Closed out February with a perfect month in my Topstep XFA trading only $NQ futures. Set myself up for success with the big buffer on day one, but still stacked 16k on top of it the rest of the month to be able to take the max $5k payout every 5 days. Some days were hard fought to crawl back from deep red, like the 20th with 162 trades. BUT WE MADE IT. On to March 😃
Sure, my original ~$13k profit target would’ve hit, but I wanted to lock the profit while it was there and turn the red I saw into green. Hardest part of trading is knowing when to close out. Not a perfect trade, but at least I got a good chunk of the move and limited risk along the way.
A story, 10 minutes apart.
Was up over $1k on topstep XFA trading $MNQ. Was gonna call it a night, but got bored and decided I wanted more.
Built up my buffer and played with 5 minis $NQ. Smoked at first on my long, +1.1k to -1.7k. But switched short and closed out up $4.7k, all in 10 minutes work.
Truly nothing like futures, for better or for worse
after a loooooong cold streak on Topstep, I was finally able to get my head out of my ass this month. 2nd max payout just withdrawn. Big buffer on day one definitely helped.
BREAKING: US job numbers were revised down by -1,029,000 jobs in 2025, the largest annual revision in at least 20 years.
This follows downward revisions of -818,000 in 2024 and -306,000 in 2023.
In total, -2,153,000 jobs have been revised out of initially reported data over the last 3 years.
Since 2019, -2,500,000 jobs have been erased from official data, with negative revisions occurring in 6 of the last 7 years.
By comparison, 2009-2010 combined downward revisions were roughly -1,200,000.
What is happening with US labor market data?