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Scalpingtrader's Earn2Trade Gauntlet Journal


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Scalpingtrader's Earn2Trade Gauntlet Journal

  #1 (permalink)
 
Scalpingtrader's Avatar
 Scalpingtrader 
Hanover, Germany
Legendary Amateur Trader
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: NinjaTrader
Trading: ES
Posts: 1,945 since Apr 2014
Thanks Given: 3,144
Thanks Received: 5,147

This journal will be dedicated to my attempt on the Gauntlet from @Earn2Trade.

But maybe a little bit on my recent trading background first, so that you know where I am coming from.
I am trading on and off for several years now, first starting during my bachelors with several (objectively) small forex accounts, then finding my way through CFDs on indices into the realm of futures.

Looking back at my journey, I think I have come a long way towards success... But not quite all the way yet.
In January/February 2017 I made my way to a funded account with TST by trading CL. One day of overtrading & failing to stay far enough away from their daily loss limit ended that chapter for me.

Earlier this year, I made it through the OneUp evaluation & received a funded account from them. But their setup/restrictions didn't really fit my needs for a long-term gig, so I had them close the account pretty soon after, while being up a couple hundred bucks.
Since then I have traded my own account. Unfortunately, I couldn't maintain the discipline I had shown with OneUp on my own. Suffice to say that my account has not exactly been growing lately.

Now I am here...

The setup at Earn2Trade/Helios seems to be the first one yet where I can see myself trading under the roof of a company for the long-term, so I have decided to give this thing a go.
(plus I need the change of scenery)

Some reasons why I believe the setup at E2T/Helios to be a good one for me personally:
- apparently VERY fair and flexible rules during both the Gauntlet and the live environment thereafter.
- Negotiating a bigger account is not contingent on retaining profits in the live accout. At other firms, you had to basically grow your leverage through your profits exclusively. This means that paying yourself properly while still growing the account in a relevant way was not really possible.
- profits are shown as investment returns, not regular income.

I have laid out my basic trading plan in my post for the November Journal challenge, so feel free to hop over there now & leave me with a "thanks" at the end ;-)



Cheers, ST.

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  #3 (permalink)
spetscom
Niles, Michigan
 
Posts: 73 since Sep 2018
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Awesome, I am currently in the Gauntlet as well, I started just yesterday. I really like the setup they have as well. No trailing loss limit, even allow for a 10 percent drawdown. I have 59 days left. I honestly can get a bit more anxious trading this sim than my real account, since a lot is on the line and all of my actions are being scrutinized.

-Cade

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  #4 (permalink)
 
Scalpingtrader's Avatar
 Scalpingtrader 
Hanover, Germany
Legendary Amateur Trader
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: NinjaTrader
Trading: ES
Posts: 1,945 since Apr 2014
Thanks Given: 3,144
Thanks Received: 5,147

I’ve added a daily loss limit of -850$ to the standard rules, which translates to about -3R.
The trade style description is pretty much what I wrote over at the Challenge post...:


Quoting 
Stoploss: always one tick below the low of the last three candles (for longs, reverse for shorts)

Position Size: calculated on a max. risk-% of account size & the stoploss distance. I am accounting for 1 tick slippage in this calculation, as entry is with stop orders. For the Gauntlet, the settings will be 1% of account size (i.e. ~250$) per trade. Maximum number of contracts is further limited by margin requirement.

TakeProfit: Reviewing historical charts & average swings, I have concluded that, for me personally, 1.5 x the 12-period ATR is a good middle ground between win-ratio and risk/reward. (5min chart).
Moving forward, I will periodically review actual trade history to determine whether a larger or smaller target is more suitable. Special rule: If the ATR-target is smaller than the calculated risk, the target will be extended to meet 1:1 risk/reward ratio.

Daily stoploss: -3R

As for what & how I trade:
> no indicators, just price action. In the past I used VWAP, EMA, PP & Fib ratios. With context, they all work. But it also works just fine without those things, so over time I have come to appreciate the clarity and focus of a clean chart.
> 5 minute chart. CME Instruments are ES & 6E.

> Traded setups are more or less:
- Trend Reversals (for ranges and broken trends)
- Simple pullbacks for strong trend continuation
- complex pullbacks for "normal" trend continuation
- continuation at trendlines

All setups require at minimum a break of a prior bars high or low, and preferrably or a completed signal bar.

Now waiting to get the account credentials, so should be good to go on Monday.

Cheers,
ST.

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Mtype's Avatar
 Mtype 
Hungary
 
Experience: None
Posts: 1,323 since Oct 2012
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Fail, keep getting back up, fail keep getting back up.

I really like your attitude man!

All the best to you on your journey.

“Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.” Δ

“There is no path, but only a fool wouldn’t follow it.”
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  #6 (permalink)
 
Scalpingtrader's Avatar
 Scalpingtrader 
Hanover, Germany
Legendary Amateur Trader
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: NinjaTrader
Trading: ES
Posts: 1,945 since Apr 2014
Thanks Given: 3,144
Thanks Received: 5,147

For anyone struggling to detach themselves from the “meaning” of an individual trade or day, maybe it’s useful to call to memory the significance of luck over a small sample size in trading. Simplest tool I have found for that yet:

EquityCurveSimulator

An expectancy of 0.2 will, over time, make you wealthy. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t have a breakeven phase of 100 trades. This is a remarkable property of probability-based businesses that is, for me, extremely difficult to truly accept as a human being with needs such as validation, security and - most importantly - causation.

As humans, everything our brain looks at is brought to a rational conclusion. In trading, that proves to be fatal.
If anyone is interested in these kinds of things, I recommend the book „Thinking fast and slow“

Anyways, I digress.

If you struggle, like me, with the statistical nature of trading, plug a profitable set of metrics that speaks to you, personally into the above simulator daily. That’s what I started doing a few days ago. Over time, as I believe that you become what you consistently think about, your brain might learn to accept the inherent randomness of trade results. At least I hope it does...

Cheers, ST.

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  #7 (permalink)
 
Scalpingtrader's Avatar
 Scalpingtrader 
Hanover, Germany
Legendary Amateur Trader
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: NinjaTrader
Trading: ES
Posts: 1,945 since Apr 2014
Thanks Given: 3,144
Thanks Received: 5,147

very connected to my last post here - this is a great webinar from FT71, which I believe every retail trader can benefit from tremendously.

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  #8 (permalink)
 
Scalpingtrader's Avatar
 Scalpingtrader 
Hanover, Germany
Legendary Amateur Trader
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: NinjaTrader
Trading: ES
Posts: 1,945 since Apr 2014
Thanks Given: 3,144
Thanks Received: 5,147

5 trades in 6E today, 3 of which I would classify as "good", one I would classify as "premature", one I am uncertain how to classify, but leaning towards "premature".

ES volatility is still crazy, so I couldn't take the first trade I saw. Second great setup I just missed... oh well.


edit: realized that I took some of those trades in my own account, as I had some hickups setting up the strategy this morning. So only 4 trades went into the Gauntlet account, being the last 4 that are marked on the chart.

Overall happy with the day, some operational flaws in setting everything up etc plus 1 1/2 "premature" trades, but nobody's perfect I guess.

Charts below:
Scalpingtrader's Earn2Trade Gauntlet Journal-20181105_6e_tradesummary.pdf
Scalpingtrader's Earn2Trade Gauntlet Journal-20181105_es_tradesummary.pdf

Tradervue:



@Pa Dax - I know you're not trading 6E, but still curious what you make of the 6E entry signals I took today...?

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  #9 (permalink)
 
bobwest's Avatar
 bobwest 
Western Florida
Site Moderator
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: Sierra Chart
Trading: ES, YM
Frequency: Several times daily
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Scalpingtrader View Post
5 trades in 6E today, 3 of which I would classify as "good", one I would classify as "premature", one I am uncertain how to classify, but leaning towards "premature".

ES volatility is still crazy, so I couldn't take the first trade I saw. Second great setup I just missed... oh well.


edit: realized that I took some of those trades in my own account, as I had some hickups setting up the strategy this morning. So only 4 trades went into the Gauntlet account, being the last 4 that are marked on the chart.

Overall happy with the day, some operational flaws in setting everything up etc plus 1 1/2 "premature" trades, but nobody's perfect I guess.

Charts below:

...

Good first day.

Why pdf's for screen shots? On Chrome, at least, that means:

1. Download to the hard drive (and select and then remember the folder so I can delete it later)
2. Open the pdf and look at the chart
3. Go back to where I downloaded it and delete it, so I don't fill the drive up with stuff I don't need.

Speaking only for myself, I don't think I'll be doing this after today.

I'm sure you have a reason....

But otherwise, good work, and I'm glad to see you in this. Best of luck with it.

I voted already, of course. I knew I would like it.

Bob.

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  #10 (permalink)
 
Scalpingtrader's Avatar
 Scalpingtrader 
Hanover, Germany
Legendary Amateur Trader
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: NinjaTrader
Trading: ES
Posts: 1,945 since Apr 2014
Thanks Given: 3,144
Thanks Received: 5,147



bobwest View Post
Good first day.

Why pdf's for screen shots? On Chrome, at least, that means:

1. Download to the hard drive (and select and then remember the folder so I can delete it later)
2. Open the pdf and look at the chart
3. Go back to where I downloaded it and delete it, so I don't fill the drive up with stuff I don't need.

Speaking only for myself, I don't think I'll be doing this after today.

I'm sure you have a reason....

But otherwise, good work, and I'm glad to see you in this. Best of luck with it.

I voted already, of course. I knew I would like it.

Bob.

NT is installed on a SpeedyServer, with no snipping tool on it, so I just used the integrated Print function.
But I see how that’s annoying to all viewers once it’s posted here, so I’ll go ahead and get me the SnippingTool onto the server

Oh and thanks for the vote, it’s appreciated !

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Last Updated on January 5, 2019


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