They could front-run steadily winning fundees, I suppose ... but my guess is that that isn't part of their business model. Would anyone mind, anyway?
You wouldn't mind that someone front-run your stratey ? Whereas you spent years to develop it ? If they don't degrade it much, That's fine. If you don't mind please post your signals.
I suspect that's not exactly a typical situation for TST's target market, is it, if you think about who their traders are?
Do you think they are newbies ? Don't really get it. Anyway, some of them are profitable. I just want to make sure that I am not making a long term mistake, By joining them in the short term. Meaning giving away my edge, As I only need funds, but not willing to give away my strategy. Don't want them to front run me after I'm done with them. Anyway, they aren't trader neither Algo trader. So they won't use my strategy after I quit. Isn't it ? I may be paranoid but .. My strategy is my soul. And it's not that complicated. So they could reverse engineer it.
It's very clear from reading accounts of their Combines that a proportion of them are, yes. The Combine pass-rate is only 20%. (To be fair to TST, that was just the last independently audited measurement of it - it's presumably increased since then, given the rule-changes they've made at the beginning of this year.) Yes, clearly. So they're a mixture: some are clearly traders with some experience and a true edge, who happen not to have their own funding for whatever reason. I do see what you mean. Personally, I wouldn't worry about that, in your position. It's hard to see any significant downside, from your own perspective? I think "how you decide when to enter trades" is your business, anyway. Granted, they could front-run you, if they really wanted to, I suppose, or even reverse engineer your methods if they really wanted to, but would that do you any damage, even if they did (which I'm guessing is highly unlikely anyway)? I do hear you, but it seems very low-risk indeed, to me(?).
I'm not sure exactly what it is you want to know ... You can't hold positions when markets are closed, if this is what you mean. You have to be flat when CME is closed, in the late afternoon in CST time-zone, so no "overnight trades": TST is for intraday trading only, really. (Don't know whether I've actually answered your question?).
So even if i make a 20K profit after 2 months (in funded account), i can't keep one contract after day's close? Even when that 20K is more than enough to cover maintenance margin?
Someone will correct me, if I'm wrong, but I believe that's so, yes: TST accounts are for intraday traders only.
I doubt they would change their business model to include this option. If you are able to trade the funded account to 20K , you can wait a few more months to take it to double that amount to open your own account. Then you could have your personal account, which you could hold overnight, for larger swing moves when they are available. Then trade the TopStep account intra-day. If you are good at catching big swings, you could significantly smooth out your returns, and keep more $$ on the larger trades.