Topstep

Question 1

Express Funded Account rules:

The money you get from an express account is still real money. In order to activate your express account, you’ll have to sign a contract and pay a one time flat activation fee of $149. This payment is required per account, you can have 3 accounts, and you can use a trade copier to trade on all 3 accounts at the same time to triple your earnings.

There are no resets with an express or live account. If you fail or break the rules, you have to start back and retake the trading combine, and pay the fees again.

With an express funded account there is no consistency target or rule anymore, nor any profit target to meet. This account begins with a $0 balance. The exception is that the max & daily loss limit stays the same as the trading combine. Do not hit the daily loss limit or your account will be deactivated for that trading day, and even worse, do not hit the max loss limit or you’ll lose the express account. You also have to follow the scaling rule.

Do not trade above the max contracts allowed for each profit threshold.

Question 2

Live Express Account rules:

This is the account you will transition to once you have shown consistent success in the express funded account. However topstep determines and how long is up to them.

With this account you will be trading with topseps actual funds they provide you, no more simulation. You’re proving to them you’re a top level trader, knowing they’re still liable for those funds, but still entrusting you with it.

The fact that you’re trading with real money, you will certainly contribute to the volume and buy and sell orders for whatever instrument you’re trading. Although your orders may not have a big effect on the market, you’re still contributing nonetheless.

There are no activation fees with a live account, but you will have to worry about CME exchange data fees of $135/per MONTH. Max loss limit will now be calculated intraday (unrealized P/L). Commissions are not included in your P/L, so you will need to be aware of those costs; meaning you’ll have to calculate the difference between your account balance and cash on hand to see how much was charged for commissions.

Other than that, the rules are pretty much the same as with the express account. Don’t hit your max loss limit. If you do, you lose the account.

Question 3

Payout Structure

• 90/10 profit split. You keep 90% of the profits you make and they keep 10.
• Keep 100% of first $10k in profits
• Need 5 winning days of $200+ to be eligible for payout and only allowed up to 50% withdrawal of the balance
• After 30 winning days of $200+, eligible for 100% of balance and can withdraw any time
• Min withdrawal request is $125 (1 - 3 business days)

Question 4

How to pass: Risk Management

• 4:1 risk-to-reward ratio (risk $250 to make $1000)
• Focus on longer timeframes & establish/validate trend
• My strategy uses ichimoku cloud study on longer timeframe & fibonacci retracements and trendlines on shorter timeframe
• Tight stop loss and realistic price target

Question 5

Pros/Cons

Pros
- End of day drawdown (DOES NOT include live account)
- Trading combine fee is among the industry lowest
- No minimum trading days required Gust meet profit target/consistency rule)
- Payout among industry best after 30 winning days

Cons
- Ongoing fees
- Payout rules an inconvenience before 30 winning days

Question 6

4 trades:

/NQ

/ES

/CL

/NG

Steps:

1. The first thing you need to establish when it comes to indexes or commodities that you trade, is if you’re bear biased or bull biased. The way to determine that is through the ichimoku cloud indicator. The red and gold visuals represent the cloud of the ichimoku cloud study. The only thing you need to know to first establish bullish or bearish inclination is where is the current price action. If it’s below the cloud, you’re going to focus on taking a short trade. If it’s above the cloud, you’re going to focus on taking a long trade.
2. There are always exceptions but that’s generally the blueprint of the strategy, and you always do this on a 4-Hour chart. Nothing less because then it starts becoming unreliable.
3. Don’t go short on a trade right when it crosses below the cloud or don’t go long on a trade right when it crosses above the cloud. There are a couple more things that need to happen in order to ensure the probability of your trade being successful. Really make sure the price action has cleared the cloud and there is enough distance between the cloud and the price action. You don’t actually want to be in or near the clouds.
4. Secondly, make sure the blue line which is called the tenken line has crossed above the pink line which is the kitchen line. Vice versa if you’re going short and price action has cleared below the clouds. Make sure the blue tenkin line has crossed below the pink kitchen line.
5. We need to establish two more things for a precision entry, so that way we can establish our 4:1 risk-to-reward ratio by having a proper stop loss and price target. Those two things are trend lines and proper fibonacci retracement for confluence (where a trend line meets an important level on the Fibonacci retracement). Then we would have two strong indicators validating our bias for a bullish trade.
6. The red line is called the chiku line. It’s there to help guide you of when to get out of a trade. Once the ichimoku cloud meets price action, meaning the line starts touching the candlesticks, it generally means there’s a good chance the price is about to reverse. This line is always delayed in comparison to the current price action.
7. Now that you establish long or short bias, get rid of the ichimoku study so you can have a cleaner chart and an easier time drawing trend lines and fibonacci retracement. The whole purpose of the ichimoku cloud was to know where the trend is going. For now, you won’t need the study, but you will certainly pull it back up to check on the chiku line and see how coose it’s getting to the price action candlesticks. That’ll be one of the key signs to get out of the trade.
8. Try out your trend lines, and again, do this on the 4 hour chart.
9. For the Fibonacci retracement typically look for the low of price action and draw it out to the high of price action. Typically wait for price action to get to the half retracement or the .618 retracement. Or even then .786 level. Those 3 levels are the golden pockets of a reversal, and it would be preferable for the price action to go to the lowest.
10. Notice price action bounces and identify whether they bounced of specific lines, either trend lines or fibonacci.
11. In some cases, watch out for 4-Hour Candlestick bounces off higher retracements like the 38.2% retracement. Ask yourself: Is this higher retracement considered the pullback and will price action start running again? Or will it go down further to either one of those three golden Pockets? Remember about confluence. This is where bullish trend lines come into play.
12. If price action were to come down to either one of the lower three levels, most likely you would close below that trend line, and that’s a bearish signal.
13. Imagine it does bounce off the 38.2% retracement and off the very bullish trend line, the ichimoku study confirms the bias was bullish, and the extra confluences identify where your entry should be. You decide that’s where you’re taking your trade.
14. Switch to a shorter time frame—a 15-minute frame. Draw another Fibonacci retracement where the price action flirts with the bullish trend line, from that low to the highest at the time. Then watch out for low retracement bounces. Once the bounce closes, you generally enter on the next candlestick.
15. Make your stop loss around the amount of money you’re risking, and the price target around the popular .236 retracement, proportionate to the 4/1 risk ratio.