those are not "nice dollar swings" in my vernacular, nor do I mock other traders at all. Just because price action covers a range of 100 or 200 cents does not mean it was methodically tradeable. The same logic that May 6th 2010 emini selloff was not methodically tradeable.... even though ES covered more than $5,000 per contract down. No one could trade it... wasted volatility. Lastly, if you have seen my "pitch" you have seen a large sample size of youtube videos that show real-time charts and work. So please don't cherry-pick for sake of supporting your point.
I set my alarm for the European open at 4:00am. Traded CL short side for a peak equity high of $3,000+ closed out by 7:15:41am eastern. From there I traded further until past the pit-session open and ended the morning at personal shutoff drawdown. That begin to end process happened for two main reasons. #1: When price action is slow to normal, I can navigate the T4 applet ok. But when price action is fast or choppy, aka ZS Tuesday and CL past 8am today, it is not even close to streamlined as Ninja or other platforms. With NT you simply left-click or middle click for orders and stops, click and drag to adjust stops. Super-simple keystroke logic. With T4 one has to select âTâ for trade or âSâ for stop depending on how you wish to enter, then afterwards when adjusting stops and/or adding to positions you must make sure those same selections are highlighted. Otherwise you are adding positions where intended to place stops, or closing open positions that are working in favor. The extra steps and thought process necessary to execute and properly manage trades in fast-market periods is clumsy at best, for those of use adept at cleaner platforms. NT would be a most welcome addition for me and probably many others used to that logic. #2: Deadline performance minimums. At my closed-out peak today, the equity balance was $152,500 or so. With a ten-day minimum of +$12,000 needed as one parameter to qualify, that is +$1,200 per day average or a day-four balance of $154,800 to keep pace. Considering it was premarket with all session left to go, I made the personal decision to trade further based on (self-imposed) pressure to perform⦠according to combine benchmarks needed to reach. As it turned out, CL remained extremely range-bound and choppy in spiky-surge fashion. Between errant keystroke orders like doubling size instead of adjusted stops, closed trades and wrong sizes along with a healthy dose of self-imposed performance pressure, the day ended as such. I can say beyond a shadow of doubt⦠if this was real money $$ at work, if there were no lofty minimum profit goals to meet, Iâd have quit right then or at the very least +$2,500 for the day and closed out my platform. Funded traders have no performance objectives to meet, so +$2,000 Tuesday, +$0 Wednesday, +$2,600 yesterday and +$2,500 (minimum) today is how I would have personally managed real-money operations with CL trades. Those amounts (or more) were all in my account each day to finish with... not by accident or random chance. Only the perceived pressure to reach +$12,000 in ten sessions is the difference that existed between combine trial and actual cash at work. ** Iâll finish out my remaining six days and expect to be above initial $150,000 balance but highly doubt I can meet all qualifications for advancing to funded status. That said, let me add a bit of personal opinion if I may. As others noted before, the fixed minimum profit goals for the combine are not part of the actual funded trading activity. I might suggest using more realistic sustained profit targets than the current +$3,500 on $50k and +$12,000 on $150k within ten sessions. That would be $84,000 annualized on $50k or $280,000 annualized on $150k. Definitely doable and more in a complete year overall, but not on a random linear basis. Pretty tough to pick any ten sessions at random and have a great chance at reaching those minimums without pressing hard. I would suggest minimal profit objectives (reached and maintained thru) such as +$2,500 for $50k and +$6,000 for $150k. That is still roughly +100% annualized performance, and much more probable to be reached methodically by those who can actually trade. Add to that a condition where 7 of 10 sessions need to be net profitable and you would encourage smooth, consistent daily results. Letâs face it⦠all those who cannot yet trade well are still going to wash out. Just give them enough time and theyâll disqualify thru natural selection. Those who can trade well are much less affected by out-performance pressures to profit and could focus much more on modest, consistent results. From here to the end for me itâll be all about seeking intraday trend-swings with large contracts size. If the market I trade (crude oil) offers enough trend moves from now to then, I could readily hit or exceed $162,000+ to finish. Heck, one +100 cent trade on 15 CL contracts is $15,000 alone. Iâll purposely seek +100 cent or greater trades riding 10 or 15 contracts all the way. That scenario would technically fulfill the +$12,000 min gains requirement, and possibly make the >45% trades profitable requirement too. But Iâm not sure thatâs the manner in which funded traders are expected to perform. So thatâs my real-time observation and feedback, fwiw. In my case and others, NinjaTrader will be a welcome addition. For the sake of realistic conditions for qualifying funded traders, more reasonable profit goals and (if desired) tighter restrictions on finishing net profitable to any degree would in fact encourage and support more methodical trading efforts by combine entrants. The way it is now, I would not personally endorse or recommend to others for participation if their sole objective is to qualify for funding. The difference between combine minimum profit goals and fully-funded traders complete absence of minimum profit goals is too wide a chasm in reality to match performance. All the above is merely my opinion as a veteran trader, such as it is. By no means do I intend to insult or disparage this program in any way. If indeed the primary objective is to sort out trader skills qualified for backing versus trader skills not ready for that, I offered constructive suggestions. Nothing more
there is a difference between trading for money... and trading for benchmark performance the combine qualification is based on benchmark performance which includes downside risk control AND upside minimum profits in limited segments of time. the funded trader is only benchmarked to downside risk control with no mandate of upside profits of any minimum standard. in order to become a funded trader with no mandated profit performance, one must first meet or exceed an annualized 200% return within any random ten-day segment see the difference? That was my point
you need to sim trade with their rules before entering combine so that your trading style is adaptive,they could have a million ways to trade it but that wouldn't be practical,just like any job, you have to play by their rules
convenient you can just forget about the 2k you lost in soybeans for tuesday and say this is how i would have done trading cl. it's also funny when you have a bad day trading it wasn't the positions you took, it was the software, it was the pressure to perform, etc. everyone has had a day like this where you just go on tilt a bit and piss a nice day away. at least you stopped before you were down more than you were up. successful traders i know admit they were the problem and they screwed up. they don't blame other things like the front-end or the market for them trading bad. can't fix the errors if you don't admit what the real errors were.
fwiw, by 8am and third cup of coffee this morning, my combine account was at $152,500+ If that was real cash, it represents +$10,000 monthly on $150k or +80% annualized after four days of trading. That's not good enough to meet one combine minimum criteria. The current criteria includes some elements that encourage or forces trading for outperformance rather than simply consistent profit goals. My suggestion was/is maybe a 100% annualized return as the minimum profit criteria along with other downside risk control parameters might make more sense when sorting for traders who will do exactly that.
i have a way that works for me, you have the same,i could no easier adapt to your style and let go of mine than you could,they are asking you to trade within their parameters to limit risk and wean out the top traders,it's not spposed to be easy,but it can be done, you would have to adapt unless you happen to trade that way already
Well, it's entirely possible I'll finish this segment at $162,000+ ot $170,000+ and balance the win/loss ratio at >45% Merely two (2) CL trades for +100 cents on ten (10) contracts is +$20,000 gross. 100+ cent intraday trades happen all the time in CL... several or more per week on average. If one merely holds for that distance, they will catch some over time. So the act of reaching +$162,000 is not an impossible feat. The style of which it can be commonly reached might not be what the combine backers have in mind.
my one suggestion of a lesser minimum profit mandate takes into account anyone's style of trading able to consistently yield 160% annualized with tight downside restrictions relative to those upside swings. a -2% max downside risk (-3000) seeking +160% annualized upside gain (+12,000 in ten sessions) is certainly possible... but would require numerous outsized days to balance the scratches and small losses. Nobody can string together 250 sessions of minimal profits straight thru in a year. Real trading results means -2% risk and +50% annualized gains, or more like -20% risk for +160% gains ratio. A balance of -2% and +160% is extremely restrictive. A lot of good traders out there can keep losses contained but cannot consistently hit home runs with the check swings necessary in that balance. [edited for math errors]