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Thanks again, sitting here reflecting on the process of passing the Apex evaluation was like going to Physical Therapy for treatment. It forces you to do what hurts to fix your pain. For me the pain in trading is sticking to a plan. I wasn't perfect with this evaluation but when I deviated from my plan and got slapped it hurt more than any other time I remember while trading.
For those interested in how I passed the evaluation this is what I did. Trading the ES with the Apex $25,000 account I traded for a total of 11 days. Scalping no more than 5 ticks at a time all the way through and on average only 3 trades per day.. Day 1 through 8 I traded with my planned contract size of only 2 contracts at a time. At day 9 I had profited $1,000 and to be honest I was getting more nervous and anxious at the same time. I felt I needed to get this done so I upped my contract size to the max 4. Breaking my plan of only 2 contracts weighed on me but the same time seemed logical, I still don't know how I would be graded on doing that but in this case it worked out ok.
Day one was a loss but I sucked it up and followed on with my plan. Day 5 was not an easy trading day, only broke even. Day 8 was also a struggle but ended with a small gain. After day 8 and using 4 contract with a 4 tick profit goal I was able to sail through to the end. To summarize I had a total of 31 trades, 83.87% profitable, 26 winning trades and 5 losing trades according to NT stats.
To summarize, I wasn't looking to get any runners, just scalp 4 to 5 tick was the goal. I think that is very attainable in the ES many times a day but reading the market and having the confidence to pull the trigger is the obstacle. Finally, trading a prop firms evaluation will be a very good lesson for me whether I continue with them or trade on my own. The discipline needed was intense.
It does. It helps me, and interests me greatly, and I certainly won't be the only one. I actually crossed Apex off my list long ago (and even the current 80% discount doesn't tempt me to reconsider that) but this doesn't matter very much: it's the details you discussed that are relevant and significant - and thank you for them.
And congratulations on passing the evaluation, of course!
Still thinking about this - would I be about right in guessing from what you said above that your stop-losses were around the same size as your targets, with this trading, @JMAL ?
No, I used a 2 point stop loss. Only once did I move the stop loss a total of three points and was stopped out. At that time I was only using one contract so the make up wasn't to hard to reach. Generally I use 2 point stop loss. I know these ratios are not considered smart but it worked for me in this evaluation.
Generally, I find that what is "considered smart" varies a lot according to who is doing the considering.
I know that many long-term successful and institutional traders routinely use an R of less than 1.0, while many retail traders posting in forums strongly advise something very different.
You are far ahead of me (everyone here is). I did not yet try any evaluation, but intend to, and I have been thinking about exactly this point, for myself, but I am also thinking about trading 3 or 4 lots of MES with just the last lot being an attempted runner, if it runs. I find the commission offputting with this plan, and the FOMO offputting with your plan, so I am stuck and I do not know which to try.
My question: what made you decide to try this "4-5 tick TP, 8-tick SL, no runners" approach that worked so well for you, and do you still do this now, or was it just for passing the evaluation?
That's a good question. To answer honestly, mostly because I am not a sophisticated trader, more a junkyard dog trader. Getting by by the skin of teeth. Why 4-5 tick TP, 8-tick SL? That is what I see as an average run before a retracement. It's mostly a sure thing if I have read the price action correctly. As far as the Stop loss at 8 ticks, not willing to take any more of a loss than that (in theory).
My experience with runners isn't good. Most cases when I use a runner the market retraces back to my breakeven stop. Not complaining, it's just not my forte. That's why no runners during the evaluation. At some point I will use runners again, just not until I get comfortable with Prop trading.
Unfortunately I broke the Threshold on the PA account after being up $1,000. So I'm back at square one in another evaluation account starting yesterday. This time I am going to use a little bit different strategy. Will still use the 1point profit with a change of a 1 point stop loss instead of 2 point (1 to 1 ratio). Two reasons for this, first when I lost the last PA account I was boneheaded and moved my stop loss when the market started going against me. I knew it was going to go in my intended direction and it did as soon as it took me out. Second reason for the 1 point stop loss, it's my $1000 punishment. I will now have to read the market with much more precision before entry.
Can't offer you any advice but I don't see this as a bad way to succeed with funded accounts. If you can make one successful trade a day of any amount and multiply with additional accounts, that would be
Hi JMAL,
thanks for sharing your Apex's trading and congrat for your new founded account. I'm looking for a good prop firm and I received good info about Apex. In the next days I w'll open my first evalutaion account and I w'll try to pass the evaluation but I know that it w'll be not easy ! Anyway I did read all your previous messages and I believe that you passed the evalutaion phase because you had a very good trading's discipline and a very good money managment.
I would like to read in adavance the terms and conditions as included in the Apex's agreement form that the trader have to sign after he passed the evalutaion but I didin't find inthe web. Maybe could you send to me a copy of this (the form agreement only without your data, of course) ? Let me know if it's ok for you so I w'll write my PM so you w'll send it to me. Thanks in advance and have good Apex trading.
Update, Since last post I started and passed another Apex $25k 7 day evaluation. Prior to purchasing another evaluation I Sim traded real time with NinjaTrader for a few days trying different strategies. In the end I decided to use the same trading strategy as before, mostly because the trailing drawdown doesn't make a lot of since to me.
Trading with a $25K account, I used max leverage of 4 ES mini contracts, scalping out with 5 tick profit, 8 tick stop loss. Note: during my Sim trading I found using anything smaller than 8 tick stop wasn't a successful strategy. My goal was to make one trade a day unless I had a loss or exited when market reached my entry and I felt the need to exit at that point with only a commission charge. If there would have been two losses in a row I would have stopped trading for the day. Overall one successful trade a day was the goal, 4 contracts @5 ticks equal $234.08 with $15.92 commission charge.
During seven days I had a total of 12 trades, with one loss. First 4 days no loss, 1 trades per day with 4 wins. 5th day, 4 trades (yes broke my plan of one trade a day, mental weakness) one +2 tick trade, one +1 tick trade, one 8 tick trade loss, one +5 tick trade, (total -8 ticks +8 ticks = 0 profit/loss minus $64 commission). Day 6, one trade exited at entry 0 ticks, two 5 tick trades +10 ticks. Day 7 +5 ticks. Ending account balance $26,508 96.
Thought on my performance, Yes I had a good win loss ratio but struggling with confidence to stay in the trade and the ability to pull the trigger when the set up occurs. Overall I think this 5 tick strategy works, add a trade copier and 20 accounts would be more than I could ever imagine, if successful. I will start my PA account soon and I will continue to use the strategy above.
My take on this evaluation, $1,500 isn't to intimidating goal to reach, trading after 11:00 o'clock AM (central time) gets difficult, trading more than 4 hours causes losses. One successful trade and your free to do what you like for the rest day! Once again hope some find this useful,
