Hi I hope TST traders here could help me to answer this question. Do you guys think I'm good enough to pass TST levels for a funded account, based on my trading skills from below trading statement on sim for the last couple of days? I don't want to spend money to join TST yet if you guys think I'm not ready since I live from cheque to cheque while paying back student loan. I'm a young female with an evening low paid job. I hope I could use daytime to make some extra income to support myself from trading for TST. I've been learning the craft of trading over last few years through school and paper trading. What are other alternatives beside Topsteptrader? I'm only aware of TST while exploring this forum weeks ago. Any advice is appreciated and thanks a bunch
Is this a serious question? 3 Days of simulated trades.... and you expect someone to give you an informed assesment of your viability in the TopStep combine? Keep practicing.
You have a better chance at making money by following experienced traders at collective2.com. But you have to have some savings & pay for the service.
It isn't possible to tell this from "a couple of days", and it isn't wise to try to. Use your two-week free trial well and wisely, trading on all 10 days, and then decide. I've had two friends (from university) in the past, in exactly your position. One was successful at her first attempt at a $50k Combine, sailed through the FTP and got a funded account. The other was unsuccessful, and then tried two further Combines without passing one at all. It's all about risk-management skills. Every stage of TST's procedures is designed to check your risk-management capabilities. (For understandable reasons, obviously: I'd want to check the same, if I were lending/giving people money to trade!). Whatever you decide, for what it's worth, I would strongly advise you to take the $50k Combine and not the $150k one, if money's a big issue for you. When you look at the funded account scaling plan, it's really, really difficult to see the additional benefit from doing the $150k, which is so much more expensive. (You need to examine all these details carefully, and be familiar with them, before you start.) As you might have noticed, large numbers of members of this forum are extremely averse to TST, and many of the comments here about them are ill-informed, prejudiced and plain inaccurate. I advise you to make sure, before paying for a Combine, that (a) you're relying on accurate information about it from a reliable source, and (b) that you're really familiar with all the up-to-date details of the Combine and FTP rules. Most people who have some trading skills, that I've seen failing Combines, have done so because of poor risk management (and typically, specifically, because of excessive position-sizing). Whatever you do, if you try a $50k Combine, don't imagine for a moment that just because you're allowed to trade 5 contracts that that makes it safe or advisable to do so! As far as I can see, they're nearly all scammy and horrible. For myself, I wouldn't dream of touching any of the imitators with a ten-foot pole. Just my opinion. Good luck.
@Robert Morse It's a boot camp for futures trading hopefuls. Mav thinks they have a good model. This way, they don't have to go through blown accounts as many small futures speculators experience. Additionally, if you get thru the "combine", you can get funding. @xoxo555 You want several hundred trades to have a believable batting %. Maybe even a thousand to see if you have a method. However, I think the TST program guides you somewhat. Don't just fire off a thousand trades in the next few days. Watch the market and see what you can do(simulated ofc) over several weeks.
Good advice there, from Xandman. You need to practice plenty, on demo, put in the hours and keep good records so that by the time you pay for and take the Combine you already know that you have a genuine, proven edge and risk management parameters that won't fall foul of TST's restrictions. If you're in doubt about this, that usually means you don't, and shouldn't pay a Combine, IMO.
Unless I am missing something or misreading it - I like how no one mentions the contracts traded. 100 contracts traded for $1003.50 and 130 contracts for 2960.80. That's like less than 0.25 of a tick on ES on 1st example and like 0.75 or less on 2nd.