Topstep combine day 7, during week 2
June 20, 2018
Well - I'm making slow but steady progress. I have gained a little confidence because whenever my account drops I am able to recover it to some degree even within a session.
I had a few small losing days and managed to keep discipline, not lose my cool, and throw the towel in when I'd had enough psychologically. At one point a few days ago I had 2 contracts on the swiss franc and I managed to get out for break even after having an un-booked dip in equity down to under 100K by a few hundred. I credit my ability to change my mindset within a trade and judge when I don't feel it's a winner any longer - at that stage I'm content to minimize the damage, drop my limit down to half way between current price action and entry and work an exit. This I think is my major strength. If I can watch my mind carefully during a trading session I should be able to pass the combine stage 1.
I am not keen to 'gamble' with the maximum number of contracts and try to get through the stage 1 fast. This is very tempting to try. No, I am going to stick to my plan of gradually building up the contract number as a reward for higher equity tiers passed. At this stage I have moved up to scaling into 2 positions. The second contract is always at a place that would be hard to fill such as below a support level ( gauged by using volume profile nodes).
Funnily my worst performing with slight negative expectancy statistics is Australian dollar.
The best by far is swiss franc. I really have to play to my strengths and acknowledge what works in reality. I assumed that AUD would be my currency of choice - merely because I am familiar with my own economy etc. But in trading anything can happen. Maybe it's too early to draw any conclusions however.
My stats so far are below :
I am making on average $38.5 per day.
current at start of week 2:
balance : $100,269; average win day 91.5, loser -32.2
best day : 146 , worst -65.9
days 7 ; winning days 57%
av. win 45.2 loss-32.4
win % 50 max conseq w/L =2:2
av w/L duration 15/ 15 minutes
total trades on average per day : 6 brokerage : $22.20
account bal draw-down limit 97270 to fail combine target $6000 to pass
draw-down so far : 0
The green highlights are good, and the red are not so good changes. I am not particularly bothered by the negative so far as I still have solid stats. My win to loss in terms of profit end of each day is almost 3:1,
my % winning days is good at nearly 2 out of 3 days winning. My raw winning 50% is fair.
rate of trading is 6 per day on average which is comfortable & keeps brokerage low though still about half my average $ win per day which is only fair.
I would like to improve my average win to loss ratio to closer to 2:1, but 1.5:1.0 is ok for a scalping strategy. I think I need to get some bigger runs on the table however. I have to press my winners in some cases if I judge it is usefu.