Simba's TopstepTrader Combine Journal”

[Simba1021 10]

Today is the first day that I traded in a top step combine, and I am allowed to trade with bigger size in this portfolio and my max position size can be 10 contracts.

 

In today's case, I traded with just 5, but scalped because of today's choppy market conditions. I trade the NQ, and I found the consolidation to be what I needed to take a trade on a minor break, and drop to below today's pivot.

 

Approximately, the highs and lows of today's range in NQ were 3144 and 3125, so I decided to enter a short at 3135.75 and ride the morning range down to 3135 and 3132.5. The exits were both protective stops. At first I had my stops above today's higher print like 3140 and I just tightened them up as prices started to firm up below the pivot.

 

I felt some greed at 3125 at 9:50 CST because my position swelled to near 1000 unrealized gains, but I realized there would not be much expect from what looks like a light volume inside day.

 

 

 

My best trade was the entry 3135.75 which was solid, it took some patience to be sure that I would wait until the morning range to play itself out, but my worst trade could have been not tightening up the stop closer to the market price near 10 CST. I will improve by managing the size of my trades as the combine progresses.

 

So even though I finished the day with one trade yielding 225 there were 25 in commissions, but I learned the value of being quickly in and out on these kinds of flat conditions.

[Simba1021 10]

The second day of the trading combine

 

The strength of the sell off this morning in the NQ was too much for what I was prepared for, but I was able to carve out some profits after the market started bottoming out near 3070. The problem with protecting my long entry was how quick I was to take partial exits. At the end of the day I ended up positive 185 to stay consistent with my winning day percentage.

[Simba1021 10]

It was a more difficult day to trade because my intuition led me to believe there would be a bounce, and I played that bounce. After covering my long position, the market moved past several resistance points and I was forced to cover the majority of my short position before the market rolled over in the afternoon. Based on my system, I would normally add to a position when momentum increases, and we saw that in the breakout from the afternoon congestion, which was another chance to sell into strength. Even though my losses were made smaller from the damage done in the morning, I was able to come back with a loss which was acceptable and show that I am making money overall. 2/3 days winners.

 

The annotations on the attached chart should give some insight as to my rationale behind the trades.

[Simba1021 10]

I had 3/4 winning days and my account went from 100,000 to 100,375. So I will be more selective about the days when I trade because this only leaves me 6 days to make nearly more than 8,000.

 

Today I grew my account by $320 mostly from the downswing in the afternoon and I was not applying enough pressure in terms of having a big enough of a short. I'm used to a contract range of 1-3 instead of 4 to 7 NQ contracts.

 

It would have been amazing to hit the 3100 NQ level which was above R2 on the daily pivots but I was not comfortable with that much risk. Also, in adding to shorts I had my stops tight, and this inhibited me from having 6 contracts or more where I would have an average short entry between 3085 and 3090 because they were blown out.

 

I was not fearful but a little frustrated in how fast we went higher, and originally I planned on getting involved at 10AM EST because that has been the recent pattern, to run the indices higher early and then sell off.

 

Today was a real pain, even if it meant I would be able to extract a profit from a 25 or more point range from crest to low on 10 contracts, in a way I left 2,000 on the table, it still was something to learn from regarding a low volume market with little extrinsic shock from the news or Fed action.

 

I may hold myself to not trading at all tomorrow because I'm waiting on the Fed minutes and the after effect, its just on a day where there could be an "inside day" tighter range, its not even worth trading until the markets get some earth shaking news to allow for more momentum.

 

The strategy going forward is to sell into strength and then buy the dips on value even if the size of the short or long positions aren't completely balanced. There is still plenty of time, and I feel confident about having much bigger gains even if it means coming out of my comfort zone with a 7 contract size trade.