Hi Everyone, I am new to this forum and would like to journal my journey for a new trading quest that I have been thinking about for a long time. I have been trading on and off for over 20 years and I have many scars to prove it. Recently, I became a funded trader with Topstep Trader using my own scalping system on US 30 Year Bonds. In the past I have traded Futures and Forex manually and with my own coded systems. I have completed many trading courses and seminars. Most of the time I could not replicate their results! They often promise the world but most do not deliver. Like most of us, I have been burned by these trading companies. It is time to test these trading companies and see who can deliver. My journal will my progression: I will explain why I chose the courses on the short list and why I chose the first one to test. Right through to setup, back-testing, live trading and hopefully to profitability I will explain what works and what doesn't I will not be sharing anything that is proprietary to the company My goal is to see if I can become profitable in 90 days. If I fail, then I will start again with another 90-day challenge ... until I find a profitable course. I would love it if people have questions or can suggest things along the way. If anyone would like to suggest a trading course to add to my list, I would appreciate it. I am NOT associated with any Trading Company. I am excited to share my journey and my results with you. Come along with me on My Trading Quest! Cheers Garry
Welcome! Did any of the courses promise you to be a profitable trader in 90 days? If these are discretionary, how can you back test them?
Why do you need to be a "funded trader" to be profitable , if your scalping futures , surely returns will either be good enough to trade using own money , or bad enough that it will never work.( key word being scalping).
Hi qlai, A lot of courses appear profitable but when you put them to the test either they fail or the student fails. Part of choosing a course is determining what the student requires. In my early trading, it was my psychology and it still hangs around. At this time on my new journey I have possibly 6 courses that would be considered. They look like they could achieve my goal. I am still in the research phase ... but getting close It depends on your definition of discretionary. The only courses I look at are ones that have rules. I am a rules-based trader. Discretionary to me is either guessing or the person hasn't clearly verbalized the system. You may have heard the term ... Unconscious Competence I hope this has helped Cheers Garry
Hi Matt, For this exercise, it means that I won't give away their secrets just what is generally available and how the information, indicators, etc affected my results. An example: Some courses explain the formula for their own indicators - I would not share the formula. If I am in any doubt I will either not share it or ask the course owner if it ok to share in the forum. I think that is fair. I am happy for questions about anything as I progress. Cheers Garry
Hi Henry, It is not about needing to be a funded trader ... it is just a path that some use. Why would you risk your own money if you with "limited" risk, can earn 80 - 95 % by trading with a firm that will fund you? Why not risk someone else's money and you can diversify with your own money. Another reason is you can grow it quicker and with less risk with these companies. How many systems have we all tested and then lost a lot of money when we went live? The idea behind using the Funded route in the Quest is because I believe, if a system can stand up to the rules to pass and achieve funding then it has a high probability of being a good system. You cannot lie when it is live. I am not sure the difference in the path for scalping or any other approach? Please clarify that part of your question. I also wanted to show people that even if you don't have a lot of capital, you could still use the funding path to grow your account. Cheers Garry
Scalping will ,if conducted in the quintessential fashion of many small trades per day ( or something close to this), will produce a tiny return on each trade yes , but say 30 trades a day returning 0.1% on average is 3% a day return ,which compounded will easily double your money within 6 weeks ( which obviously compounds further very quickly) , by the time you've completed the course etc ,and dealt with your firms profits rules etc I can't see you being much further ahead than by simply cracking on, on your own . If you weren't scalping and could control huge positions at a lower rate of return than scalping you might have a point .
Thanks, Henry. Everyone has a different definition of scalping. My Quest is aimed more toward finding a working strategy, that is profitable. I am willing to explore the courses to see if one achieves that goal. A common approach used by some of the companies I have/am researching is 3 and done. The growth comes from the number of contracts used. The advantage is reducing time in front of the screen. Scalping often takes a lot of time and focus which doesn't suit most people. It is easy to show the compounding math for both approaches. I am doing this exercise for the challenge and the learnings not to replace my scalping system. Cheers Garry
It's hard to define scalping as having a long, or even longer time frame , I've never heard anyone state that. You should also beware that these sort of firms are notorious for not paying up, even putting stooges on websites to attract customers, I just don't believe very successful traders would take this route.