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Yes, to succeed in the Combine, you must adhere to the rules and meet the profit target.
As always thanks for the suggestions about the dashboard, we will have the profit feature when we launch a new dashboard that will be coming soon.
Hoag
If you have any questions about our Trading Combine or the opportunity to get funded through TopstepTrader, please visit www.topsteptrader.com or contact us at [email protected] or 888.407.1611.
Hi Hoag,
sorry, if this has been already asked but when do you plan to open funded Forex account and will carrying of positions overnight be available in it?
I just put up a post in the "other" TST thread, the vendor review thread, which was copied from my reply to a PM asking for recommendations about which Combine to take. Naturally, there's no one answer for everyone, but you can weigh some of the factors to try to get something that works for you, as well as just decide if you should do it at all.
I just got a PM from a trader who asked me for a suggestion for a Combine, and who was concerned whether "all the rules" would fit his trading style or not.
I gave it my best shot, which is basically about the different things to weigh against …
I didn't want to fill up the AMA thread with something that is my opinion.
Please excuse my interjecting a slightly "cautionary note", but I thought it would do no harm for someone to mention (pedantic though it sounds - sorry!) that that's really a "$30k Combine" rather than a "3-lot Combine".
I know it sounds really nitpicky, when you clearly meant "The Combine in which it's permitted to trade 3 lots" but it's actually quite a significant conceptual difference, the point being that trading the maximum number of lots permitted in any Combine may well be far from the best plan: huge numbers of people, including many with profitable methods, have inadvertently fallen foul of daily loss limits and/or hit trailing maximum drawdown limits that way.
For myself, I wouldn't trade more than a single lot in the $30k Combine, and if wanting to trade two lots, would try the $50k one as a minimum. Most of my own methods require trading a minimum of 3 lots (without which I can't scale in and out as I need to), and in practice I'd try either the $100k or $150k Combines, to do so. The emphasis is very much on risk management, when demonstrating to people that you should be trusted to trade with their funds.
Yeah, I just couldn't remember which one it was at the time so I identified it by lots.
I think I would rather do the $30k and trade 1 with the occasional 2 due to the lower profit target. And as Bob pointed out, the daily lots resets every day, so that's a good thing. If you get close just quit and trade again the next day.
The daily loss limit resets every day, (or actually, although I did put it that way, what's really going on is that it's a daily-only limit; every day has the same limit, and it doesn't carry forward) which I think is what you meant.
But there is still the trailing max drawdown, which never goes away and which is always waiting.
The thing to do is figure out the daily loss you are willing to accept, and that you need as a cushion. The 30K has a daily loss limit of $500. So if you have a 4-point loss in ES, you just lost $200 per contract. Or $400 for two. That means you better not do that twice in a row.
So it is something to work out, based on how you trade and what kind of daily loss you may need to be able to live through. Remember that very tight stops will mean smaller losses per trade, but sometimes also mean more losing trades because they get hit more often. So it's an overall strategic question, and should be approached, I would say, very conservatively.
I would do just as @Tymbeline suggested if I needed to use enough contracts for a scaling-in strategy. I do 50K because I do a 1-contract, all-in-all-out strategy. I would be scared to do the 30K even with one contract.
Now, that's only me. I'm just trying to lay out what I believe makes sense to think about. If you go into the 30K having figured all this out and with your eyes open, and with a realistic consideration of your strategy, how successful it is and what size cushion you need for the losing trades, then no problem.
Trading Combine Rules
1. Trade a minimum of 10 days
2. Trade permitted products and times
3. Do not hit or exceed the Daily Loss Limit
4. Do not allow your Account Balance to hit or exceed the Trailing Max Drawdown
REMOVED:
• Always implement stops with an open position
• Achieve at least 45% Profitable Days
• Achieve an Average Net P&L greater than $0 for each product traded
Thus you need not have a hard stop in the market while trading for the combine, but need to ensure that you do not hit the Daily Loss Limit
Why they call it a $30K combine then ? Surely you are not allowed to lose $30K nor you need that much to daytrade 1-3 lots , so whats the point from calling combines $30K or $100K ?