Welcome to NexusFi: the best trading community on the planet, with over 150,000 members Sign Up Now for Free
Genuine reviews from real traders, not fake reviews from stealth vendors
Quality education from leading professional traders
We are a friendly, helpful, and positive community
We do not tolerate rude behavior, trolling, or vendors advertising in posts
We are here to help, just let us know what you need
You'll need to register in order to view the content of the threads and start contributing to our community. It's free for basic access, or support us by becoming an Elite Member -- see if you qualify for a discount below.
-- Big Mike, Site Administrator
(If you already have an account, login at the top of the page)
I just signed up for Leeloo's 150k tryout. They had a promotion for 60% off, so I'm paying $122 per month for 15 contracts, $5k trailing drawdown, and $9k target. If my recent performance in demo is any indication (heh), I should be able to pass in a few weeks. I'm planning for two months.
As background I've been trading for about 5 years. I started seeing consistent profits a few months ago and am hoping it's a permanent condition. I scalp indices, mainly ES, on tick and 5M charts. My average trade is for 1-2 points and lasts 2-3 minutes, and on a good day I might put on 40 trades.
Challenges:
Trading the same way in the evaluation as in demo. When money's on the line I get conservative. I skip setups I'd otherwise take and exit profitable trades early to lock in profit.
Revenge trading/overtrading. Happens when something throws me off. Like a trade in profit that turns into a loss, or a lucky trade that makes me feel invincible.
Milestones. If I'm at $999 profit, my OCD will kick in, and I'll trade some dodgy setup to get to $1000. I'll lose, then spiral into revenge trading. I must resist the urge.
Ninja Trader. I don't know this platform well. I already dislike it. I like Tradovate, but only TST, uses it, and their tryout terms are ridiculous compared to Leeloo's.
My aim is a funded account where I can trade 2-4 contracts at a time, lose 5 trades in a row, and still have a viable account afterwards.
But first I have to get up to speed with Ninja Trader.
I figured I'd have some hiccups with NT, so I used MES for my first few trades. Turns out I was in the Sim101 account, so those wins didn't count.
After I got the accounts sorted, I switched over to ES and put on two trades, both wins for +3p. I used my usual sizing of 2 lots, so this amounted to $300 profit - $16 commissions = net $284. I consider that a good start.
Not sure I like Ninja Trader, but it has the key features I need:
- 50t charts
- Buttons to buy at the bid and sell at the ask (part of Chart Trader)
- A way to add a 1p TP and 4p SL to every trade (ATM Strategy)
- A way to add stop or limit orders directly on a chart (right clicking on the chart with Chart Trader turned on)
One thing I haven't found yet is a way to see a summary of all my trades, with the P&L on each trade. I found in the Trade Performance module, in the pull-down menu, under "Trades" I can see a list of all of my trades.
I corrected the title of the thread as you requested, but edited your original post by mistake.
So, would you mind posting it again, because I think there's no way to correct this from our side....
Best of luck with your evaluation, and I'm very sorry for the mistake !
"If you don't design your own life plan, chances are you'll fall into someone else's plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much." - Jim Rohn
A few thoughts on the Leeloo funded trader program:
1. Its not $150k in funding, or even $150k in buying power. It's more like $8k in buying power (the day trading margin requirement for ES is around $500).
2. I'm also disregarding the max lots - with 15 lots, a 6.5p loss in ES would blow the account.
3. Trailing drawdown is the key metric - it's $5k.
4. Managing losses:
I've set my default trade to 2 contracts in ES. My scalping stop loss is -4p, so about -$400 per loss when the full SL is hit (noting I usually exit early if a trade isn't working).
If I hit -$1k for the day, I stop trading.
This should allow me 3 bad days in a row with sufficient headroom under the trailing drawdown to trade my way back.
5. Managing wins:
Need to have a TP on every trade.
The aim is to avoid a big spike into profit, as unrealized profit moves the trailing DD.
If had been in a profitable trade two Thursdays ago, with SL at breakeven and no TP, the 60p spike in ES would have moved the trailing DD up by +$6k, and the retracement would have blown the acount.
Today's trading was a struggle. I have a cold. Maybe it threw off my timing with the Asia session algos, as I lost a couple trades that hit my full -4p SL. I recovered during the London session and clawed back most of the losses, ending down -$117 for the day.
Fun observation: I started taking practice trades in the sim account that Leeloo provides in NinjaTrader. That account is up +1.3k over two days, while my evaluation account - where I place the 'serious' trades - is at a paltry $184. I need to hire a shrink to fix the glitch in my head that's causing this.
I should mention I'm based in Melbourne Australia, and the NinjaTrader charts (ES 1M) show UST+11. I usually trade the Asia session and the early London session. Sometimes I might stay up late to trade the first hour or two of the NY session.
Today I was feeling well and started trading early. I never got into a good rhythm but managed to grind out a decent day. I picked up +19.75 points in ES for $988, less $295 in commissions for a net of $693. (Just to be clear, when I'm counting points, I mean points on 1 ES contract, so if I make 2p on a trade with 2 contracts, I count it as 4 points.)
Summary for the three days I traded the Leeloo account this week:
ES points: +28
Gross P&L: +$1,400
Commissions: +$537
Net P&L: +863 Win rate: 72%
I traded MYM and MNQ a few times but I'm excluding these trades to keep the stats simple.
I'm not sure if I'll keep posting charts. I prepare them for my trading journal, much of which gets copied and pasted here. I don't see many scalpers who show their trades, so I thought I'd try it for at least a few days.
Adding on to my previous post - unfortunately I didn't stop trading.
I thought there was a good long setup on a pullback from the bull trend that started early in the London session. It was a bad call, and it cost me. After that I changed my bias from long to short and scalped most of the loss back. Revised tally: +8.5p in ES for $425. Updated balance: +$1,193.
My first trade hit my TP... but didn't fill, then retraced for a -1.5p loss. A few minutes later an unexpected bear spike led to an even bigger loss. I started grinding out small trades to claw back some of the loss but couldn't put together a good string of wins.
I didn't think I was trading differently than any other day, but nothing I did worked.
Eventually I shut down my PC in disgust, after 20 trades for -29p in ES and -$1,450. My account balance is now negative, -$201.
Going back to review, it looks like I actually followed my protocol to stop trading after 3 losers in a row and/or -1k daily loss. For a while. But then later, when I passed by my PC and saw a setup, I started trading again. Twice!