1) Regarding your profitable days, were there any where you were down "substantially" and managed to make a turnaround back to profitability? 2) If not, it may be beneficial to decrease your maximum daily drawdown threshold and preserve "money".
It looks like TopStep changed their combine rules two days ago. I will have study them but at first glance, it seems that any significant drawdown would end the combine. The older rules seem more tolerant of drawdowns (after an equity high).
It is actually rather simple. You have a moving max. DD until you reach in profits the value of the max. DD, when it becomes fixed, so you can not lose more than your starting account. So if you made way more than the max. DD, you are allowed to lose it all down to zero, but not more than that. Thus you are incorrect that you can not have a significant DD, you just have to build a cushion first.... https://cdn.bmcharts.com/postcache/e/b/a/8/5/8/Minimum_20Account_20Balance_20FAQ.png
Another tough day for me in the combine. This week did not go as planned and I need to make some major adjustments if I want to succeed in this combine. Anyway, $-2955 today and not much else to say.
1. I have been down a good chunk of change and dug my way out. Actually, I have done it many times in the past, just having difficulty lately. 2. Yeah, you are right, I need to make some adjustments or I won't make it.
Your ability to stop just before the daily loss limit is your saving grace so far. Too many others bust out before they even get a chance to redo their combines. Question: does the two days in a row of loss trigger the 'max drawdown'? I mean, is it 'loss from top' or drawdown from the 0 line?
1 .Yeah, I have been pretty lucky with not busting the daily loss so far. It shouldn't even get to that point. 2. I don't believe that it does. From my understanding from what I signed up for before the changes, I would have to have my account dip below $145,500.
You know you are ok. Sometimes when you change things up (combine), its gets out of whack for awhile. Not to mention oil has been affected by Syria for the last couple of days. I am still long TraderToad.
In TT's case no, because he is still playing by the old rules, but after the 28th, the max. DD is a moving target and it comes up to your zero level, where it stays. So if TT was playing by the old rules, he could only lose 1.63 K and then he would be below the max. DD. It is possible they changed this, but you were able to dip below the max. DD as long as you come back by the end of the day. Just keep that in mind, going below the max. DD doesn't automatically stops you.