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Maybe I should have clarified, that may be a strategy but not one that can be executed 100% of the time
of course nothing works 100%. lol
but guess what. What if I tell you I take 50 trades per month and 80% of those trades make $200 per trade. and the other 20% lose $100. Do you still care about something working right 100% of the time.
The bottom line to the OP is of course you can make secondary income day trading, many many traders do. You can do whatever you want in life. But you have to think for yourself and try and love what you do. I lost $5000 in 3 months when i first started trading futures. I loved losing that $5000, it felt great, amazing. That loss taught me great lessons. Cause I love working towards beating the odds. But have to think for yourself and try it for yourself. Lots of knowledge out there, but it starts with a clean slate.
Maybe I should have clarified, that may be a strategy but not one that can be executed 100% of the time
I agree with you. If you let your position hit a stop there is no guarantee it will be filled where your stop is placed. If a trader doesn't understand that they soon will.
I think the term "strategy" is a bit confusing for what I would term "Trade management". In my view a "strategy" is how you determine when to enter the market; trade management is where you place your stops initially and where you move them after the trade is on.
if I put a 2 stop point loss, I am guaranteed to lose $100 if trading one contract. lose $150 with a 3 point stop loss.
Everyday, I either make $200 or lose between $100-150. Period. Some days I make +$200. It all depends on what you want to do. And I don't even have a degree, but I trade the markets just using common sense. You understand what I mean now? You have to study the charts yourself and not listen to the news articles.
Does this makes sense now? Its all about risk vs reward. As long as the ROI for the trade is +50%, all is good.
Trading the ES you probably do not experience slippage as much since the market is thicker (More orders on the book) than some other futures products. If you tried the same trade management trading crude oil I suspect (KNOW) you would be looking at 5 to 10 ticks of slip on trades. In my product (6E euro/Dollar) a tick of slippage is expected and sometime two. It all depends on what you trade.
I am just mentioning this in case someone is reading this thread thinking all futures products are the same.
Darrell,
Have you ever considered using a prop firm? Earlier in the thread I suggested people look at TopStep Trader. It got me thinking so I investigated it further. I was under the impression that when you traded with them you couldn't trade your own account but I was wrong. I am thinking about buying a multibroker license for my trading software (Ninjatrader) and trading my own account and a TopStep account at the same time. I would only be trading 6 contracts total at first but laying off half the risk to TopStep.
The only thing that sucks about it is they pay you as an independent contractor so everything you earn from TopStep would be taxed at regular income rates and you would have to pay self employment tax. You are also considered a "professional trader" by the CME so the data feed per market would be 85 dollars per month.
Darrell,
Have you ever considered using a prop firm? Earlier in the thread I suggested people look at TopStep Trader. It got me thinking so I investigated it further. I was under the impression that when you traded with them you couldn't trade your own account but I was wrong. I am thinking about buying a multibroker license for my trading software (Ninjatrader) and trading my own account and a TopStep account at the same time. I would only be trading 6 contracts total at first but laying off half the risk to TopStep.
Thank you so much Wartrace.
I actually never heard of such of service. Very interested. Full disclosure, I am just reaching break even after 3 years of trading ES. I am no expert.
What I like about Top Trader is this:
1. 14 day trial to see if you can meet their $1500 in 10 days or more. I am not concerned about the $150 per month on step 1 cause step 2 is free, and once account is funded there is no monthly cost.
2. Once you make it to a full funded account, you keep the first $5000 you make.
3. Afterwards, you keep 80%, and they keep 20% of the earnings.
4. Their system keeps you discipline and makes sure you are consistent profitable with the daily limit loss and max drawdown requirement.
I can not think of any reason why I don't like about TopTrader service.
Maybe I am missing the negatives? Please share your thoughts.
Last edited by darrell2525; 07-24-2016 at 01:04 PM..
Darrell,
Have you ever considered using a prop firm? Earlier in the thread I suggested people look at TopStep Trader. It got me thinking so I investigated it further. I was under the impression that when you traded with them you couldn't trade your own account but I was wrong. I am thinking about buying a multibroker license for my trading software (Ninjatrader) and trading my own account and a TopStep account at the same time. I would only be trading 6 contracts total at first but laying off half the risk to TopStep.
The only thing that sucks about it is they pay you as an independent contractor so everything you earn from TopStep would be taxed at regular income rates and you would have to pay self employment tax. You are also considered a "professional trader" by the CME so the data feed per market would be 85 dollars per month.
Have you tried Apexfutures? Their platform is free and mainly use their trading mobile app while at work to take trades.
As far as taxes, would TopStep pay the capital gain tax and they pay me like a regular work check and take out taxes, if so there is no issue with that?
I am not familiar with the professional traders information, cause I only had a max account balance of $10k while trading. I am still a small time trader.
Thank you for sharing information.
All in all, the it seems like a good idea especially with keeping the $5000 at first. The whole risk is making sure you trade with their money losing rules of daily loss and max drawdown.
I think this is good for newbie traders, including myself with less capital. I am still perfecting my strategy, sometimes paper and sometimes real.
Darrell,
Have you ever considered using a prop firm? Earlier in the thread I suggested people look at TopStep Trader. It got me thinking so I investigated it further. I was under the impression that when you traded with them you couldn't trade your own account but I was wrong. I am thinking about buying a multibroker license for my trading software (Ninjatrader) and trading my own account and a TopStep account at the same time. I would only be trading 6 contracts total at first but laying off half the risk to TopStep.
The only thing that sucks about it is they pay you as an independent contractor so everything you earn from TopStep would be taxed at regular income rates and you would have to pay self employment tax. You are also considered a "professional trader" by the CME so the data feed per market would be 85 dollars per month.
I am still reading into TopStep and even called them for additional questions. I can not see anything bad or downfall about them.
Why not leave your money alone and use their money to build your account, then leave TopStep once you get enough money?
Thank you Wartrace for the information. Great for sharing.
No, I have never heard of a prop firm or TopStep Trader.
I reviewed TopStep, and I really do not understand it. Can you please help explain?
Are they giving me their money to trade for $150 a month? Or is this sim/paper trading?
Thanks
The 150 dollar fee is what they charge for people to enter their trading evaluation system. (They call it a "Trading combine") This is a sim account run through their servers. The rules a pretty clear.
Once you pass the combine they do a second round called "Funded trader prep" which has no monthly fee other than data fees.
After you pass the funded trader prep you go live using their capital. The only fee is you pay the monthly exchange data fee. You keep the first 5,000 earned and after that you keep 80% of the earnings and they keep 20%.
From everything I have seen they are legit. Some people have an issue with paying 150 dollars but it probably helps screen out people that know they can't trade but just want free data to practice with.
Looking at how the funded accounts work it doesn't make much sense to pay more for a higher level. Even though the "30000" dollar account only allows 3 contracts it changes when you are funded. You can trade up to 7 or more as your earning grow.
You may or may not be interested. My thought is for 150 dollars I can double my current contract size and eventually start trading 10 contracts (5 in my own account and five in topsteps account) with only half the risk.
The big downside is they pay you 1099 which means you pay regular tax on the earning PLUS have to pay self employment tax. That's the only downside I can see.
As I mentioned my plan is to use them to double what I am comfortable trading now. I am going to set up Ninjatrader with a multi-broker license so I can trade both my personal account and the topstep account at the same time.
The 150 dollar fee is what they charge for people to enter their trading evaluation system. (They call it a "Trading combine") This is a sim account run through their servers. The rules a pretty clear.
Once you pass the combine they do a second round called "Funded trader prep" which has no monthly fee other than data fees.
After you pass the funded trader prep you go live using their capital. The only fee is you pay the monthly exchange data fee. You keep the first 5,000 earned and after that you keep 80% of the earnings and they keep 20%.
From everything I have seen they are legit. Some people have an issue with paying 150 dollars but it probably helps screen out people that know they can't trade but just want free data to practice with.
Looking at how the funded accounts work it doesn't make much sense to pay more for a higher level. Even though the "30000" dollar account only allows 3 contracts it changes when you are funded. You can trade up to 7 or more as your earning grow.
You may or may not be interested. My thought is for 150 dollars I can double my current contract size and eventually start trading 10 contracts (5 in my own account and five in topsteps account) with only half the risk.
Thanks Wartrace
I am not concerned at about the $150 per month fee. That should not be a concern for a serious trader and is no issue, cause once you go to fully funded trading account, you pay no monthly fee.
At this point, my only worry is does my trading platform, ApexFutures has CTS or Rithmic datafeed. If so, I am good to go with Topstep service. I see apexfutures is partner with Esignal.
Also, Apex has Free live datafeed.
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