Regarding Maverick being a "shill" is an opinion. If you recall his numerous posts on various TST threads, then you know he came to the conclusion (after relentless debates) that TST was in fact a viable option for new traders, for training purposes. Maverick is not new to the markets. His posts were encouraging for newbies to try TST as an alternative to opening a live account. Whether or not he posts here doesn't change facts. I'm sure Maverick knows damn well that a trader with minimal equity isn't going to survive in a live account, neither with TST nor with their own retail account. People don't want to hear the truth, fantasy is more exciting.
This is good information. In other words, they are providing a "second chance entry" for the combine traded with basically no incremental cost (ok, besides the dollar). Hopefully you will pass, but it's a backup plan which obviously no trader in their right mind would refuse!
I know he wasn't a real shill, but sure I have never seen a volunteer shill trying so hard. And that conclusion was freaking wrong 2-3 years ago, when he came to it. Remember, back then they still had most of the BS rules, that had nothing to do with real trading. Watching my winning trading length is not going to improve my profitability, period. Nor shit like being profitable in all instruments. etc. Every rule is worth as much as it can be enforced and TST had a bunch of them that could be circumvented, although with an effort. So early Combiners were concentrating on stupid and irrelevant rules that didn't improve their trading at all. How is that good training? Simply, it isn't... The point is, he was long and wrong. Now one could argue, after all those changes TST is a fairly decent trading tool. Except that is not what they came here for, they are a backing business first and most... People who defend them just keep moving the goalpost...
Could you guys bring back the pit noise audio from the floor? Heck i would pay for it if it was cheap enough. Why did you take it away?
What are you talking about? The S&P Pit still has open outcry and so do many of the futures options. When you see Santelli on TV where do you think he is reporting from...the train station? HAHAHAH
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/cme-group-set-close-chicago-134915657.html Looks like the only pit open still is the S&P but basically no volume is done there. Listening to the pit won't give you any advantage these days.
It is not a huge advantage but I enjoy listening to it. After the Cash Close and before the Pit Close it has more relevance to me. If for example paper/institution sells a 100 lot to locals then those locals will arb it out in the ES by hitting the bid. I know the bid will get hit for 500 lots in the ES fairly quickly to get flat or profit. It is not a real measurable edge to me but at the same time I am not going to fade that by lifting the offer right at that moment. I think it can help you save or make quarters to halves on each ES trade.
On a different note.... It seems like most of the Funded Traders at TopStep trade CL and are solely focused on CL. Am I correct in saying this? It seems like few of them trade the Indices. What is the major draw to trade CL over ES? This is subjective but if you were to rate a market as "easy" or "hard" to trade based on the least amount of intraday reversals with reversal in this case meaning New Intraday High reversing to New Intraday Low and vice versa then CL and ES are about equal. I did a backtest using 30min intraday data going back 2 years and Gold actually appears "easier" to trade based on my subjective definition. This means that for people who trade ACD Method that Gold might actually "honor" ACD levels better than ES. Gold only reverses 31% of the time. CL and ES are a coin flip. Here is a nugget of info that I found in my backtesting for CL. If you are certain that CL will Close Higher than the Opening Price at 8:30AM CST then the CL price at 1:30PM CST will be greater than the CL price at 1:00PM 68% of the time. 01:00PM 68.60986% 153 wins 70 losses If you are unsure of the direction of CL then CL will Close Higher at 1:30PM than the 1PM price 55% of the time. Directional accuracy is not a guaranteed edge. Expected Value trumps everything. I think it is worth pointing out. 80% to 90% of options expire worthless but selling premium does not give you an automatic edge. The 10% of the time that you are wrong wipes everything out. I would like to hear some thoughts on why CL is better for intraday trading. I know ES chopping around intraday sucks. Does CL have more "trend days"? I am open to hearing different opinions.
Not from what I've seen of what the Combine-passers trade. I very, very rarely see anyone who's "solely" focused on CL, though I agree a fair proportion do include it in their instruments. However, you can't tell, because people don't necessarily stick to what they've traded for Combine-passing purposes, once funded. Some of us feel that ES is a little like watching paint dry (hoping it isn't too sacreligious to mention this, around here!). I suspect that for many people "trading frequency" is part of the answer: it's twice as profitable to make an average of 8 ticks 12 times per day than an average of 24 ticks twice a day. That would be how I'd answer a similar question comparing NQ with ES anyway, but I'm not an oil trader and therefore probably shouldn't comment further. I think I see what you mean, but for me that doesn't relate much to how "hard" or "easy" they are to trade. I recognise that it will, for some, of course. I may have this all wrong, but I suspect you won't find many gold traders among TST's funded traders (granted, I've seen one or two recently, mostly Russians, I think). That's for sure.