bakedbeans' learning journal

[bb01100100]

The prop firms' magic of marketing.

It so easy you only need 6% and the riches are yours.

Its smoke and mirrors. The $250k bulenox.com account is roughly equal to you putting $15,000 in AMP, Ninjatrader, Optimus. Etc.

People in general tend to overleverage because they think they are trading an actual $250k. Its a $15k account with max DD of 37%.

Size accordingly.

Also if the account is Rithmic you can go on the Rithmic PC app and put an auto liquidation in that protects you from yourself. Directions are on youtube videos.

Yes, that was my issue with prop firms for the longest time: the accounts don't look so big when you can get $500/lot day trading margin at a regular broker. Then I realised I could benefit greatly from the constraints they impose, and attempt to use it to fund a regular futures account.

I didn't realise I was allowed to mess about with the Rithmic risk settings - that's brilliant; thanks for the insight. I was going to do it in SierraChart, which has daily PnL risk limits that can be enabled.

[bb01100100]

APEX has $50k accounts for $50ish a month lifetime. 71% discount. Trade micros, target and DD are about equal.

Gosh that looks very good...

I've had a good run trading 2-8 lots (4 most of the time), so if I dial it down a bit and keep my drawdown in check, I could pass the eval and start building that elusive profit cushion.

I like the more symmetric target/drawdown ratios relative to the max lotsize.

Of course now you've planted the seed of using Frederick's SierraChart trade copier to run 1x bulenox and 1x apex account at the same time...

Food for thought.

[aliassmith]

APEX has $50k accounts for $50ish a month lifetime. 71% discount. Trade micros, target and DD are about equal.

Gosh that looks very good...

I've had a good run trading 2-8 lots (4 most of the time), so if I dial it down a bit and keep my drawdown in check, I could pass the eval and start building that elusive profit cushion.

I like the more symmetric target/drawdown ratios relative to the max lotsize.

Of course now you've planted the seed of using Frederick's SierraChart trade copier to run 1x bulenox and 1x apex account at the same time...

Food for thought.

You have to watch out for me. I am a seed planter and shinny thing dangler.

[aliassmith]

APEX has $50k accounts for $50ish a month lifetime. 71% discount. Trade micros, target and DD are about equal.

Gosh that looks very good...

I've had a good run trading 2-8 lots (4 most of the time), so if I dial it down a bit and keep my drawdown in check, I could pass the eval and start building that elusive profit cushion.

I like the more symmetric target/drawdown ratios relative to the max lotsize.

Of course now you've planted the seed of using Frederick's SierraChart trade copier to run 1x bulenox and 1x apex account at the same time...

Food for thought.

You might want to dial it down more than a "bit". Try micros. I passed in 8 days trading micros.

Try not risking more than $200 a day. These accounts are more about ratios than %. Have to remember it isn't a $50k account, more like $1500 margin and $2500 risk.

3 MES are $15 per point. Trade like you have been with 3 to 8 micro and see how that works. You can always adjust up a little if it is too small of gains.

Pass in 1 month with $150 per day average.

[IgazI]

You did a PROCHARGEDMOPAR

No punches pulled

Adding to losers is pure poison, just don't do it.

Agreed - but to be clear I wasn't adding to my losers - I was entering, getting stopped out, then entering again at a higher price (eventually with more size.. sigh). I checked my fills to make sure..

The question I'm asking myself is this: what can I do to address this situation...

I wasn't paying attention to what was playing out in front of me:

• Price had been going up;
• 15:00 came along and price did not pull back and close below any swing low;
• 15:30 came along and price pushed higher;
• 15:45 came along and price was higher still
• During this time there were two opportunities to enter and net 4 points in line with the upward bias

My ego was definitely in play as well: "/this time/ I'll have enough size on to ride the aggressive pullback that runs stops..." I preferred to keep taking on risk for a potential positive outcome instead of accepting a smaller, definite negative outcome and coming back tomorrow. The irony of the post I made just yesterday is not lost on me.

On reflection, no secret sauce was required to not be in this situation - just the same focus and questions I ask myself on other days.

Ok, I have work to do:

1. Incorporating a self-imposed emergency brake: hard stop should I lose the trailing three day's worth of profits in a session... for me this amounts to about 1% of account.
2. Taking stock of what's actually unfolding on the chart and double-checking if my trade decision is driven by the market, my PnL, or my ego.
3. Practicing trading with the bias when present -- I find trading out into empty space very difficult, moreso when we're long for some reason

Just checked and account is reset; back to it tomorrow 5am local time.

Excuse the drawing, I'm using a mouse

This is where the M1 can help:

You know that S/R can form in two, maybe three, levels:
- 'support 1' found ==> long 1
- dip below 'support 1' ==> long 2

If 'support 1' is 2 cents wide then you're only looking to buy within a 6 cent area.

Again, I'm assuming that you can afford at least 5 contracts so that losing with 2 contracts is no more than 40% of a 'regular loss';
position sizing dictates the limits of your strategy.

S/R alone is not "good enough", you also need a reason to flow in a particular direction from the H4 perspective.

meep.png (33.18 KiB) Viewed 2636 times

[Yirbu]

This is my post of shame: I blew my eval account today. Net -2.2%.

I kept shorting the up-move in ES this afternoon, looking to trade a retrace back to a zline, looking for a pullback to a prior hourly candle midpoint, but that didn't happen. Each pop higher "looked" like a top, so I was in. I didn't do any averaging of losers, but I did increase my size and was repeatedly wrong.

I thought about stopping when I was -$676, -$1032 and then I hit a full -1% down (-$2,500) and started getting stressed - surely this would be the turning point? No, it wasn't. The market was bid and I was trading what I wanted to see.

So my second red day in 15 trading days evaporated the last 6 trading day's worth of profits and blew my account. I've done an account reset and will regroup mentally and get back to work tomorrow.

Given my prior consistency, my wife made the suggestion of having a "3 day's worth of profit" trailing account stop.. so for me I'd have a hard stop at circa 1% down. The idea being that the best way for me to deal with being repeatedly wrong is to stop, regardless of the urge to continue.

Sorry to hear that.
We have all been there...I blew quite some accounts and I know I will lose a new account sooner or later.

For me personally it helped learning when not to trade.
Yesterday was a rough day for me too. It was a news day for the usd. Those days are dangerous and sometimes it's just better not to trade those days.
Now, I just step aside and think: I'll be back

[bb01100100]

Bulenox eval account update:

Net +0.419%, +0.419% cumulative, target 6%.

I managed to work with the upward bias today, predominantly going long as price pulled back to the higher lows of the range. Got a short into a zline area, then got long at that range low and scaled out as it pushed back up towards the top of the range.. an uncomfortable trade for me, but my stop was close by and I gave it time to work out.

[bb01100100]

Sorry to hear that.
We have all been there...I blew quite some accounts and I know I will lose a new account sooner or later.

For me personally it helped learning when not to trade.
Yesterday was a rough day for me too. It was a news day for the usd. Those days are dangerous and sometimes it's just better not to trade those days.
Now, I just step aside and think: I'll be back

Yes, so much of this is about when to execute and when not to execute. Clearly I'm still learning to embrace the "I'll be back" approach... there is still a fear of missing out, which is silly since that fear knocked me out of an account yesterday.

There is a particular type of day that has killed me historically: the low volatility slow grind higher.. it's like "the algos" are soaking up all the orders and pushing 3 ticks higher, retracing 2-5 ticks, then pushing a little higher again and again... It sucks me in to shorting apparent weakness. But I can at least recognise that type of day now.

[bb01100100]

Excuse the drawing, I'm using a mouse

This is where the M1 can help:

You know that S/R can form in two, maybe three, levels:
- 'support 1' found ==> long 1
- dip below 'support 1' ==> long 2

If 'support 1' is 2 cents wide then you're only looking to buy within a 6 cent area.

Again, I'm assuming that you can afford at least 5 contracts so that losing with 2 contracts is no more than 40% of a 'regular loss';
position sizing dictates the limits of your strategy.

S/R alone is not "good enough", you also need a reason to flow in a particular direction from the H4 perspective.

meep.png

Thanks Igazi - I always spend ages looking at the charts you mark up.

I have many questions (some of which I've meaning to ask for a while but didn't want to pester you, lol)

Am I understanding your example correctly?

• We see 'support 1' form: it zeroes that pinbar and retraces upward, creating a circa 2c range
• We've got an area to deploy one unit of risk (1x lot) into: circa $22.04.. if price pushes up and away, we're onboard.
• Price pushes lower, but we are working a "buy zone" (a multiple of 'support 1' range (3x)) that is 6c wide.. and choose an entry method below 'support 1' that makes sense (e.g. if it was me, I'd look at being long another 1x lot when the high of the prior candle was breached
• We then observe the same behaviour and do /exactly/ the same thing later on
• Doing this mechanically isn't enough - we need higher timeframe context.

If I've got the gist of that correct, where things get hazy is what happens after I've got 2x units of risk on.

If I'm following your account sizing model, I need the following for a five-lot trading line-of-business:

1. 5x $500 (day trading margin) -> $2,500 of untouchable margin capital
2. Minimum of $2,500 / 0.7 -> $3,571 investment
3. Of which 3,571 - $2,500 -> $1071 is available for risk (operations)

So it's up to me how I want to run my business: trade maximum 2 lots until I transfer risk capital (profits) into margin capital, e.g:

• Minimum profit needed to add 1x lot to margin capital: (1x $500) / 0.7 -> $715
• Updated margin capital: 6x $500 -> $3,000
• Updated risk capital: $balance - $500

I might then enter with 1 lot initially, then add 2 lots... or some variation that adds up to 3, but never all 3 at once.

Or I might use risk capital to fund trading a different market.

So it's not about me trying somehow to add, add, add to a single trade, getting up to max size - it's about operating a process and shifting capital about in a planned manner.

Why am I sized for 5 but only use 2? Is it because this is part of a larger business operation: building up OPM with low risk until a situation arises when I want to use all 5 lots? If I'm wrong then I lose risk capital, but that capital was OPM so I'm protecting my operation.


Sorry for all the words.. I hope I'm starting to understand the bigger picture.

[bb01100100]

Now why would I have three instances of SierraChart running? I'm sure it's Alias' fault

2023-10-13--why-three.jpg (33.92 KiB) Viewed 2532 times

While I'm grinding away at my Bulenox account, I'll run a (discounted!) 50k Apex account on micros (initially trading 1 MES for each ES I trade on Bulenox). And while I'm doing that I might as well do the same on my own live futures account: it's sitting idle while I scalp ES via Bulenox and will continue to sit idle until I learn more about the grain markets.

Gluing them together is the SierraChart trade copier, which seems OK. If anything, I'm disappointed with how slow it is... it seems to take 1 full second to replicate events to the other SierraChart instances (new brackets, cancels, etc).

With an inter-process C++ app I'd expect end-to-end latency of 10ms tops, not 1,000ms. My guess is that the code is running single-threaded (it's a study on the chart) and needs to poll every ~500ms in order to avoid monopolising the thread and essentially freezing Sierra. Never mind, it's not like I'm a 1 tick scalper.

I'm not sold on the idea, but I'll give it a go for a month and see how I go.