Hello, This is a journal I am doing for a 10 day Combine with Topsteptrader. I passed the Combine in May/June (see attached pic) but failed at the live trader preparation stage. TST refunded my previous Combine deposit and I took 2 weeks out to paper trade and make a few tweaks to my approach and now I am back with the intention of passing this Combine again and passing the Live Trader Prep afterwards. The details of the Combine are as follows Start Date 7 August End Date 6 September I have to trade at least 10 days during this time Trading crude oil 1pm-9pm GMT (7am-3pm Chicago time). My limit is 5 contracts but I trade 2 lots at all times. Daily stop is $1k Max drawdown is $2k Commission is $5 per contract trade There are additional Combine rules Always implement stops with an open position Must achieve overall Winning Day percentage of 50 or greater Each product traded must have a Trading Average greater than $0 and meet at least TWO of the performance rules listed below: Overall Average Win greater than Overall Average Loss Overall Average Win Duration greater than Overall Average Loss Duration Total Win percentage of 45 or greater My TST user name is Liffey8. You may be able to view my trade reports on the website, Iâm not sure. Either way, I will be posting pics of my daily trade reports as proof of my pnl and the trades I do each day. I started the Combine yesterday, and Iâll put up pics of yesterdays trades as soon as TST approve this journal. Hope to update soon, Liffey8
Sorry for the delay, I was very busy. Ok so here is day 1 (August 7) In summary 3 trades All winners Pnl $2510 Trade 1 Short at 105.10 with stop at 105.44 (above the swing high)target 104.42. My target is always simply double my stop. See chart. My rationale was that the market was trending down (lower highs, lower lows) and I wanted to sell rallies. The trade went down into the 104.50s â very close to breakeven â so I trailed my stop to entry and got done at 105.09, for a $20 profit.
Trade 2 As you can see from the attached chart, this is a very sweet sell the rallies. Same strategy as above, I sold 105.27, stop at 105.54 (above the swing high). Target was 104.73 (again double the stop loss). The market sold off very sharply and I hit my target, for $1080 profit.
Trade 3 Again, given the price action (slow and stodgy when rallying, sharp and violent when selling off), I was happy to sell rallies. The candle highlighted in the JPEG was very convincing so I went short at 104.81, with a stop at 105.36, targeting 103.71. It did nothing until the pit close then sold off hard. I covered at 104.14 (just before 9pm London time) for a profit of $1340.
Day 2 (9 August) On this day I did 1 trade, losing $700 (35 ticks). I got taken out of the trade very quickly (a mere 13 minutes). This is a hateful trade because I was right about the overall trend, but it just stopped me out before staging a massive rally. My bias was to get long on dips, against the 104.80 support level (see chart). I bought at 104.06 (green arrow on JPEG) with a stop at 103.71 (taupe arrow), it sold off briefly (purple arrow) before rallying like crazy (grey arrow). DAMN!