After playing around on my sim account for a while and having my trading journey accelerated almost exponentially (ie new platform NT, then indicators, then having a crack at my own indicators, then realising that a different view of past price action meant nothing to me to finally just focussing on PA) by futures.io (formerly BMT) I've decided it's time to see if I can cope with the pressure of a TST combine.
My approach is fairly simple and is derived almost exclusively from Al Brooks, this method of trading speaks to me and I've had decent success on sim accounts to date. To understand if this success will stand up it's time to put a little skin in the game. I figure I could easily blow up a $5k account or get (almost) the same level of intensity with a combine. I will start off on the easier end of the scale with a $50k/20 day combine.
As I'm a competitive person my end goal is to get funded, I realise this will be several combines down the track and that I need to hone my trading skills and master my own psychology before I can be successful. My approach will be the same in all the combines I attempt in that I will take the maximum number of trading days as I figure the most important thing is that I convince myself I am capable of doing this consistently before I even attempt to convince a third party.
So why a combine? Well the approach suits me very well and I try to stick to most of the qualifying rules in my own trading (I won't be making any fudge trades to meet the metrics I either do it properly or I don't do it at all). The only rule I don't necessarily agree with is the daily loss limit (yes it is possible to have the market go against you a few times but for me that doesn't invalidate the next signal whether that occurs 30 minutes after the last stop or 10 minutes into the next trading day). I can understand where they come from with their risk management approach so i'm happy to alter my approach and take a breather on those days where it's bound to go against me).
With my time zone I will primarily be trading 6A whilst keeping an eye on CL and will primarily be trading the Asian session and the first part of Europe. With the Tour de France on at the moment I will keep an eye on the charts during the US morning session as well.
As I said I keep it simple so it will be 5 minute charts with a 20 period EMA, my favourite setup revolves around trend reversals and that will be my main focus but I will be trading other points as well including second entry signals in a trading range as well as playing around with some wedge breakouts and failures. I will start off trading two contracts for most of my set ups with the idea being to scalp one contract (this will mean one contract will be taken off at 1-1.5 times risk) with the aim of swinging the second contract at 2.5 times risk or greater depending on the price action. Generally my stops don't exceed 15 ticks and are set 1 tick below my signal bar, if the stop would be greater than 15 ticks I will cut back to the one contract and seek 2 x risk. Overall I expect to take 2-4 trades per day.
What are the greatest hurdles to success? Without a doubt they're all me. I have to still put in another 9,000 hours to even get close to mastering the markets and this is very much a price action learning curve for me, one that I'm exited to take as I won't gain too much more knowledge just on a sim account. Apart from trading skill the other key component I need to master is my own psychology. In a way I'm lucky in a different lifetime I spent a lot of time on horse racing and I know my own mental and physical response when I start to gamble (mainly identified by excitement and then a rush of adrenaline) if I feel this then trading wraps up for the day. It has conditioned me to loss which is a good thing and in fact one of the risks is if I start the day off poorly I will be become a little hesitant to pull the trigger and on the flip side to this if I start the day well I need …