the same way i did in the Gauntlet.
At some point i made a small adjustment to the strategy however this resulted in less losing trades, i ranked my trades from 1, 2 and 3 from being a strong signal to a mediocre signal and in the latest part of the live sim i only took the signals that where the best, however it didn't work out. If i hadn't done that the 10% would have be gone even earlier.
I am having the same problems as you bro. The rithmic d/c caused me some losses think about it you lost 250$ that is 10% already of max total dd. I do not so good in these current markets (as you described) wish I knew what kind of day it was in advance so I can avoid trading on those smaller range/slower 'trend' days.
Thing is, the max dd 2500$ is so little that you have to use really small stops which means you can't do swings (more profitable) and are stuck scalping on micro time frames where signal strength is not as strong as those fr say the hourly or daily chart.
As i have mentioned i have done loads of testing the last couple weeks and i came to some conclusions.
1. I was trading 3 different time frames on NQ, all 3 where profitable however just barely, more than 90% of the profit came from 1 time frame. So i have decided to focus on this time frame only going forward.
2. After my risk:reward was 1:1 i moved my stop to break even, backtest results showed me that this was a bad thing to do since the indexes often go up a few points, reverse a few points and then continue to go up in the original direction. A lot of trades where closed early because of the stop at break even.
3. I have been doing some test on ES as well and backtest results look promising, i will include ES to my system and just like NQ, only 1 time frame. Also same as NQ, stops will not be moved to break even.
4. In back testing both NQ and ES the results showed me that only trading the best setups (previously i explained that i started rating my entry's from 1 to 3 and only the signals with the highest score would be entered at the end of the funded account) is the way to go. This way i avoid to many entry's in which i have no or little confidence.
I might start another attempt for a funded account soon, however i am unsure if i will go with E2T this time.
Let's be clear, i still like them very much, probably more then their competition ... The only downside for me is the fixed 2 month period. With other companies i can get trough this fase much faster once i reach the profit target.
Just as an example, with forward testing during 4 trading day's (April 16, 17, 18 and 23) i have made a combined net profit of $1585 with 19 trades. 13 on NQ and 6 on ES and 92% win rate on NQ and 83% with ES.
This is just from one week but this is forward (live) testing, backtests showed similar results however obvious with a smaller win rate. All trades where 1 contract.
So with profit targets like this it would be a waste of time to spend 2 months trying to make 3K if i can get 50% of the target in just 4 trading day's.
The only thing that scares me a little bit is that i would prefer a lower win rate with similar profit results The lower the win rate the smaller the downside. With an 80% win rate it will be very hard to improve and very easy to have a longer period with significant worse results (as i have experienced during the funded account).
Have you considered explaining them your situation and that you intend to take another round but are unsure given the 2 month period if it will be with them. But if they could accomodate you, you'd prefer to go with them. Who knows, maybe they will offer you a deal.
The following user says Thank You to trendisyourfriend for this post:
It sounds like you are over-optimizing for current market conditions. What about two weeks from now, when maybe another one of your timeframes is getting all the profit? For the long-run, maybe just pick one timeframe and stick with it, as they will probably all average-out to the same in the end, though having 1 will be less commission. Can always add another pair for diversity.
Also, maybe you should solidify your trade plan first before putting money in some sort of combine. You have too many uncertainties right now and are looking to get funded at the same time. Nothing will ever be 100% in your trade plan, but there shouldn't be a ton of what-if's either.
The following user says Thank You to karentrader for this post:
I have just live tested for 1 week, so yes this might sound as optimizing but i also have data from the beginning of January up until now from the Gauntlet and funded account. Backtest results are going back even further and include the bear market we had at the end of 2018.
The time frame i have selected now will on average give me 4-5 trades per day, to me this seams much more reasonable since the higher time frame i was using wasn't having a trade for multiple days at some times but the losses where much larger. While the smaller time frame was giving much more trades but most of them where stopped out because the stop was to small for NQ.
For diversity, i am now going to do NQ and ES and i am still looking into other instruments.
My trading plan is 100% mechanical so there are no what-if's, it could be automated if i knew how to do that . All the changes i am making now are just to decrease the chance to get another painful draw down period as i have experienced during the funded account. The base strategy is still exactly the same as the one that gave me these wonderful results during the Gauntlet. Basically the only difference now is that i rate my setups from 1 as worse to 3 as best and now i will only be taking the setups that are rated as 3.
if you cld hit the profit target fast, you cld just chill out the remaining days.... doing the minimum and explain it to them online. else you shld go for the other prop firms (there are bunch out there) which gives quick funding but of course they have their many rules too...
earn2trade is actually working on 120-day and 180-day Gauntlets so it seems unlikely they would ever make exceptions to the 60-day rule. they seem to really care about seeing a long track-record, which is fair but if you're gonna make ppl invest so much time into the Gauntlet, they should also be more transparent about offers.
can you imagine spending 60 hard-working days on this thing and getting a 60% split offer? that would piss me off to no end. i could care less about 10k vs 25k balance account offer based on performance but it makes no sense to me why someone who did less well on the gauntlet should also get a smaller % split, if they're already getting a lower account balance + DD%
it's like "here, since you didn't do extremely well on the gauntlet, we're going to start you out with a lower account balance. oh but that's not all. we're going to make it even harder for you by giving you a lower DD%. oh but that's still not the end of it. we're going to make it additionally even harder for you, the low-performing trader, by taking a higher % of your profits so you only get to keep 60%."
if you're going to give someone a 10k balance with a mere 10% DD, at the very least, a 80% split should be mandatory. but there's no guarantee whatsoever when it comes to the Gauntlet so you're taking a very real gamble when you decide to invest 60 long days into this thing.
as much as i hate TST, i think in this case, you're better off going with TST than E2T. traderdock is legit but you can only use the TT platform and after demo-ing it for 30 days, i can say it is absolutely atrocious. but if you don't care about that, Traderdock is an option, although their evaluation is a bit harder if you want the 80% split.
i'd avoid OUT and Speeduptrader; they give off too many scammy vibes for my liking.
The following user says Thank You to canoekoh for this post:
Can you explain why you think OneUpTrader should be avoided? I used them in the past (also received a funded account once but failed it) and everything seemed to be reasonable. Except for some of the rules which make it much harder than E2T.
Also the new thread here about OUT and MES seems transparant and honest.
I successfully completed my $50k account 15 day trading evaluation with OneUp Trader , got funded with MES Capital, and just finished my second profitable week of live trading.
Here is the graph from my OneUp evaluation account:
I don't really like TST either, if we leave E2T out of this comparison i think OUT is the best option.
With TST you have to pay for both stages, so you have to reach the profit target twice and survive the draw down limit 3 times before you can make a withdrawal. You also have to pay for your own data fee up front.
Traderdock is the same, you have to pay for 2 stages but what is even worse (in my opinion), is that once you completed all stages you most likely paid $400 and in the worst case scenario you get just 1K draw down and a 60% profit split (comparable with the worst offer E2T would give)
With OneUp you only have to reach the profit target once to move on to the funded account and they pay the data fees.
This means that i could go for a $150K account with OneUp which gives me $5K draw down if i am confident that i could pass in 1 month or a 50K account if i take the more conservative route and give myself 2 months to pass.
Only major draw down with OneUp is the stupid trading draw down rule based on open equity. One of the advantages seems to be that if you hit the daily draw down the account is not closed but trading is halted until the next session to my knowledge if this happens with any of the other funding company's out there the account is terminated once the daily draw down level is hit.
with TST, you actually don't pay twice for the two stages. it's billed monthly and if you're able to complete stage 1 and 2 within the first monthly billing cycle, you'd just be paying once.
with OUT, you actually can't withdraw any amount until you've gone over the max drawdown amount and when you are able to withdraw, the remaining balance can't go below balance + max drawdown.
so for example, if you have a 50k account, you can't withdraw until your account goes over $52500 (50k + 2500). So let's say you made a profit of 3k so now your account balance is $53000. You can only withdraw $500, not $3k.
this makes OUT no different from having a stage 1 & 2. although it still has the advantage of the user having to overcome the trailing drawdown twice, as opposed to three times in TST, since in TST, your balance resets again in the funded stage.
i actually didn't know that surprassing the max DD in OUT didn't fail you out so that's a pleasant surprise. that's def a plus for OUT.
but to answer your original question, my main gripe with OUT and speeduptrader is i don't trust the people behind the business (you can google search). Too many BS alarms set off when i learn more about the people behind the business and you can tell they make it as non-transparent as possible. that's a subjective judgment though.
The following 2 users say Thank You to canoekoh for this post:
With TST it indeed is possible to pass both stages in 1 month however realistically these chances are extremely slim unless one is taking very much risk or is very lucky. At least that is my opinion, i would never start TST with the intention to finish both stages in 1 month and i am certain not many traders manage to do so.
With OneUp, you actually can withdraw a part (up to 50%) of the withdrawal threshold if you want to close the account, here are the rules for that:
"For 80% Split Option and subject to the provisions set for in section 6-A and TRADER's account activation date or first trade execution date, whichever occurs last. TRADER shall receive 20% of net reserves for account lifespan of under 45 calendar days, 50% of net reserves for account lifespan of 46 to 90 calendar days, or 80% of net reserves for account lifespan of over 91 days. For 50% Split Option and subject to the provisions set for in section 6-A and TRADER's account activation date or first trade execution date, whichever occurs last. TRADER shall receive 10% of net reserves for account lifespan of under 45 calendar days, 30% of net reserves for account lifespan of 46 to 90 calendar days, or 50% of net reserves for account lifespan of over 91 days."
This is a quote out of the trading contract which i received when i passed my evaluation account some time ago.
Edit: With OneUp you do get eliminated if you surpass the maximum draw down level, not if you surpass the maximum daily draw down level.
awesome; that's not ideal but it's good to know they do have an option to withdraw up to 50% of the threshold when closing the account.
although they really should be making this transparent in their FAQ in the first place b/c this just means that in the future, they could adjust the terms of the trading contract for future users who pass the OUT evaluation. do you know who their funding partners are?
The following user says Thank You to canoekoh for this post:
@RDK91 a genuine question... with Micro products coming out in the CME on Monday. Why would someone want to a combine , OUT, etc? Why not just put that money to micros
They are 1/10th of the value of e-minis so 1 ES point will be $5 and 1 NQ point $2, might be good for testing strategy's and stuff but i don't think i will be using it for my strategy. With OneUp for example i get $2500 DD for $150. If i lose the account i will probably also lose the $150 on the micro's. If i make it work my income is 10 times larger than with the micro's.
It takes 50 losing ES points to lose my $2500 with OneUp vs 30 points for the $150 with the micros.
The only reason to go with the micros over an evaluation account, in my opinion, is if your strategy isn't working with all the extra rules a funding company brings.
@RDK91 so out of the bunch, who is the least shady? And why am I reading abt 60% profit split in e2t I thought everyone gets 80% omg 60% wld suck after spending so much time.
The offer depends on the performance, i am currently leaning towards OneUp for my next account.
The main reason i am probably not going with E2T this time is the 60 days and they said they almost never give 20% DD anymore, not even with an amazing performance like my previous Gauntlet.
1] I just got my gauntlet offer today
2] I also just signed up to a NT Brokerage account with Philip Capital with the intention of trading the micro products.
For me theres a variety of factors:
+ liquidity of the micros isn't gonna be super healthy right away, and I'd rather not have to worry about the spread when getting out of positions on the micros. As a result i'l be very selective of trading them to begin with until things improve.
+ gauntlet offers a potential to gain significant spend power. and offers you the higher liquidity contracts. If you have a low risk system and can provide consistent returns, theres no reason why this couldn't get you sufficient capital to feel comfortable on your own account longterm after making a few benjamins.
- if you don't perform strongly on the gauntlet, you might be disappointed with the offer, and considering the cost and time effort this might feel bad. depends what your objective is. My main objective was learning. I feel like ive done this, so i'm satisfied. I *may* do another gauntlet in future after I feel like I can really crush it, but for now I'l focus with on what I've been offered, and trade sparingly on my own brokerage account. My own offer was quite low, because I shot myself in the foot quite a lot (I significantly changed my system over the course of the gauntlet ) , but it was my main goal in the end, all I wanted was access to the markets to learn from in the first place.
I may actually setup and maintain a journal soon, we will see
The following 4 users say Thank You to KillerJukeBox for this post:
Would you mind sharing your Gauntlet results and the offer you received? This can help for other traders and potential Gauntlet customer to get a picture of what offers E2T gives.
This is what shooting yourself in the foot looks like , but on the upside terms get reviewed monthly anyway.
To those of you who skipped the previous posts, this algo traded unattended on a VPS while I was on my business trip, I left it to it's own devices when I wasn't developing it.
I took ~3 manual trades on the ES, but I don't plan to trade it at all.
The following 6 users say Thank You to KillerJukeBox for this post:
When you did the Gauntlet....did you use Rithmic platform or NT platform...I used NT and because I was using NT Brokerage the Margin was twice the norm...and it was full margin...so trading NQ was 12000 set aside for 1 contract...My system called for 3 contracts so I was getting margin calls with a 25000 beginning margin....are they still doing that...
I was using a rithmic for ninjatrader brokerage connection.
The issue you are referring to is a bug with the SMAC risk calcs. They have since fixed this by using margin and position limits instead. Contact E2T support and ask them to check if you are using SMAC risk on your account as your margin is wrong.
For more info look at the E2T ask me anything thread, I queried this with Ryan and he explains the fix. If you log into Rithmic RTrader you can see if SMAC is on your account. best start there.
If nothing changes between now and Monday i will probably do another attempt to get a funded account.
However this time probably with OneUp, not Earn2Trade.
I did a lot of comparison between all the companies out there and with the discounts included i decided to go for OneUp.
Should i start a new thread or ask a moderator to change the title of this thread to something like: "My attempt at a funded account", so i can keep posting here without having to start a new thread?
I am not going with micros, in my opinion some of the funding companies offer better value than going with micros.
50 ES points DD with OneUP vs 30 ES points DD with micros.
I might change my mind after this attempt, but probably not. I still have a lot of confidence in my system and i know my results should be similar to the results of the second Gauntlet.
The only major downside with OneUp is the trailing draw down on open equity. If TraderDock would have offered any other platforms than TT, they would be my first choice.
Omg thanks for letting me know I am so disappointed if it is true they do not (almost) offer the 20% DD anymore your performance was superb I wish they could up it to at least 15%, and pending review of your SIM time, go up to 20% if you again perform as well.
I've been really tired and busy here after main computer broke down (I lost all my indicators and cant get any of those anymore since they were really unique) I've been manually charting on all my timeframes... and it keeps me occupied so I only have time to drop by on weekends to check your thread
ps: GL with oneup. I am thinking if I do get funded with e2t the best thing to do is make as much in first few months and then go solo fast with discount brokers like AMP since they only ask $40 margin to daytrade 1 MES (micro ES) lmao.
OneUp Trader, before even beginning, is reluctant to pay out. Consider their payout structure.
Under OneUp->FAQ->Funded Traders Rules and Guidelines->Profit Info note what it says under
Profit Split
Receive a generous profit split between the trader …
Nothing special really, with some other companies you have to survive the draw down limit 3 times before you can take out any profit. You can also get up to 50% of the withdrawal threshold in you close the account, depending on how long you had the funded account. After the withdrawal threshold you do get $8K 100% and 80% split after that, so i don't see the problem?
The withdrawal threshold is a one time thing. It means you can not withdrawal below it. So if you have a withdraw threshold of $3K you can only withdraw the profit you make above this threshold.
Anything above it is yours to withdraw, first $8K is 100% and there after 80%, unless of course you go for the 50% split.
If you close the account you can get up to 50% of the withdrawal threshold depending on the time you had the funded account.
As some of you probably already know i did a Gauntlet attempt with Earn2Trade at the end of 2018 and beginning of 2019.
Due to disappointing results which came from a losing streak i lost the funded account after 2 weeks. I have thought long and hard …
Actually i have not included Leeloo in to the consideration since there is little to no information about them to be found online and their website looks really shitty with no information about the challenge and stuff like that.
Exactly. That was my initial thinking too, but they mentioned your first 10 days will be on them (free). jI'm just waiting for more forum people to review then see how it goes... a friend recommended to me so I got curious. Btw I don't think I'll make it for e2t right now just trading my own account
Numbers work... Magic lies in the numbers
The following user says Thank You to dyst for this post:
@RDK91 I've been monitoring your Journal and it motivated me to take a Gauntlet E2T.
I've reached desired target in May and surprisingly failed it on the last day because i left a pending order in a DOM and it was executed at night. I took the second try and should be reaching the target again shortly.
On their website it is mentioned that you can get a refund if your draw down was within 2%. I tried to email to them to confirm where can i see my max draw down but i didn't get a clear answer from them. It is impossible to see it in Rithmic.
Do you know if they take that stats from Journalytix? Can i make an assumption and take a draw down that currently display in Journalytix as a face value?
It is impressive how quick you've reached the target on your OneUp account.
The following user says Thank You to tr8d3r for this post:
The draw down for the refund is calculated based on the initial balance. This means that in order to get the refund (which isn't refunded to your credit card but added to the funded account balance) your balance should have stayed above $24500 at all times.
Thanks for your reply @RDK91. I totally understand that bit. What i'm trying to determent what was my draw down. I can't find that information when i logging in into Rithmic. I thought since they advertise the Journalytix they will make a call based on the stats in Journalytix.
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The lower the win rate the smaller the downside. With an 80% win rate it will be very hard to improve and very easy to have a longer period with significant worse results (as i have experienced during the funded account).
, but on the upside terms get reviewed monthly anyway. 
