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I made the exact same mistake I did yesterday, only on the apex account. I was up 38 USD, ready to walk away. I looked at the rithmic dashboard to make sure I was flat, and the account showed a PnL of 0 USD.
I traded the wrong account again.
Instead of walking away, I decided to trade and I ended up having a losing day. This was especially frustrating since I was up on the week, and this last day puts me in the negative (although not by much). The last two trades I took today were definitely emotional and were caused by frustration. On a positive note, I was able to walk away with a manageable daily loss and avoided overtrading myself into oblivion.
I definitely need to be more careful before I start trading and make sure I'm in the right account. I'll add "check the account you are trading in" to my pregame checklist.
Here are the stats for the day:
Topstep combine
I was too triggered to trade, so I just didn't.
Weekly review Apex PA account
PnL: -25.62 USD
Losing week, so I won't be able to increase my size to 2 lots next week. I did great Monday to Wednesday, but I gave it all back Thursday and Friday. If I hadn't traded on the wrong account on Friday I would be up a solid 60 USD, which is not bad at all considering I'm trading one micro. But the bottom line is what matters in the end, and a losing week is a losing week.
Despite the improvable performance, I feel like I made improvements. I was more selective with my entries and I made very few emotional mistakes. I was also good at walking away when I reached my daily stop loss.
The average PnL per contract is -0.46 USD, so this is a losing week due to commissions. In fact, considering that I can make back this week's loss with just one average winning day, puts this week more in the "breakeven" category. This was also the first week on the PA account, so I wasn't expecting any kind of overperformance.
Here are the weekly stats:
Topstep combine
PnL: 415.82 USD
I only traded three days on this account (four if you consider the day that I traded on demo by accident).
I started with a clip of 3 micros but I increased it to 4 on the last day since I was having such a good performance on this account. I got better at switching from ninjatrader to topstepx, and now this is no longer a problem for me. I will also say that now that I have a PA account with apex, trading a combine with topstep feels a bit like trading on demo, which helps with emotions.
Here is the equity line from the topstepx platform:
See you all next week, cheers!
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
I kept shorting that opening drive and got absolutely ran over. I had decided to experiment with correlations, so I was watching AAPL, MSFT, NVDA and GOOG to see how the MNQ reacted to the movements of those stocks. I think I went into information overload and I totally missed the obvious fact that MNQ was just going higher.
Even worse, I lost double of what I'm allowing myself to lose on a daily basis. I should have stopped after the fourth losing trade in a row, but instead I decided to open three more.
Here are the stats:
Topstep combine
PnL: -130.32 USD
I did a little bit better here, but I still ended up with a losing day.
2024-05-21 Apex PA account
PnL: -44.22 USD
Another losing day, the fourth one in a row. This is telling me that I'm simply not in tune with the market and I need to take a step back. I noticed that I've been taking too many trades near the point of control of the current range in the MNQ and I keep getting chopped up.
I will take the next two days off from trading the apex account, it's simply bleeding too much. Out of the 7 days I've traded in this account, 5 have been losers so I'm clearly doing something wrong.
Yesterday I tried looking for correlations, today I tried being a lot more systematic with my analysis. I've been refreshing my knowledge about market auction theory and I tried to implement some ideas in my trading. I think this messed up with my intuition and I ended up taking trades that I don't normally take.
Topstep combine
PnL: -64-06 USD
Small losing day, I was up and down the entire session. I will keep trading this account since it's just a combine, but I need to go back to basics and figure out what I've been doing wrong in the past few days.
I don't want this to come off as kicking you when you're down. Imagine we are having a conversation, and you asked me for help (which you didn't, but I'm pretending you did, heh). You are not being yelled at or scolded.
The fact of the matter is:
You are a new trader. It's rare for any trader to effectively trade on intuition, let alone an aspiring one. You are trading too many accounts, you are trading randomly, and you are frequently re-evaluating your edge (such as it is). It's all documented in your journal, too (which is great).
Remember, 5 losses or more in a row are perfectly natural; just like 5 wins in a row - but not if you keep altering the plan.
I had 22 losses in a row today. 22!!!... but I also had 66 wins in a row. They are all part of the plan, which I execute (practically) flawlessly. Food for thought.
It could take 500 trades or more, not 5, to determine if something is working. Definitely don't up your size because you had a good week - it could take months (based on a realistic time set by you) to determine whether your edge is working, if you are executing flawlessly. You should be trading one account in SIM until you can execute flawlessly. Many traders will say there is no emotion, but you are not at the stage to train emotion - you must practice executing flawlessly; win, lose, or draw. If you cannot do this in SIM with a single account, you are not ready to trade multiple accounts with real money (in the case of the prop firms, it's still simulated money at your stage).
And this statement...
No...no... address this mental error immediately. You treat this account seriously. If your plan with this account is one to gamble or try all kinds of techniques to learn what works and what doesn't - OK. I don't get that feeling from your journal, however.
At the end of the day, do not be hard on yourself. If you make an error, note it and try again. You're trading with the micros and that is good. Plus, you're journalling your progress, which is great. And you're taking a step back to refocus - very nice!
