Haha, thanks, ye in my short time trading ive had a couple ups and downs so i dont expect it to be easy.
The other thing is… once you get past the ‘scent of money’ stage, when you see it as an easy way to get money,
and even after you start realising how many hours it takes to understand that it is not at all easy, it starts to sink
in that it is not fun, at all… And if your background is not maths/engineering etc. you may ask yourself this: would
I want to be defined by sitting in front of a computer crunching ROI, P/L, Sharpe Ratios, R:R %, and reading price
every day? What if the money did not come after all that boring, dull, even soul-destroying and unsociable work?
What would the human, social, or financial reward be for ‘understanding the markets’? That is often the problem
with retail trading: it lures you in and then you enter into years of mistakes, losses, and self-doubt. Some people
may become bitter… it is important to keep a perspective on what it means to you, how much you want it, and
whether you should spend more time on finding a better (paid) job than plugging at a losing game.
I hear you, i must say as much as all that you say makes sense. I do feel that its possible to do if you really want to. I feel my reason for trying it is strong enough for me to continue struggling on , I dont love trading but I hate the position I am in enough to do what is required to make it a success.
I come from a online poker background, was fairly successful at low stakes level making fairly decent money for about 3 years and the main thing it taught me was hard work and patience as there is so much variance in poker that you can do the most perfect play and still lose, pretty much like trading. Also the business im in now requires a lot of ass licking of clients, fighting with suppliers and ive been doing that for 8 years and getting sick of people :).
Sorry for the personal rant but i guess what im trying to say is im willing to and I am going to put in the work and I hope I come out on top
Fantastic! Good for you.
There was a BabyPips member that I used write to for a bit, who was a former poker player…
He was actually a featured BP member… You can mail him, although he has disappeared for a while…
http://forums.babypips.com/q-and-a-corner/56389-gp00053-online-poker-player-sports-bettor.html
Once again, thanks so much i will be going threw all these links tonight :).
Hi Steven,
Coming up with funding is actually the comparatively easy part, once you can demonstrate to a backer that you understand [I][U]risk-management[/U][/I] and can trade safely. Learning to do that is the difficult part.
And that “demonstration” doesn’t need to take anything like as long as you’ve mentioned above (though the learning-process often does).
If you use TopStepTrader (as mentioned by PMH, above), you can get an account with nominal funding equivalent to up to $150,000. That doesn’t mean you actually have access to the $150,000, but you have access to enough of the backer’s funding to trade up to 15 lots, after proving yourself and gradually building up to it - and they’ll increase that later, of course, if you’re successful. Alternatively, you can aim for lower-scale “funded accounts” ($30k/$50k/$100k).
Three more things to note about TopStepTrader (by whom many traders have successfully been funded) …
-
They don’t deal with spot forex, so you’d be using forex [I]futures[/I] there (the differences between the two are absolutely minimal and [U]all[/U] your spot forex knowledge/experience will be completely relevant and useful)
-
They change their procedures/terms in January, each year (usually removing one or two restrictions to make it easier for people to get funded), so their next “big update of the rules” is now only a few weeks away
-
Only about 20% of people who apply for their funding-process “pass” it. Like any potential investor’s, their entire assessment system is designed to identify potential traders who understand that trading is all about [I][U]risk-management[/U][/I], not about profit-maximisation.
Thank you Lexy, that sounds awesome. But i guess I shouldn’t jump the gun. I will however do my fair part of research on them and then maybe take a swing earlier and see what happends. I think why risk management and the emotional part has been easier for me is because of the poker background in which I learned these things on the hard way haha.Im just still finding my way around the strategy , but slowly but surely getting there.
I logged on quickly and see them talking about scalping and day trading, will they only fund those kind of traders or do they accept swing traders as well. Or at least intra week traders I guess. If you know out the top of your head that will be cool otherwise I will do my own research the weekend.
Thanks so much!
They don’t allow positions to be held overnight (“overnight” has a technical meaning, to do with the futures markets closing for an hour or so, per day. In UK terms, TST futures positions must be closed by 3.10pm and can be re-opened at 5.00pm, I think).
There are intraday “swing traders”, too, you know? Don’t make the mistake of thinking of “swing trading” and “daytrading” as being counterparts/opposites (yes - I know a lot of people do: they’re all wrong). 
It wouldn’t be safe for TST, given how quickly/easily they’ll take a chance on funding people, to allow overnight positions.
There may be other backers that will (in fact there [U]are[/U] other backers that will) but their selection/qualification-criteria are [B][U]hugely[/U][/B], incomparably, more difficult, demanding and time-consuming than TST’s.
Awesome ill keep that in mind, thanks a lot!
That makes [I]complete[/I] sense to me - and I don’t doubt that you’re right. 
(I did try out online poker, for a few hundred hours, a few years ago, after reading about 20 poker books and practicing in “penny games”, but it wasn’t really for me: I could win steadily only at very low stakes - $5/$10 STT’s and coolers - and I hated the multi-tabling one has to do, in those low-stake games, to make it worthwhile. So I went back to backgammon, for which the skill-set suits me much better and at which I have a very long “education”!).
Haha the multi tabling made it less boring at times but can be so bad if you hit some form of a tilt. I played 6max cash games, mostly because of the high rake at STT’s and the players where softer at cash back then. Now to beat even $50nl 6max isn’t as easy of a job. Never tried backgammon, maybe i’ll look into that later :).
Ps: Dr Lexy here introduced me to TopStepTrader about a year ago
…
They give you a demo account on NinjaTrader to practise on, but the trial only last two weeks, at the end of which you need to pay the if you want to join their programme…
Personally, if i were you, I would get a demo NinjaTrader account of my own and practise much more than two weeks,
especially if you are unfamiliar with trading ticks rather thn pips, and futures rather than forex.
The other thing is: if you are short of capital, this is a lose-lose situation: if you only have, say, $500-1000, it
is too little to trade on and also too little to get through several rounds of the paid Combine trials…
Also, the rules on TST trading instruments, times, public holidays, stop/risk size rules make it a real challenge; furthermore, the currency futures they offer are some of the most liquid ones, which also means that they are already very crowded (like EUR or GBP), so you will not be able to trade crosses or choose more volatile pairs in the exotic arena…
I trade on a $2,5k acc which is obvs anyway in the same category as a $1k acc I guess. I prob will be able to get more funds from family with some sort of proof of profits so that fine ( $5k-$10k), but getting $100k is not a option haha and unfortunately only something like 100K can make it possible to consider trying it full time etc, but this is all just long term thinking. Ill scratch around on the website this weekend, for now I was just looking for a possible long term goal to set and it looks like there is ways to get funding, now I must focus on winning.
Once again, I thank both of you for the input. It helps us noobs a lot!
Very interesting what you say PipMeHappy. I would add:
Are you quiet person content with your own company?
Are you easily distracted by facebook, twitter, emails, analysts, bloomberg…these sorts of things.
Do you often feel like you’re missing out on the action somewhere and always ask yourself why you can never get a break?
Are you in financial difficulty?
Do you have anger and resentment in your past?
Do you have enemies and people you truly dislike and would love to get revenge on them?
Can you sit and watch a huge move happening right in front of your eyes but have inner calmness after having missed it?
Are you crazy angry when you are stopped out?
There are so many things to consider but I have learned that you cant trade angry, desperate, anxious, fearfully,greedily,recklessly. You cant come to this fight with personal baggage it will only hold you back. You have to find a way to confront your personal issues because trading will go straight to the weakest and dirtiest areas of your personality and there it will break you.
You have to get to a place where you believe. You believe that you will be an awesome trader. You believe that you have the ability to be successful. You dont listen to other peoples statistics anymore because it is irrelevant to you.
‘Yes but this… yes but that…’ does not enter into your mind anymore because you believe in yourself, and your path. Your personal trading history show this! Nothing else matters! All the outside noise is irrelevant and just a distraction to you on your path to success. Your own trading proves it to you!
All that matters is that you are making good trading decisions suitable to your style and personality. Success will find you. Learn to focus on making the right decisions.
Thanks for your input Grant :).
Important and valuable advice, there, from PMH.
It costs $165 to take TST’s “$50k Combine” (which [I]includes[/I] the data-feed payment otherwise due to the exchange), and given the low-ish pass-rates (which are no great surprise, when you consider the almost total lack of any entry-barrier to their programme), one would want to feel reasonably confident of passing the thing, before paying: those $165 payments will add up quickly, if one needs multiple attempts.
Because of the “scaling plan” for funded accounts, I’d suggest that the “$50k Combine” would be the one for most people to try: there’s probably very little real advantage passing one of the more expensive ones.
I see people saying this, elsewhere, too.
It isn’t altogether my own perception, I must say.
“Avoiding news/holidays” etc., is something all intraday traders should do?
TST’s risk-management rules regarding daily loss limits, maximum permitted drawdowns, and so on, are all on the “loose” side compared with those of anyone I know who’s trading for a living.
If doing a Combine, myself, I would actually be setting [I][U]stricter[/U][/I] parameters for myself (as I do in my own trading) than the ones TST imposes.
(And for myself, I don’t trade “exotics” anyway, given their spreads and comparatively poor liquidity.)
It’s undeniably true, of course, that it’s a “real challenge” … but [B]far[/B] less so than “trading for a living”, surely, which is - after all - the avowed intention of the participants ?
I’ve never done one, myself, but I do have two friends who got started this way. TST is funding over 400 traders per year - though how many of them continue from that point actually to make a good living is another matter altogether (and not disclosed, apart from to a very small degree, anecdotally, on some videos).
Again (for anyone else following the thread), I wouldn’t make too many concrete plans regarding TST until seeing their forthcoming rule-changes, after the holidays.
When you look at all these days when you are not permitted to trade at all or only at certain times
as well as all the times when FOMC, US GDP, ADP employment data (which apply to all traded assets,
plus additional ones when trading some specific assets), plus the daily time restrictions based on
the US trading clock, you know that if you are trading a) not from the US and b) manually around
your day job hours, then this is even more of a challenge than one may first imagine.
Just saying it requires a whole new level of organisation even before ‘trading’ begins.
Agreed with all the rest, Dr. Lexy!
Yes, I see exactly what you mean. (Might be a plan - [I]for those who like it[/I] - to stick to oil, which has [U]very[/U] few restrictions compared with anything else - just half an hour on a Wednesday, I think? This is what someone I know did, and as I remember that was the reason. Quite a good instrument to trade, too …).
Yes - agreed.
Yes, oil seems to have very few restrictions (crude inventories, etc.)…
If I had time and money to spend, I would definitely do the Combine thingie!
Good to luck to Binary
oil os the most relaxed asset to trade and probably the one (besides smaller markets i trade in corn and wheat) with the least amount of shaking news spikes. it takes patience but the nice part is that when oil once sets ots direction it is sticking to it with very little volatility which makes it a very relaxed waiting period till you reach the target.
theres one down size to oil thou. as all brokers know what i am talking about in the lines above; the leverage on oil is very much limited. the highest CFD broker leverage on oil i have found is 1:50 (usually CFDs and firex traders are used to 1:100 and higher) a leverage restriction on oil of 1:20 is very common in the market of brokers. this makes it a bit boring and slow to new traders to trade oil. at least in their eyes ot seems slow moving even thou it is not.