Welcome to my Topstep Trader journal! TopstepTrader is a full scale recruitment and trader development agency. To put it simply, I am paying a $400 fee in an attempt to qualify for a $150k trading account with their firm. I will have 20 days to prove myself through their trading simulator (combine) and receive a fully funded account. My next post will cover the trading expectations and parameters Topstep Trader has for me.
$150,000 account 20 day trading tryout Max position size - 15 contracts Max daily loss - $3000 Max drawdown - $4500 Profit target $12,000 Other rules Only trade permitted products, during the permitted times Trade the required number of days of the Combine Always implement stops with an open position Must achieve overall Winning Day percentage of 50 or greater Largest Losing Day cannot hit or exceed Daily Loss Limit Do not hit or exceed Max Drawdown 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
Today was my first day trading CL in Topstep Trader's simulated trading combine. I finished +$915 placing 9 trades, 3 lots each time. I had 3 winners and 6 losers total. This puts me slightly above what I need to average daily to reach their profit target they have set in place for me ($12K in 20 days). I was finished by 10:00am CST which gives me the rest of the day to enjoy. My winning % was a little low today, but that is usually not a concern of mine because my average winner is always far greater than my average loser. However, Topstep trader does prefer that I have a winning percentage of 45% or greater. I might need to trail my stop a little tighter and be more selective with my trades to try and make this happen. Since I have chosen the 20 day combine, I will have time to make adjustments as needed. Which leads me to talk about a certain topic in regards to their program. 10 vs 20 Day Combine Before starting this combine, I had to make the decision to participate in a 10 or 20 day combine. After reviewing the data available to me, I feel very strongly about participating in the 20 day trial. Sure it would be nice to be done sooner, but in my opinion, that is the only benefit of doing the 10 day trial. I feel that with the 20 day trail I have more time to adjust my trading style to the trading parameters that Topstep Trader has in place for me. I only need to average $600 per trading session in the 20 day combine vs $1200 in the 10 day combine. This allows me to trade more at ease which is what I always prefer to do. Lastly, the 20 day trial gives Topstep Trader's scouting team more time to evaluate my trading style and understand what to expect from me as a trader before they decide if they want to fund an account for me. I am also hoping this journal also helps aid them in their decision making process too. I will only be trading 3-4 days per week because of my other job and for this reason you may not see any posts on certain days. Any day I do trade in their combine, I will post my results for that given day. If anyone has any questions about anything, please feel free to ask and I will do my best to help.
Today was day two of my TopstepTrader combine tryout. I finished in the green netting +$1215. However, it was a bit of a struggle getting profitable today. I had four losers in a row before getting a winner. I was down to my last bullet and I caught a monster leg up and that was enough to call it a day. Letting Winners Run I know many of you have heard the saying "keep your losses small and let your winners run." Unless you are a micro scalper, which is extremely hard imho, this is what you have to do to win the trading battle. I COMPLETELY UNDERSTAND that it does not matter if I lose trades because when I win, I win BIG. When I catch a leg or two, it usually always wipes out numerous losses. Knowing this puts me more at ease psychologically when I do encounter a few losers.
Actually, what I am displaying is a trading report from topstep trader's t4 trading platform. I understand you probably saw the ninjatrader logo at the bottom of the picture, but ninja trader is not available with topstep trader right now. When I do my post for my journal on ET, which is usually earlier in the day because I want to get away from the computer and enjoy the rest of the day, TST has not updated their website data by then. I think they update it around 3:15 pm CST, not certain though. I will do my best to post a picture of my results everyday, but it may be difficult to post after 3:15 some days because I work some wacky hours at my other job. I hope this helps
Cool. It looks like you are catching the occasional big profits to offset what looks like the relatively smaller 12-tick losing trades with a 3-lot. If your day gets off to a good start, are you prepared to increase position size?
Exactly! Based off of my past results, trading style, max risk per trade, and Topstep's combine parameters, I have come to the conclusion that 3 lot trades seem to make the most sense to me initially from the beginning. However, it is likely that I will adjust my lots per trade, either more or less, depending on what happens in my combine in the future. Unfortunately, I have gotten off to a slow start the last two sessions with minor daily draw-downs and have not felt comfortable increasing my size like I wanted to do. Today for example, I wanted to add to my winner at one point that would have given me another +$1200 on top of my total, but I did not want to sacrifice having my nice winner evaporate that late in the session. I love scaling in when the moment is right and I am in okay standing for the session. When I add and it works, my profits can be huge and that usually will wipe out a few of the down days I might have.