Not really sure about 1 and 2, haven't looked it up yet. About question 3, not all prop firms have the same list of products that you can trade, so it's best the check the FAQ and look for the list of allowed products of any of the companies that you are interested in.
49$ per month until the profit target is met then 149$ flat activation fees. The evaluation is SIM as well as the next step, the “Express funded account”, then they might move you to a live (real) account or not. The 50K give you access to 2,000$ but you can’t withdraw them. Only the profit you make from it. There is an active Discord server if you have questions specific to TST. There’s a lot of bullshit with prop firms. IF I HAD at least 1,500$ TO GAMBLE WITH I WOULD FUND MY OWN ACCOUNT AND TRADE MICROS. If you’re not broke and have a solid strategy then prop firms are pretty much a waste of time. IF YOU HAVE SKILLS AND NO MONEY, OR NO SKILLS AND MONEY, THEN GIVE IT A TRY.
5 x 150K account with Topstep. Make $10-20K per each account. That's $50-100K. Even if you withdraw only half (you need 30 green days to withdraw 100 %), it's still a pretty good return on your money. I did it once and am in the process of doing it again. One other thing I like as an amateur piker is that my downside risk is capped. Should there be a flash crash or some other news shock where liquidity disappears I'm safe. If I'm leveraged up in my retail account I could easily become in debt to my broker. Of course, 99.99 % of the time there are no issues in RTH on liquid futures markets, but a black swan could happen.
Well that’s true. 5x150k costs 1,490$ (best case). 3x the combine and you get 22,500$ buying power. Self funded wise … to get 22,500$ buying power after a 3x … We would need to put down 7,500$. It’s up to everyone to weight the pros and the cons.
In terms of cons the taxation is of course worse with such a firm as it's taxed as income. I may take my chances and put it in as a derivative tax. I did that last year on a smaller sum, but not sure this year as it's a considerably bigger sum.
I don't paper day trade futures but index or names. I used a notional $50K as per trade with a stop loss of ~$100/trade. One trade at any one time. Can I day trade names, index instead of futures on Topstep? I have accumulated 12 months of paper day trading statistics and can do some extrapolation to see if I can survive a prop challenge with my statistics and/or beat the tax. Thank you all for this interesting education.
Most - if not absolutely all - of these firms only offer futures. I'm sure it's for a good reason. Hint, hint.