over time, it's not that bad... no different than stock trading right now. likewise, everyone has different reasons = goals for the combine. Some use it as a personal litmus test. Others are happy to be funded so they can trade 1 - 2 crude or gold or euro contracts or whatever. Those are all good reasons each person may have my reason for the combine is to see if my personal style of trade management will fit inside the confine limits of max loss risk. If so, I'm good to size up over the course of time. If not, I'm no worse off than I am right now... there is no downside to it. regardless, for the next 8 days (or more) I'm going to trade my personal management style to the best of my ability, and we'll see where it all winds up next Friday
Another "devil in the details" is that the funded traders have a weekly loss limit that is the same as the daily limit of $1,000 with the 50K account. If you're down $900 for the day on Monday, you almost have to wait until next week to trade again. If a funded trader did what Austin did, being down ~$1200 for the week,....funded account go bye bye. :eek:
I think that is only for the first few weeks while you are still on evaluation. I could be wrong. I think they do that so one doesn't go balls to the wall the second they get funded. Makes sense.
well, my take on that is they want to keep risk of loss to practically nil with real money. I'm ok with that... should we reach that second stage of the process, I'll adjust my risk parameters accordingly. by random chance and nothing else, I began with first two days of total range-chop tapes. Had I started during first two sessions like those past FOMC in June, we'd be talking about account balance at $55,000+ with zero draw ever. So it is what it is. I'll trade it out of the hole and back on top by combine's end. Will try hard to avoid -2000 max draw. I won't hit the daily draw... that much I can control 100%. Trading 1-lots with -8 tick or -6 tick stops to start a position will contain losses. Need a directional move or two and we're good. Nothing more to worry about until tomorrow comes and we'll go from there.
Two dead, range-chop sessions led to today's vaunted Fed minutes' afternoon. Would there be any type of methodical oscillations, trend swings, or both today? Not today. Early weakness in the sell zone area, post-news was nothing more than algo whip-rips in no-range fashion again. I was short at pullbacks to resistance early, resulted in net loss. After the 2pm news I was positioned inside the directions that existed at any given time. Resulted in net loss. Several positions went +2 index points to nearly +3pts and then ripped right back for small-loss out. Add several of those together, and it's a max-loss shutdown day.
To make a net positive start and/or fill drawdowns and become positive overall, there needed to be at least one normal range day. But by random chance and nothing else, the first three days of ES price action inside this project have been complete sideways range-chop. Max drawdown of -2000 has been breached so this combine is negated for review. I'll continue to trade it via ES only, following same parameters thru the end and see where we wind up. I expect to finish above initial $50k start, and look to what's next after it ends. If I repeat the program it will be one of the larger packages and I'll do that in this same thread. But for now there are seven sessions left to play for pride, and respect of TST with their gracious offer to make this ten-day event happen. No further posts here until Thursday night... I have been working remote off a laptop and cellular since Sunday evening due to direct lightening strike in my home office thru Ethernet cables. Hardware will be restored tomorrow, I'll be back to full operations and resume posts here then. See you tomorrow