Do you know what desk fees run at most props in Chicago? How about 2k to 10k a month plus giving away 50% to 75% of your profits plus leaving 100k to 200k in YOUR money in the firm. And guess what? These firms are packed! We have about 40 of them in Chicago. And very traders will ever have any desire to leave. Yes, futures and equities are two completely different business models.
TST earns the combine fees. That was the 400 page debate on the other threads. Guys were complaining about that. I don't know of any recruiting firms that can get commission kick backs. TST is also not registered or licensed, they are simply a recruiting firm.
ptp is not a true propreitary futures firm sure there are many deals on the street in chicago or wherever I have heard of deals with real futures props where the traders pay rock bottom rates & trade size for ticks most of the firms you talk about are true propreitary firms right ? we have to compare apples to apples , these guys offer a hybrid model at best . designed for beginners ptp has only a small number of profitable live accounts, that has to tell us something about how the transaction costs affect the pnl at the end of the day , how much you pay in transaction cost is going to affect your profitability at $ 5.00 r/t that is a tough nut to overcome for new traders to have a chance to be in the green monthly It's tough for even pro's depending on your style of trading ptp rates are very high & is a challenge for most to overcome with giving up 40 % of profits no wonder most don't make any money with live accounts trading is tough enough without all the high costs involved to take a shot this is a bad deal , for any profitable trader with skin in the game
Yes, they are a hybrid firm. That is their angle. Look, we've already debated this a few times. Traders have three choices. Polish up your resume and knock on doors. Fund your own account. I personally like Velocity, but Advantage is good as well. Or try the combine route. It's very simple. I highly doubt someone is going to get an offer to work for TMG and turn it down to do a combine. The guy who is going to do the combine is not getting offers from TMG or Chopper or DRW. Now, on to your point about guys paying rock bottom rates. Sure, as I stated earlier, they trade at cost but that cost is built into their desk fees and their p&l split plus they have to keep 100's of thousands of their own money in deferment. No free ride here I'm sorry. No one is in this business for charity. Now, I've stated on the other threads what I think guys could do as an alternative. Work on your trading in the combines. Do 5 or 6 or 10 if you have to. Perfect your discipline, your strategy and your focus. Once you have all that down, fund your own account at Velocity. Very simple. Look, this cool trader guy is EXACTLY why guys should not fund their own accounts until they are consistent. He tried to catch a falling knife and scaled into the ES while it fell off a cliff. If they didn't shut him down he would have kept holding. Why should this guy use his own money while he has not even perfected his trading yet. Hell this guy didn't even know how to roll his futures contracts. I'm not trying to pick on him but you would be amazed how many people fund accounts and don't even know the basics of futures 101. It makes no sense to blow through 10k or 20k of your own money when you can work on your game for a few hundred bucks. Then once you get your shit together, go fund yourself. Nobody is making anybody do anything here. It's your choice.
what they offer is good for some & offers someone a opportunity to learn if trading futures if for them I think once someone has proven themselves & has equity in there account they should be paying much lower commissions payouts shoud start at 70 % & go to 80 % once the trader has met the equity in there accounts high commission costs will affect even profitable traders dramatcially once a trader is profitable , they should make adjustments to build a long tern relationship is that is the goal the goal is making money , not worrying about the trader usually so you know things don't change much once you accept the deal the reality is if your profitable & splitting profits you have to get a rock bottom rate to make it work
Easy solution for you then, simply fund your own account. You are making this much harder then you have to. It's a free market. Lift the offer you want to lift. No one is making you trade. There are guys that want to join Bright Trading and trade options. He won't let them. Guess what? They have to go somewhere else. Or someone wants to go to firm XYZ and hold overnights and the firm won't let them. Great, then go to Bright. You are creating conflict where there is none. There are plenty of choices in this business. Find the one that fits for you. Very simple.
what is with the remark i am creating conflict ? whatever just talking in general here , just shooting the breeze I can care less , it's a crap deal imo . no matter who offered it the deal is good for some & horrible for others , no big deal anyone with a brain knows it's just a starting point to learn there are many ways to skin a cat , they fill a void for some It will be interesting to see your results on the combine next week ? Go show them how it's done by a real pro
Every deal is good for some and bad for others. At my old firm we raped guys on rates. I mean raped them. Do you know why they came to us? Because they wanted to be able to trade stock, options and futures in a JBO environment. If they could have done that somewhere else at better rates, they would have. But they couldn't. Do you know why I paid 1.7 cents at worldco? Because I wanted to work with one of the best pure tape readers in the country. Not everyone on ET wants to scalp stock for a living. Personally I rather teach 3rd grade public school then grind out a living scalping pennies. But some guys like that. So they need to find a shop where they can get rock bottom rates. Please stop litigating this over and over. People are free to trade with whoever they want and how they want.
A person without money and without access to money to fund an account is in no position to dictate terms. So long as the terms are clearly spelled out, even a remote opportunity to make a few bucks upon demonstrating the requisite trading performance seems pretty good. Were I back in college, I would have jumped at something like this. Why not? I had little money as a college student and with part-time jobs it took me awhile to save $2500 to open my first account at a discount broker to play the stock market using the Investor's Daily delivered to me in the morning. That was back in the 1980's. That being said, I do not understand the enticement for someone who can trade to do a combine for nothing. What is the reward? Just to take the time to learn a new trading platform, there would have to be a big incentive for me. We're heading into the election and the end of the year and the markets are picking up. Who would fiddle around with a simulated account when the market is in the most tradeable phase for the year, except perhaps some broke kid who can't trade anyway? If this TST firm wants participation by people on this board who can actually trade, offer some incentive. Put up some cash to anyone from this board who passes the combine under your terms.
I think what Peternam was asking about is whether or not the commission schedule itself was marked up, not whether it was TST or PTP that did the markup. It is self evident that TST is the recruiting firm that collects the combine fee and implements the combine, and PTP does the financial backing for the live traders. The $2.50 per side is the rate per contract per lot including exchange fees, so $5 r/t per trade on 1 lot, $25 r/t if one does the 5 lot max per trade. To hitandrun's point, this commission is retail and there is tremendous churn if you play for ticks, especially when you factor in a 40% giveback. For example, if a live trader wants to make around $100 bucks NET on 2 lots of Aussie, it would require NINE ticks. 9 ticks x $10/tick x 2 lots = $180 Minus $5/lot x 2 lots = ($10) Minus 40% giveback = ($68) Equals $102 net paid to trader Obviously, a retail trader in his own account gets to keep the $180 less their commissions. It's already been discussed that a trader has three choices: get hired by one of the "true prop firms", fund their own account, or try the combine. Perhaps Mr. Patak can clarify and put the issue to rest regarding the commission schedule: Is there a markup to the trader on what the backer pays in commissions on the live account, similar to equity prop firms?