Topstep Combine Day 1 (starting over)

So, the pattern repeats itself.

Pass the combine quickly, blow the XFA even more quickly.

Frankly, the tangible difference has been starting this journal again. It’s a little strange doing it “in public”, but hey - I clearly have some accountability issues.

Anyway with that out of the way, I started another Combine today and had one of the best trading sessions in years. Not in terms of P/L, but in terms of trade placement.

Here are the stats:

P/L: $2231.14
Profit Factor: 2.44
Win Rate: 52.50%
AwAL: 2.21

Here are the charts - still struggling to find a good way to mark them up efficiently.

Trade #1: I took the 1m OR BO with small size - I’m happy with this because it was already such a big range, it easily could have flipped.

Trade #2: Took the reversal at the prior day & overnight resistance. For once, I waited for the retest & fail. This was by far one of the best entries I’ve taken in a long time.

Trade #3: I got a little greedy here and took several shots at the pullback entry with less-than-perfect bars. Ended up making it back, but this was messy and really just relied on the swing high failing. So, on a micro level the entry was good - but ate several losses that should have been avoided.

Trade #4: Similar to #3, the idea was pretty simple (OR BO down), but took a few less-than-perfect entries trying to build a little size. I need a better exit strategy for these BO trades.

Trade #5: Again, avoidable trying to take the bigger pullback to the OR low, looking for a continuation. When price formed the pin bar and wedge….BUT then stalled….I flipped and went long for a small win. I think trades like this make me “feel” smart, because I’m catching the trap. But, honestly they’re pretty messy entries and never really feel strong. I can see a scalp here, but is that really what I want to do? Or do I want to catch the 100+ tick intraday swings?

Trade #6: Not on the charts, but I took a small BO scalp long around noon.

ONE STRENGTH:

Excellent trade placements, for the most part. Instead of always looking to build positions, I’d like to enter with a little more excellence.

ONE WEAKNESS:

Took too many reactive trades as the session slowed a little. It’s especially trade #5 I’d like to avoid in the future, even though it was a small win today.

NEXT SESSION GOAL:

Start journaling by setup type! C’mon now.

Trade well!