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 -- discounts are available after registering.
-- Big Mike, Site Administrator
(If you already have an account, login at the top of the page)
I will be primarily focusing on keeping track of mistakes, from now on. Wins are nice, but there's not much to learn from them.
The purpose of the prop account is to have a stepping stone between SIM and live account. NO RESETS ALLOWED, so if I blow an account I have to wait until the next month's renewal. This delays getting a funded account, which ultimately costs more than a simple reset. And the purpose of that is to kind of act like a probation period, during which I have to think about what I did wrong.
Took a few smell trades premarket, but still within my strategy because there was scheduled news @ 8:30 AM EST, which brought in volume.
Starting to get tired, so gonna call it a day and just study until I pass out.
These are today's results. SIM account, $2,500 starting balance to replicate Apex's $50k max allowed loss.
I respectfully disagree: I think there’s typically a great deal to be learned from them, that the overwhelming majority of retail traders habitually overlook.
People typically examine losers in some detail, on the often-mistaken assumption that the way forward is to try to avoid them and increase the win-rate. Increasing the magnitude of the winners is often a better way, really.
Good luck with your funding evaluation (and Journal)!
This started out as a completely private journal, so the remark "Wins are nice, but there's not much to learn from them." was just for me.
I'm sure studying wins can be valuable to many people. That's how I started to learn what to aspire to in my own trading. But at this point in my trading journey, I get much, much more from acknowledging mistakes/losses.
When I have a good day, the only thing that really happens is that I feel good about it and relax for the most part. But if I have a bad day, even if it's a net win overall, I spend time replaying in my head what I did wrong, and look for ways to decrease the chances of repeating the mistakes in the future. My most educational days tend to be the ones on which I lose, bigly--shoutout to the president-elect.
After having a losing day, my process is quite simple. First, I let myself feel all the negative emotions. In fact, I exaggerate them as much as I can, just to expedite the processing of them and to "get it out of my system." Then, after all the drama is done, I shrug and play in my head AC/DC's song It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock 'N' Roll). The next day, I come back at least a little bit more battle-hardened than before.
Premarket mood: Up since 11 last night. So not sleep-deprived, but still not optimal performance window. Looking to trade, but won't force anything. Kinda bored, should probably be careful today, especially to not overtrade.
Moved stops, multiple times. Took some risks because of that, but got lucky.
Change of plans. Got a $50k TopStep account. Too many horror stories about Apex not paying out. And trading SIM just doesn't quite feel like I'm getting somewhere.
Premarket mood: Up since 8 pm. Not tired. Today is a half day, so not sure if I'll trade. Will only trade if there's enough volume and range soon after open. Will post a P&L graph later if I end up trading.
Placed trade before open, but only risked 10% of account. Max DD was around $50, but closed out over +$100. Just "breaking in" a new eval account. Don't plan to trade more today. Christmas, and so on.
Placing smallish trades during middle of London session. Strictly speaking, not within my plan to trade NY open. But volume is mildly up, probably from a backlog of trades due to Christmas close.
Increased risk (added to winner). Max DD was about -$400, during news spike at 8:30 EST and during open.
TopStep eval. $700/$3000, so far so good.
Probably leaving some profits on table because it looks like NQ has room to move up. Oh well, slow and steady wins this race.
Moved stops, multiple times. Took some risks because of that, but got lucky.