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I am writing because I will begin trading in the combine and want to make myself accountable to the community. I think its good to put yourself out there and not be afraid to pass or fail. I will post my progress and charts and maybe it will help someone else trying to get funded. Just a little about me I have been learning and trading for 5 years and I feel like I just got the hang of it. My biggest downfall is me (which is why I am posting). I have been profitable for weeks at a time but eventually get too cocky and try to scale too fast. Which is why I think TST will be beneficial to me. I will slow it down, be accountable, work my plan and get funded. I am a price action trader. I trade trend-lines, second entries, I use the 20 period EMA. My mentors and people I follow daily are Mack PATs, Joseph James, FuturesTrader71 and Linda Bradford Raschke. I trade ES and Bonds (ZB). My first day of trading in the combine will be March 14th.
Today was a pretty easy day. Too bad it was only Practice Day. Again, I am not worried about my methodology. My biggest issues are trading psychology and risk management. The two major things that do not measure up during sim mode. Also, I didn't want to start the combine during rollover day or non-farm day or daylight savings day. I need the markets to settle down and be more calm.
Friday I broke some rules and of course paid the price for it. This is a Practice account for TST but I learned to make some adjustments for the combine. One takeaway from Friday, do not counter trend trade. If the trend is going down only take shorts. More importantly, only trade 1 or 2 contracts then scale in as trend goes in my direction. For TST its just as important to protect your max loss than making a lot of money fast. The money will come but I must protect my losses in order to live to trade another day.
Off to a rocky start but at least I stopped the bleeding. My first day I was down $-500 out the box. By the time I got set up to trade it was the afternoon low volume trading. Big mistake! I am selling low at the low and the market wasn't going anywhere. Today I pull out $50 from the market which was much better relatively speaking. This is going to be more like a marathon not a sprint. My strategy for combine and beyond is to make 2, 3, or 4 points a day. Keep it simple and trade my edge which is price action. However when the market is trending hard those 3 or 4 days a month, that is when I will be aggressive and back up the truck. I can literally make $3K alone in a strong trending day. So, I have to stay in the game and live to trade another day.
Advice for those who will start the combine. Start small, trade small until you are comfortable with this this system. One thing that surprise me was when I took the trade and started feeling nervous as if I was playing with my own money. I thought it would feel more like SIM trading but my mistake. All the emotions were back again.
I'm on my third day on combine. Same here, doing very good with practice and thought it would be easy. First day I got nervous and same like you said felt like live trading your own money. First day down 300. Next day again down 200. Third day same thing happened another 250. I took a break and tried to figured out what I'm doing wrong. I felt hesitant to trade. Afraid to lose, and making bad entry due to fear of missing out. Then I decided to mix live and sims. And I felt something different I don't know if it was just me but I was less nervous and was able to trade confidently. I was able to trade better today and cut my loses in half. Will see next week...