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You definitely have some good points here. Most people are undercapitalized in this game trying to either make a living or outsized returns with high leverage. I'm one of them. The less leverage you can deploy the better. I humbly think that if I had a 100K account to trade with and could use lower leverage than I do today I would be a great trader and have my path cut out for me. Maybe that wasn't so humble. Sadly, I don't have that much capital.
That said - $3300 per day is 66 ES points gross. I'd say if you lose 66 points intraday on any given day trading 1 ES contract you don't have any business trying to day trade the ES anyway. During those volatile days you speak of it's perfectly possible to chose not to trade.
The reason I'm comfortable trading more than 1 contract within those parameters is that I have a high win rate both on my trades and trading days (95 % of my trading sessions are positive).
In theory, and in practice, I could simply trade 1 ES now and take 1 tick profit per day and be a funded trader, but I will probably keep trading as I do like to stay sharp and practice. Maybe I can hit 15K by day 15. Or maybe I'll do something stupid.
PS: Like I already said - the daily drawdown is a bit tight, so makes sense to stay smaller than with the other programs. You don't really have much leeway if you take on multiple contracts. At least make sure you have some daily profits as a cushion before going "big".
Down 2.8K today. Got on the wrong side of the market and had to pull the plug in order to not risk hitting the daily drawdown.
Tomorrow's a new day and I feel confident I'll spring back. With 5 days left it's possible I'll just go conservative and play it safe for the rest of the tryout.
Congrats! I wouldn't just say in theory you should play it safe, implying you will keep taking trades of any size. There's no style points awarded, the play should for sure to play it safe for 4 days.
So, contrary to cdnftrstdr's advice I went for the style points!
And it ended with me losing the account by exceeding my daily loss limit by around 50 dollars. The account was liquidated at around $6K.
I could and should have played it safe, but as I believe in my trading capabilities and methodology, I just wanted to prove to myself that I could keep on going and build confidence. If not - it would all just be luck, right?
The problem, though, was that the last few weeks have been very stressful in my current day job and where both my day job and trading each have suffered because of it. Realistically, I shouldn't have been trading and didn't have the time to do so. On this losing day I actually got a phone call shortly after the Open from a colleague that I had to take and which threw me off balance.
I finished off the day by taking on too much size with a larger stop. However, I calculated the P&L stop-out point such that a stop-out would make sure I survived the daily loss limit. I must not have done it correctly or maybe I got some slippage as the daily net P&L turned out to be something like $ 3350 and the daily loss limit is $3300.
It's a good reminder for next year as I continue to trade. Live day trading can be compared to walking a tight rope. It really requires you to be lazer focused and disciplined. You really need to be on top of your game at all times. And the more discretionary your method - the more important this is.
For me, it's not uncommon to get complacent or sloppy after a good run. I start thinking trading is easy, enter sub-optimal trades, skip my preparations and lose my balance. Or I trade when I don't realistically have the time or mental state to be trading. Such as when my current day job is demanding extra hours and I know I have to work later in the evening or if my girlfriend is craving attention for some reason.
Finally, no larger stops. You can be rewarded with a higher win rate, but sooner or later you'll take that stop and if you have size on when you take it it's gonna hurt. Never put yourself (myself) in a position where the outcome of one single trade means too much.
As for the thread topic on these programs I have nothing bad to say against E2T and still maintain that it's the best alternative out there as far as I can tell. I'm still un-decided if it's a good solution to actually get funding, though. Personally, I will probably be trading my own $$$ exclusively come next year, but I can't rule out trying it again. The case against these programs seems to be that they don't really offer serious funding and that the funding offered is likely so small that most people can fund it themselves and have full control of their account.