Some quotes from @NoDoji … The trend is the easiest money in the world for day traders. There's usually a trending move at least once a day. Just wait for that "30% of the time" and do the opposite of what you "feel" you should be doing (catching a reversal because price has run too far). … I use past price action to predict the likelihood of future moves. I use TA to determine with a good degree of probability where buyers or sellers will come, before they do. I use current price action to enter trades. … If you make that $150+ per day regularly while using stop losses when trading and you don't move them further away when a trade runs against you and you don't average down when a trade runs against you, then it's very likely you can make a lot more trading full time. If you do any of those things above to earn your daily $150+, then it's very likely that full-time trading and/or the extra capital/leverage you get as a prop trader will lead to financial ruin, maybe sooner, maybe later, but once the snowball starts rolling, probably very quickly. … Trading is repetitive and routine, and I'm profitable and making a living. Because of the way I manage my entries, I don't endure too much damage in choppy conditions. My max risk per trade is a fixed thing now, which excludes a lot of first entry trades. By focusing on second entries following a long or short signal, and by anticipating S/R at range extremes and at previous levels likely to be defended later on, I can keep my max risk really small. … If you're unsure of whether or not your algo is loosely or precisely defined, spend some time coding it. My Oh My, you'll discover in no time at all why you struggle to make money when your trading plan has rules that start out like this, "After two really wide bars.." or this, "After price has gone really high...", or this, "If conditions are choppy..." … First I get the signal to go long. Then I look at the swing low. That's my line in the sand that says, "If price comes all the way back and crosses this line, my long thesis is no longer valid." If my max stop loss on a trade is 2 points, I add 2 points to the price that's 1 tick below the swing low prior to the long signal and I place my limit order there. … Wait for a well-defined trend where price has made at least two new highs or lows on the day and then buy or sell the first break of a 1-min price bar in the opposite direction of the trend. This is where the counter-trend traders feel they're gonna miss the reversal and their stop losses will trigger your nice profit.
I read about trading with a prop firm a lot on ET but unable to find any success stories of someone consistently profitable. Why? Successful prop traders don't post?
I am a live funded trader with Topstep and have been consistently profitable with them. I think @Laissez Faire is also funded at Topstep and is doing very well as well. I would say less than 1% of traders are doing well at these kind of prop firms, because they mostly attract traders who have absolutely no clue what they are doing, hence the lack of success stories.
Good to know. It is true, real successful folks don't brag. Hope you don't mind my questions: 1. What make you different from most of the others? 2. Why trade with a prop firm if you are profitable? I trade my own money, have no clue about the trials and tribulations of prop firm participants and would appreciate some history and perspectives. Thanks.
I think the main differentiator between people who have success at these kind of firms and those who don't is 1: having a decent understanding of how the market operates and 2: risk management. These kind of firms have some additional rules that personal accounts don't have so risk management is very important to not hit any daily loss limits or max loss limits etc. In regards to why I trade at Topstep, I started it as a challenge with a friend to see if it was possible to pass in the first place. When I passed I just kept trading it to see where I could get it and at one point the funded account had more funds in it than my personal account, so I decided to prioritise the funded account. The reasons why I stay and don't withdraw it all is because I like that there is a risk manager who kind of watches over your shoulder, someone you can go to when you have a bad period, a big draw down, have the feeling of being stuck in a streak of losses, ... Since I have a live funded account there are no rules for me anymore, except a daily loss limit. The daily loss limit doesn't make me lose the account and I personalize the daily loss limit so I am no longer stuck to the $1000 I started with. I am not going to keep the account forever, but for now I see no reason to close it down since I am more at ease trading in my funded account knowing that I can't blow it in a few days and that there is a risk department I can reach out to whenever I want, than I was trading in my personal account.
I feel sure, from everything I've seen, that these are the two main points. The overwhelming majority of people who try to use these firms are really bad traders who trade on hope rather than with skills, often imagining that undercapitalization is the reason they can't trade profitably. Their typical perspective is one of trading as a profit-maximization business rather than one of trading as a risk-management business. They can't become steadily profitable without a major paradigm-shift, of which probably only very few of them are really capable.
Customer’s requests pushed the minimum time to complete the Trading Combine at 2 trading days. I don’t know how you can triple your account in 2 days with a sound risk management About being consistently profitable … I used to be right often but small, and wrong rarely but big. I was a winner only for a short period time. The key, from my experience, is to reverse this equation. It’s better to be a loser only for a short period of time. It sucks to take 1 point when I am right and lose 2 when I am wrong. Because in the end … I am going to be right as often as wrong. From The Battle for Investment Survival Another nice book (The Day Trader’s Bible) I’d like to remember that luck plays its role, Even a profitable strategy can fail a combine, When a real bad streak, its worst path, happens. This nice website There are 4 outcomes: - Right & Lucky (win more) - Right & Unlucky (win) - Wrong & Lucky (lose less) - Wrong & Unlucky (lose) We need to take the most from the best cases. And give the least on the worst cases. That’s also what Nn Taleb calls being Convex ! Or what’s called a “Tight Agressive” player in Poker. No one wants a TAG opponent as they give little and take a lot.
I think that’s what make the difference between Profitable and Unprofitable Profitable traders cap the downside, while unprofitable ones limit the upside. Generally speaking. This brings to mind a story from Jesse Livermore. He once noted that bucket shops would limit the upside on customer bets whenever the market presented easy money opportunities. They took the best out of the equation. Leaving their customers only with the good, the bad and the ugly. On another hand. There’s Edward Thorp who said “I’ll take the bet only if the worst case looks good”.
If your style is swing trade (days to weeks) or position trade (months to years), can you be successful in a prop firm?