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)
After lots of dipping my toes in / reading / sim-ing / practising and losing money I somehow managed to pass the TST Combine 150k funded account last week and hope to be trading a funded account either later this week or early next week.
I think the way I passed was a bit unorthodox in that I was $50 away from hitting the daily loss limit on day one, then only $400 from hitting the overall profit target on day 2. I went well over the profit target in the next few days then settled back to just $12 above on day 10. But hey - $12 is $12!
I think with the Combine / FTP I had the attitude that I just wanted to pass in a reasonable time period, which meant I was happier to take risks and have big swings in P/L, so long as I got there.
With the funded account though I really need to focus on consistency so I can continue to improve day on day. I need to follow my plan to the letter and journal better - two areas where I haven't been that great, historically.
Do you mean the scaling plan? I haven't started that yet. I hope to be taking my first live trades in the next week or so.
I haven't traded live - with real money - for a few years. When I last traded live with a $6k account, I was an amateur and lost it very quickly, attempting to trade Mack's Price Action system but struggling to have the patience to follow the rules.
* I'm trading /ES RTH exclusively.
* My trading day starts at 14:00 GMT (13:00 BST) and I will have gotten everything I need to do that day workwise done by that time. I run a small IT consultancy with 6 staff, and trade from my office. I close the door at this time to minimise disruptions.
Setup
I start by looking through the HTF charts (daily, 30m) and look for overall structure and trend.
I take a look at the correlated markets (dollar, bonds, gold and oil) and see if they are telling me anything. I learned this from RockSolid and for a while it helped a lot with direction, but I've learned that it is a tool, like any other, and shouldn't be depended upon on it's own.
I look to see where we are going to open. Are we significantly above or below settlement? By how much? Will an attempt be made to close this gap, and is it likely to succeed?
My charts include prior OHLC, D-VWAP, W-VWAP, Opening Range, ATR(14) targets and RVol. I don't have the +/- std. dev lines as I haven't found they've helped me - I try to keep that charts as 'plain' as I can, but include the items that have helped in the past.
I'm looking to take directional trades that head towards a target (like ATR or gap fill) and hang on for as long as I can (10 points is mostly a reasonable target. With gap fill, I'll look to partially close on and hold part in case of a continuation. In trades away from prior day settlement, I'll try to hold on as long as the market hasn't demonstrated it is changing it's mind. Sometimes that will take the form of strong rejection from a level like prior high / low, or TICK reading of more than 600 in the opposite direction. In these cases, I may look to enter in the opposite direction if I am confident that a range / reversal day is on the cards.
One of my rules, especially for this funded account, is to wait for the market to show me which direction it intends to move before opening a position. I've been stung in the past by "knowing" before the open which way it's going to go, based on correlations and location relative to settlement and just being plain wrong about it. I want to look for a clear intention in PA, with $TICK following suit and within context, then enter on a pullback at a good R:R trade location (D-VWAP, OR-Mid or similar).
Trade Management
I intend to scale with 2 cars for the first two weeks. A third can be added on days like yesterday where there was clear direction and momentum, and if the trade is already in significant profit. I hope to scale this up over time.
I'll be using a mental stop for when I see I am wrong instead of a hard stop loss. This has helped in the past, but I am aware of its downsides also.
I'll scale out around targets, and in during pullbacks. I use $TICK and rVol to help me understand whether a pullback is a pullback or a reversal of sorts.
