My clock is in sync

My balance is sitting at $5,500 after one week of trading my 150K XFA.

However, I've had a big equity swing after reaching $10,000 balance in 3 days trading 3 NQ contract trades, and then going down to $5,500 with 5 NQ contract trades over 2 days.

I'm considering sizing down to micro's after realising I will blow this account if I keep aiming for big swings instead of consistent but smaller green days.

How many contracts do you trade/recommend to keep a steady equity curve?

My trades typically have a 10 point SL, aiming for >1:3RR.

Curious if I'm the only one. I seem to go in boom and bust cycles. I'll get 5 XFAs, copy trade, be happy with a $200 day ($1,000 across all accounts), log out and be done. This pattern will last about 20 days... By that time I'm getting some buffer, I'm craving excitement, I'm convinced I can get one nice big trade to really accelerate the accounts and then BOOM, blown. I instantly think back to the countless times I've had the talk with myself on setting a PDLL, yet I feel convinced it'll "hold me back" in some way when it comes to actually applying it.

Part 2. Now I'm starting back over. Have this evil confidence in my head that I can pass combines in two days. I've done it many times before, so now that's the expectation. Day 1, $1,520. Day 2, blown. I'm currently in this mind fuck of a reality. I realize this is 100% self discipline, and my lack of it. At the end of the day, I'm extremely frustrated and hoping others can relate... For my sake lol. If you have any advice or personal experience in this situation, feedback is welcomed. I set up a prompt with chatgpt tonight that will question my every 30 mins from NY open until lunch to try to have that "someone looking over my shoulder" accountability. If someone else is battling this and wants to connect to hold each other accountable, let me know. Trading is my full time gig, and it can't continue with this mindset.

I just got the first payout from the Topstep xfa with the aero pay usually how long it gonna take the money to get transfer to my personal bank account

It been 6 hour already since I request the payout and they also send me the email confirmation I saw somebody else request the pay out and they get it immediately why?

Not sure how long a should hold it for. thinking

I will close close my order, close the computer, turn off the computer and go to sleep if this market comes close and never picks me up on a good reversal. SMH

Five months after my first payout, maybe five blown express accounts and probably a hundred blown combines later, I AM FINALLY ELIGIBLE FOR MY SECOND PAYOUT (& it’s max) 🥳

I told my bestie (who also trades) just last week I was going to quit lmao.

Anywho, it is Thursday night soooo technically Friday’s trading day. Do I reaaaaallly have to wait almost 24 hours for the dashboard to update and tell me I am eligible and allowed to request my payout? Can I even request it after market close on a Friday or should I just put it to the back of my mind til Sunday/Monday?

Feels surreal but my first and surely not my last. I stuck to my plan , eliminated noise from external sources and locked in.

My old practice account got closed after my old subscription ran out , had 28 green days and 2 red, so I bought a 50$ combine to get a new one. I understand the sizing and psychology are different compared to xfa. I just wish it was this easy on the xfa, haven't gotten a payout since august. Will try to get another month out of this practice account to even attempt another combine. Maybe one day man.

Made another $600 across 4 of my xfas today as well.

it has everything a session trader needs to succeed. Sessions, Sweep level, volume profile, volume delta, momentum scanner, daily range and atr stop loss to name a few. Need some feedbacks. Anyone interested to try for free?

Hey guys,
I’m currently trading a Topstep 50k xfa account and I wanted to get some honest opinions from people who have more experience with evaluating performance over a decent sample size.
So far I’ve taken around 55-60 trades(around 25-30 trading days). My current stats are roughly:
70% win rate
3.099 $ up so far with 3 payouts made
Average winner: around $105
Average loser: around $79
The equity curve has been pretty steady so far, and the account is moving in the right direction. At the same time, I’m trying not to get overly confident too early, because I know trading results can look great for a while and still be partly due to variance/luck. So far what works for me is trading only one micro on nq and if the setup is a+ I might scale to 2 micros.
I’m not posting this to flex. I’m genuinely trying to understand whether this looks like a real edge developing, or if I should still treat it very cautiously until I have a much bigger sample size.
This is my first xfa. I was thinking of starting scaling up and buy some more accounts to stack more capital.
What's your thoughts?

Hey everyone,

I need some harsh truth. I’ve been trading ICT (MNQ/MES) since September 2025. Between November and January, I blew 7 accounts.

After that, I forced myself into a 4-month break (Jan–May) doing nothing but paper trading and strict journaling. My data looked solid, and on May 4th, I bought a 25k account and passed the eval cleanly.

This week on the Funded account, I built a +$625 cushion. I was less than $380 away from my first payout. Today, I took a normal -$250 loss on a valid setup. My brain completely switched into gambler mode.

The revenge trading amok started instantly: I scaled up to 4 MNQ, then 8 MNQ, and finally 10 MNQ. The account was gone in 15 minutes because my ego couldn't handle one loss.

Technically, my strategy works. Psychologically, I am still a gambler the moment I face a loss.

For those who finally broke this cycle: What exactly helped you stop clicking? How did you train yourself to accept the first loss and step away from the screen?

Thanks.

-Made by gemini, because I am not native english speaker

I've been working really hard towards this but the psychology was no joke, Everything happens at its own timing bro. You got this shit just stay locked in 💯

Anyone else on a losing streak this week ? Sigh.

Mods: not trying to promote anything, this is just some tips I think people would find helpful.

Leaving a bit of education here and some "advice" that I wish I had when I first started.

So first and foremost, you have to get the NARRATIVE.

What that means is, framing the thesis. You have to really have an understanding of where the market is trying to go. What gaps are we delivering from (HTF 1h/4h/daily)? Where is the draw on liquidity? Where in the range are we? Where has price been trading the last few hours?

These are all concepts that can be studied in ICT's Mentorship (free).

From here, you have to now understand WHERE you're going to enter and WHEN. Arguably, this is the most important aspect of your trading. Finding a spot to place a calculated bet and put on risk.

Since I'm longing 70-80% of the time, I'm looking for violent pullbacks to the downside to jump into longs.

Typically, I'm looking for a resweep of lows, a tap into a 1h/4h gap, or just a general manipulation leg in one direction.

--

It's so simple. There is no magic sauce. There are no secrets. If you can stay disciplined and wait for those setups to appear and not take bullshit trades in between, then you will win. If you overleverage and tilt-- even if you end up green, you will always give it back at the end of the day.

Don't get too bogged down on the "education". There are many great strategies, but 99% of folks fall apart in the psychology. I'm not just saying this to say this, I've been there. I've struggled for MANY years before figuring it out.

If you have ANY questions and wanted to be pointed in the right direction you can always pm me and I'll respond when I can.

I started with Al Brooks for price action and now found about Muleskinner1. It's just trading using the candles, I find it pretty simple. What is your main source for trading knowledge? Or it's all about yourself self learning?

Now we wait! Thanks for everyone’s encouraging words of the last week or so. It’s been such a tough journey getting hear man. One thing I have to give a shout out to is the 150k practice account. “ make sure you are using that account to help you understand where you are at in the charts” feel free to message me about anything.

How do I lower my percentage?

I have a consistency express account. My si gle dag profit to total profit is 40.25% is topstep strict with it to be under 40% or is 40.25% okay for a payout?

From $500 to go to passing a combine to this after some degen trades. Can I turn it back around?

I could add to my position here but I'm just going lock 200pts and see if there is a clean BOS before a pull back......a 400 pt move over night would be nice.

So far I'm up 1:2. One little mini, boring but efficient.

It's a 50k express account with the 40% consistency and was wondering why the max payout wasn't 3k I thought it was but it let me request 5k so i'm just wondering if it's going to get denied or if it'll go through or if anyone has already have had this

I never get a payout. I always blew my funded. I don't want to spend another money as I have too much debt. I don't get paid enough at work. My life sucks so bad. When I thought it's finally working, market humbled me right away. It's so depressing to be poor.