Topstep Funding Updates

Topstep recently restructured their funding program by introducing an Express Funded Account. It's a demo account that allows traders who have passed the Combine to trade and withdraw profits. Those who are consistent will have the opportunity to convert over to a Live Account.

I understand why Topstep is doing this - they're reducing their own capital risk by only providing a Live Account to consistently profitable traders that will earn them money in the long run. However, the focus of this post isn't on the Express Funded Account. For more information, you can read up on it here.

What I will say is that I now have an Express Funded Account, and I plan on doing my best to slowly grow it. A few weeks ago, Topstep launched a promotion across all of their Trading Combines. The $50K one is currently 70% off.

Topstep Trading Combine Prices

In my older posts, I explained why I stopped with the Trading Combines. It came down to the psychological urge to force myself to hit the profit target before the monthly subscription charge. I believe that the discounted Trading Combine subscription cost put significantly less pressure on myself, meaning I can complete it at a much more leisurely pace.

Since I have a futures trading strategy that utilizes volume charts (very similar to tick charts), I subscribed to the $50K Trading Combine. Here's my performance below.

$50K Trading Combine

Full disclosure, I did have to perform one reset before I achieved the consistency shown above. After the reset, I hit the $3K profit target in seven trading days. As you can see in my equity curve, there were several days where my P&L was relatively flat. This is because I went into this $50K Trading Combine with a different mindset.

Time is on my side because the regular price subscription fee for one month now covers three months due to the discount. Therefore, there's less pressure for me to pass the Trading Combine in just one month. After the reset, I took my time identifying and entering trades off of very structural intraday moves.

Despite Topstep experiencing a surge in new registrations, my Express Funded Account was processed incredibly quickly. The first few days trading in my Express Funded Account did not go so well. Here's the equity curve below.

Topstep Express Funded Account

Two reasons for experiencing this drawdown. The first is the excitement of securing a funded account where I can withdraw 50% of profits made after five profitable days of $200 or more. Side note, this rule is also designed by Topstep to control how much they're paying out and get you trading for longer. I'll knuckle under this rule for now given my current cost of entry into the futures market. I definitely over-traded a little bit and entered on sub-optimal structural moves.

The second reason is that we've been seeing a reversal in the market structure. Rather than getting trending waves, I experienced more choppy or whipsaw movements. This made directional predictions a bit more difficult. To explain, I have a 4-window "dashboard" designed in Tradingview to provide me with a high-level view of the various markets.

Tradingview 4-Window View

We have been, especially for equity indices, experiencing reversals underway. Recently, the US dollar index began trending higher and the S&P 500 leveled off and continued onto the downside after a brief consolidation. Due to the overlapping bars and candle wicks, the intraday price action is even more choppy.

As I establish my directional biases for the week ahead, I believe I can get my equity curve to slowly and steadily back to its healthy uptrend.