I remember Traderdock before they disappeared mentioned that they didn't internalize orders and people in the thread got really heated with them for not doing that. Which is weird because destriero is completely right, that's really crazy that their orders don't hit the tape. Same thing with Oneup and that they can put you in a simulated account at their discretion, not sure that's the same with Topstepstep Trader, I know that they have the "pro account" which is a simulated account where they pay you $5000 of your profits before switching you live and it's optional, takes less business days then filling out the paperwork for the live account. As far as his money goes it's not his $50,000 it's Leeloos which he can trade yeah he can lose what he has in there for their scaling plans, As long as you don't have any problems with trading in the live account and you get paid I guess that's a plus but still sketch. Or better outright fraud. You don't need to be a US citizen or even live in the US to start a US based C corp or LLC. So they could be foreign, and US companies get involved in fraud all the time lmao. Man, Atleast with Earn2trade they provide Helios as the prop firm and are honest that they are an education company, and Topstep well I assume they do there own funding due to the scaling plans as they call them. When you get a chance please let us know if you received a withdrawal, I see your paypal where you paid them for resets and monthly subscription fee's but no payment withdrawals which was what I was trying to verify with you Billicare.
Thank you for your comment, unfortunately fraud is everywhere enough, i hope this is not on this case. I will post here any news.
When your traders start trade after evaluation, they trade on real market? And max loss for each account 2.5-5K this is your risk?
For the regular gauntlet, they go to "Live sim" first, which is a paper trading account that we treat as a real account, including the ability for the trader to receive withdrawals. This uses the same paper trading engine on Rithmic as the evaluation and we have no control over the fills in this, it's not us making the market. Rithmics engine, along with the exchange, attempts to simulate fills based on the live market as best as possible. Once someone hits $5k profit, Helios takes over and brings them onto their firm. This simply has to do with the more relaxed ruleset on the regular Gauntlet and the prop firm wants us to take on the initial risk before them. In the Gauntlet Mini, those who pass go straight to Helios and Helios assumes all risk in a live account, real market. The max loss would be the risk to Helios.
Thank you for your explain. As I understand it, LeeLoo works in the same way.("Live sim") But The role of Hellios is played by LeeLoo himself. I apologize for the incomprehensible explanation in my previous post.
Hi Axon. This is @Billicare 's journal so I will be brief. I only "imploded" because I agreed to withdraw funds to keep my significant other happy. I am guessing that most traders value the other humans in their lives and take the necessary steps to at least keep the peace. But I will be back soon after I close a few more real estate deals. I am not sure what trading I will be journaling about yet, but the very act of journaling is good for my trading. Regarding your second point, in my very first post in that journal, I attempted not to promote the funding companies, but clearly pointed out that my purpose was to show that most traders should NOT use them. In fact, I equally vilify TST, OneUp, and Leeloo with their tempting siren songs accompanied by insane minimum ROI's. For 90% of traders, this is a very addictive and poverty-inducing BAD BAD BAD path to go down. My goal was to encourage everyone to try out the new micros and should HOW they could be used to grow a small account into one that could handle the Eminis after some good growth.
Regarding @Billicare's comments about accounts going live at the discretion of the funding company-- With OneUp (and I assume LeeLoo), once you make it "live" they will not set you loose loose with the full emotion of real-money trading. But they know that because of that emotion, a newly funded trader will rarely trade the same way they did in the evaluation/combine. So they set up a new sim account, and they watch. And they wait. Then they watch some more. The whole while, they are on the hook if you are profitable but they don't flip the switch to a truly live DOM. But once they flip the switch, I am sure they don't go back. And I am sure they don't intercept each trade to evaluate it. With my "live" account on OneUp in 2019 I traded to over $2000 and withdrew $1000, and I could tell that my trades still were not hitting the live market based on limit orders placed on the DOM. (Sadly, I failed later and had to start over. Just as with my micro account mentioned previously, having enough capital to withstand drawdowns is KEY to staying alive.)
@Billicare I am glad you got my message about SLOW GROWTH and are doing this the right way. 2% per day seems so doable. I have watched so many traders make 5% or 10% in one day and then give it all back- plus more- the very next day. Just because we can use the full leverage available doesn't mean we should. Consistency is indeed key, and staying alive is paramount. This is not a gambling den; we are trying to develop stable, profitable patterns for continued growth. I assume that once you reach 10 micro contracts that you will go to a full NQ contract? This will certainly save on commissions. Either way, it is truly "all about the ticks" and if you keep your stops in place, especially as the threat of war looms large, you will succeed. Remember this though: This journal is to help you be a better trader and not the other way around. Your good trading must come first. Therefore, Don't force a trade to get to 2% on a given day. It may get hard to reach 2%, especially in this volatile environment. Remember that capital preservation is #1! So remember that ZERO% is still WAY better than -1%, or -2%! Make sure you set your goal to 2% daily AVERAGE so you can stay on track if you have a less-than-stellar day. IF by chance you fall behind the 2% goal, don't fret. 1% per day - long term - would put you in the top 1% of the top 1% of traders in the world. Be happy and keep it up!!!