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One of the traders who regularly reads my journal introduced me to Topstop Trader. I looked into it and I'm really intrigued.
On the one hand, I don't like the idea of paying them to evaluate my trading. I can do that myself! I can compare my sim trading and results to the same rules and benchmarks that they use. I can also fund my own account and keep all of my profits, although I would be starting much smaller than even their smallest funded account.
On the other hand, I kind of like the idea of their 10-day combine. Instead of a nonrefundable monthly payment, it's a deposit that I get back if I follow the rules. In this case, "rules" is a bit of a misnomer. For example, one of their "rules" is that at least 45% of your trading days have to be profitable. That's not a rule, that's a performance metric. Same thing with the P / L average having to be greater than zero. Your performance has to be good enough to be net profitable.
A couple of their actual rules involve a daily loss limit and a maximum draw down. Of course I've heard of and understand these rules but the sad fact is, I have never implemented them. If I had been observing a strict daily loss limit a few weeks ago, perhaps I would still be trading live today.
Anyway, I like the idea of paying a deposit and the desire to get it back acting as a strong incentive to follow the rules - their rules and my own rules. It's like my swear jar but it packs a more real-world consequence. Even if I don't satisfy the profit objective after 10 trading days, I can still get my deposit back and try again.
First things first, I settled on their 5-lot plan:
Daily loss limit: $1000
Max draw down: $2000
Profit target: $3000
I will trade 4 contracts at a time, scalping out on 3 and keeping 1 as a runner. If I start the day with 2 losses (8 ticks each) then I will be down $829.44 including commissions. That leaves enough for 1 more single-contract trade. If I lose that trade as well, I'm done for the day. But if it's a winner I can do another trade and perhaps climb back out of the hole for that day.
If I get 2 wins per day (3 contracts x 4 ticks + 1 contract x 1 tick) and not a single runner, I'll profit $2955 in 10 trading days, including commissions. One runner would put me over the profit target and I could get funded.
I'm going to see if I can pass the combine with a practice account, before I try this for real. I started today and scored 2 wins fairly quickly, both with runners.
I started with a loss today and I was really anxious with my 2nd trade because I knew I would have to stick to my max daily loss rule if it was a loser. Fortunately it worked out and I went on to have a profitable day.
Day 2, 9/25/2015, +$349.18, 5 wins, 1 loss
Since Mack doesn't usually publish his chart lessons on Friday, I created my own. I hope you enjoy it.
I continue to post daily chart review videos on my YouTube channel. Feeling better lately and managed to put together 3 winning days in a row. Here's a link to my most recent video
Cool stuff. How consistent have you been with those trend lines? I've always considered things like trend lines, channels, fibs, etc. subjective and not very sustainable. But I do trade similarly to you. I trade on 10K volume interval with a 8 period SMA. I just trade using basic dow theory though, mostly looking for double bottoms, double tops, or 1-2-3 patterns off high/low of the day.
Sometimes the trend lines aren't so critical, like today. But on a tight range day they can be very important. They can also help me find the start of bigger moves, which isn't relevant when I'm scalping singles. The shorter term trends help to identify when a counter trend move is losing steam and when it's safe to start looking for a good setup back with the trend. I use horizontal lines as well on more range-type days.