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I've decided to make a journal on my discretionary trading on my Helios Livesim 100k account in order to keep myself accountable. In the past I have traded on 50k LiveSim accounts on a purely automated basis but I wish to incorporate discretionary trading into my setups as part of my discipline and learning process.
The rules are as follows:
EOD Drawdown: $3,500 Daily Loss Limit: $2200
Max Position Size: 30 Micro Contracts (increases with profit but I will not go above this on the LiveSim).
Profit Limit: $5000 total at which point I will keep $4000 and be moved to the live account.
I trade the MNQ primarily and occasionally the MES. I trade primarily price action and like to scale into winning trades, but will occasionally scale into losing trades if the trade setup is still valid. In the past I have traded on 50k LiveSim accounts on a purely automated basis but I wish to incorporate discretionary trading into my setups as part of my discipline and learning process.
My setup is the 15 minute MNQ, 22 range MNQ, and 5 minute MES chart. I use only the 50 EMA on the 15 minute chart and the 20 or 50 EMA on the 5 minute charts. On the range chart, I use volume profile, volume, and the 100 EMA.
Any advice, comments, questions, and thoughts are greatly appreciated.
Setup: Sold MNQ 7 contracts after 15-minute bar closed below the 50 EMA. Scaled in higher with 3 more contracts. Stop loss was above the high of the bar that closed below the 50 EMA.
Result: SL hit: (344.60)
Analysis: Market hit weekly support at 12059 and reversed at the end of day.
Some of you may know me from the Automated Strategy for MNQ thread. I decided to restart this journal. Basically, for the last year or so I've passed various Earn2Trade examinations a few times on a mixed discretionary/automated trading style and ended up eventually losing on the livesim accounts due to the drawdown rules. I recently passed the 50k trading career path challenge once again and I will get my 50k livesim account at the start of February. My goal is to pass the 50k account, withdraw $2400, and move to the 100k live account.
My discretionary trading style is similar to the automated strategy I developed.
I only trade MNQ.
I aim for a minimum 2:1 risk reward ratio and extremely rarely will trade 1:1 only if I'm confident we're in a clean trading range. I'm super happy if I can maintain close to a 50% win rate.
I trade only on the 15 minute or 5 minute charts depending on which one gives a cleaner view with no indicators other than the 50 EMA on 15minute chart or 200 EMA on the 5minute chart.
I like to trade in trending environments or swing environments.
I never add to losers but I will add to winners sometimes.
I like to trade from about 10AM-3PM CST. I don't like trading the open because it's too volatile, unpredictable, and not enough price action on the day yet for me to make an informed trading decision.
I calculate my initial position size so I can place a stop behind the low/high of the entry bar. I don't like entering intra-bar. I prefer to wait for the close of either a 15 min or 5 min bar that indicates a breakout or start of a possible swing to enter. I decided this based on my experience watching the Scamsdaq do all kinds of BS moves over the last 4 years and I am now very cautious of obvious BS like an initial wedge breakout or other scammy intra-bar behavior that has repeatedly punished me hard in the past for acting on it.
I make about 1-5 trades a day.
I'm on average profitable now after 3-4 years of studying the markets although I still struggle with the drawdown rules on funded accounts. I went from consistently and constantly failing the exam accounts to maybe passing them once or twice a year, and now I pass them every two months or so. Basically at this point, I pass the exam accounts on about 50% of the attempts.
Typically, because my automated strategy only passes the accounts on average after 2-3 months, I usually trade them discretionarily. However, I will also run the automated strategy I developed on them at the same time and if it takes a trade I let it play out because it has proven to be consistently (and slowly) profitable in the past with regular optimization.
Here's the results on the most recent attempt on the 50k tcp exam account which I passed but will have to place a few more minor trades before I move to the livesim account at the start of February.
When I get the actual account I will start documenting my trades on it consistently in hopes of making sure I keep myself accountable.
50k LiveSim Account rules:
$3000 Profit Target
$2000 EOD Drawdown
$1100 Daily Loss Limit
Position limit of 20 micro contracts (goes up with profit but I rarely ever go past 20).
The exam account rules are the same except a little harder because of the 30% consistency rule that limits me to $900 of profit per day. The livesim account has no such rule.
I hope that you guys will keep up with my journey and help keep me accountable when I do stupid things lol.
