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@biotic I agree with you that TopStep mainly makes money out of commission, but the point is that you don't need to "set up the evaluation in a way that traders lose money", I think TopStep can set up the evaluation in any possible way and the trader will lose money most of the time.
Trader lose money because market works in such a way to take money out of beginners. TST set the evaluation in a way that once it gives you money they must be protected.
There have been days lately in which Nasdaq was making moves of 6000 USD per contract, multiply that by 15 and you have a potential loss or gain of 90.000 USD. If TopStep does not put any limit on the behaviour of the traders they could potentially lose 90K in less than 10 minutes.
Concerning the 15 contracts, you don't have to use them. I think they are just a way to attract people. If you are smart you can trade 15 micros that are like one mini and a half. Or you can trade 15 contracts of products that are smaller, like corn o soy etc...
To make money with TST you must be an advanced trader, you must have experience.
I think that traders can do a very simple experiment, instead of trading with TopStep, they can open an account and with 5K and trade micros. Any broker will allow you to trade up to 10 contracts (margin is usually 500 usd per contract), then they can trade by their own rule: no max daily loss, no trailing drawdown nothing. Trading micro son 5K is like trading minis on 50K.
In less than one week, they will have zero in their account. ....and if they open an account with one million dollars it will be exactly the same.
I have been there, I blew up 85.000USD in 6 month... and I considered myself as a smart guy, engineering degree, Mba etc...
Trading is a tough business.
I hadn't checked into my journal for a long time. Just wanted to thank everybody for posting their views on this journal. Every little advice, suggestion and encouragement helps.
The reason I stayed away from this forum was that I was too embarrassed by my poor performance, lack of discipline and track record of reckless trading. To me it felt like I threw away lotsa good money. Money that I could've put to better use. It hurts when I would lose a significant amount of money, sometimes in a matter of seconds. In all, between trying to get funded by the usual suspects and funding my own live account, I have lost heaps of money since I started in 2020. I accept that it's the price one pays to get tutored by the market.
Anyways, currently I have a tiny balance in my live account and will be trading on SIM. I have decided to trade just my SIM account until I have proved that I can be consistently profitable over a period of two months. I will post my SIM trading stats on a weekly basis. I realize that SIM trading is in a lot of ways different from trading a live account. However, my reasoning is that, if I can't trade SIM account profitably, I definitely won't be able to trade a live account profitably. Once I've passed my own SIM trading test, I will fund my live account and hopefully continue to share my progress with you all. BTW, I have decided not to attempt any of the funded training programs. I just don't see much value in it since it makes more sense for me to trade micros with my own live account. Plus, the restrictions and dreaded 'trailing stop rule' gets me all worried and stressed out. So, just me and my rules.
Glad to be back in this forum. Hopefully, active participation can get me one step closer to becoming a successful trader.
What do you think is more important if it comes to journaling: the good trades or the bad trades? To post one winner after the other (of course would be nice to see/have it ) will not help to improve your trading, but posting your losses and discuss them is way more important.
That's a really good point. I guess the number one priority for me is to get to grips with risk management and money management. Wins and losses are certainly important to me. I have had winning trades turn back on me (with greater than 1:2 RR) 'cause I was didn't have a proper risk management system. At the end of each trading session, I will be noting the following:
a) Ratio Avg Win / Avg Loss
b) Ratio Win/Loss
c) Number of trades taken (just to establish a baseline which will be used to determine if I'm overtrading later on when I trade live)
I have to divide this into two parts. Reason: During the first four days, I was disciplined and traded like I should. The last day however, I went berserk and broke all my rules. Self-destruction mode took over. Without further ado, here are the results.
8th to 11th March 2021:
12th March 2021:
Note: Since it's just SIM trading, effect of fees not factored in.
Key observations for the first four days are:
The Good:
a) I was a lot more patient this time. Didn't trade recklessly, as I usually do. Probably, the fear of being judged worked in my favour this time. Hehehe!
b) My Avg Winning Trade was slightly bigger than my Avg Losing Trade. This coupled with a win-rate of 58% ensured a profitable run. Cutting losing trades quickly can be a fun exercise.
The Bad:
a) I am terrible at riding a trend. The minute I see a profitable trade start to retrace a little, I cut the trade and wait for the next PA to get me back in. Not surprisingly, I miss out on the remainder of the trend (usually 90% untapped). Exercise for next week: Ride winners whenever reasonable. Reasonable: strong, continuing momentum in the move.
b) I use market orders a lot more than limit orders. This weakness has cost me many a good entry. Lots of potential trades let go just because I couldn't get a good enough entry. Exercise for next week: Get comfortable with limit orders; use metrics to track progress.
Key observations for the last day are:
The Good:
a) Started off the day well. I was actually sitting on a profit of $587.
The Bad:
a) Boredom took over when price action came to a grinding crawl.
b) Started to play guessing games: "Price will start to jump up from here"; "expect a fakeout there"; "ah... an iceberg here would be nice"; "NY Open will see traders reacting like this or like that..." and so on.
c) Frustration took over and I started trading both directions. Started increasing size whilst being offside.
d) Tried to increase my win rate by aiming for tiny wins but more frequent ones. Got whipsawed. Self-destructed.
Key areas to focus on in the coming week:
a) Step away from trading desk at pre-determined intervals. Use a timer. Use this as a circuit breaker to stop a bad run, if it happens.
b) Once number of trades cross over a limit, exercise caution. Have I traded a little too much? Is a setup worth trading?
c) Are the conditions now conducive to trading profitably? Am I energized or fatigued? Do I need a short break or a long break?
Not even going to bother posting stats for this week. Problem identified. Strategic approach missing. Messy trading due to cluttered mind. Taking time off. Taking mind off trading. Learning to play the guitar now. C'est la vie. Good luck, everyone. Peace, out. 👍✌
So, just me and my rules. 
