Hi! Thank you for the questions and the points that you have raised. Let me try to address them to the best of my ability. 1) Type" of "Pro firm" Real Tier one "True PROP Firms" dont charge people they hunt for talent in same way as any other business, by screening people on some sort of entrance test + past experience + interview and then test them during evaluation period. When did you hear Google/ Ford "Charging" a combine or a test or a Gauntlet fee to prospective engineers who want to work in these firms? This model of your and others seems to be based upon "grab as many test fees as possible and hope very few pass and very few will be funded. and even if few have to be funded that money actually comes from accumulated test fees charged I believe you disclosed that only 20% have been funded ( your competition avoids that question) so would the following be correct as an example 100 apply and pay $2500 Boot camp each = 250,000 Cash in, 20 pass and funded to the tun of ? Our business model hinges on our belief that trading can be learned by anyone who is dedicated enough. You are right of course, anyone can apply to a proprietary trading firm and try to pass whatever those firms post as requirements for employment, which oftentimes include criteria which may go above and beyond many retail traders. So far however we have found that it is infinitely easier for people to get into trading if it is possible for them to see an endgame, where the risk they are taking is limited to the price of the education package or the “exam fee,” which is the price of The Gauntlet™. Having said that you are free to submit your trading records to Helios without taking The Gauntlet™ even, they require a profitable trading history of six months. Please note that while we did discuss the 20% success rate so far, the customers, who are now funded traders purchased one of our earlier, now discontinued packages. The Bootcamp as a comprehensive package has only been available for less than 10 days. With the Bootcamp launched, it is possible to purchase The Gauntlet™ without the education for the one-time fee of $349. Discount the data fees and company overhead, and it doesn’t really look like a money-grab anymore. I’d like to add that the Bootcamp was designed with the specific goal of increasing the 20% success rate that we quoted earlier. 2) When an applicant passes the Boot camp etc - what is the actual a/c size he is given - Is it actual cash amount or Notional? - If cash then is it only about day trading? or overnight? because as you know if it is only day trading for a mere $500 on 1 ES anybody can pretend to fund a trader to the tune of $125000 "Notional" - If actual then again same question day or overnight When an applicant passes The Gauntlet™ at the end of the Bootcamp or without the Bootcamp, they start with the account size of 10k-25k generally. Account size can be reviewed with the prop firm, as time progresses and profits are shown, but this is all cash amount and available margin from day 1. Offers can change depending on the performance of the candidate, but this is the general trend. It is possible to hold positions overnight, no restrictions there. Also, no restrictions on the number of contracts and no “initially available funds” or other “unlockable extras.” The funding offer is based on The Gauntlet™ performance and is available margin, for overnight trading as well. 3) Regulatory: To join an equity prop in USA one has to pass various exams set by regulators' - Is it true that if it is Futures trading such licencing is not necessary To be Prop offering Equity the firms need to be a Broker Dealer , with futures is that not necessary? Once a trader is funded, he/she becomes a “limited partner” of Helios. It is legal to trade within the framework of a proprietary trading firm, as one of the partners, without a license from the trader’s part. As a limited partner, the trader is essentially trading his own money (the firms). In addition the trader receives a K1 tax statement at the end of the year where they can receive the tax benefits of trading vs. ordinary income / 1099 like many competitors. 4) Your structure: so why is it that the company that sells the "education" is different than the company ? and is it really different the ownership seems to be same who is a Prop? is it because a) As a education seller are you are not subject to any regulatory scrutiny and licencing ( It seems in US anybody can out out a shingle and sell "Trading education " with tall claims with no regulatory oversight b) The CTA can't sell education? c) IS the firm you mention as the prop firm a CTA if it is then where are the published past results The reason that the education company and the prop firm company are different entities is because they have completely different business models. The education company makes money by through the education courses, mentorship sessions and yes, examination fees. We don’t think there’s anything alarming about that. Many companies make money off of education and/or examination fees. We recognized that this business model already exists and believed that we could do it better and fairer to the candidates. We can’t argue on principle if you disagree with the ethics of the business model, but if that is your position at least we can assure you that we generate very little profit from The Gauntlet™ in comparison to the business overhead. I’d like to also add that all companies are subject to regulatory scrutiny and we take our obligations very seriously. We teach within the limitations of what is allowed, and we do not make false promises or offer nonsense promises of million dollar trading methodologies. We teach our students about the market, risk management and technical analysis. We want our students to learn how to trade for themselves, and how to make their own indicators in the future. The prop firm on the other hand simply generates profit the way a prop firm is supposed to, which is through profitably trading. It can also lose money if trades are unprofitable. These two businesses are fundamentally different in their structure and profit models. The prop firm is not a CTA. I’d like to add that our goal for Earn2Trade is to develop it into a standard for trading education. We envision The Gauntlet™ examination achieving broad recognition, and to that effect we hope to recruit more prop firms who accept it as we continue our growth. The CTA has nothing to do with Earn2Trade or Helios. The ownership is completely different and the companies are neither related nor act in concert in any way. I have my Series 3, Series 34 and Series 30 licenses and I am a principle of a CTA. I am a professional trader. These are the credentials I bring to building Earn2Trade. Something is not kosher here I hope I am wrong It seems this business model is great for the promoter but for end user? I doubt Now now I know people who are already converted and think that this is best thing since sliced bread are going to attack me with following points 1) Everyobody does not have maths degree and cant join a top tier prop firm purely on his / her merits , so IT IS OK to sell such (questionable) deal! 2) Getting funded is not that important the "Education" is worth the fee! ( if it is then why the education seller is not managing public money and instead selling the "Education" ) 3) A university degree does not guarantee success in life so why should a consumer expect success from this "Education" WOW comparing a $xxx a month Combine or a Boot camp by small business to a established University which has millions in assets + manpower before they can sell their "Education" 4) It is free world so nothing wrong in selling such dream .. buyer beware is that all that is required to be disclosed .. screw the unsuspecting I need to reiterate here, we are not trying to recruit people to a CTA (although it can be an eventual path via Helios), and Helios is a proprietary trading firm, not a CTA. I own a CTA myself, but that has nothing to do with Earn2Trade’s business model. As a proprietary trading firm, trading only its owner’s funds, Helios is not required to publish its trading history. “Now now I know people who are already converted…” I’m not sure if you wanted me to respond to these points, but if you don’t mind, I will. Thank you for all the questions you have raised. Hopefully it seems less questionable now. I think we may have answered this question already on this forum. We are traders and educators, who decided to make a company to bring those things together. We don’t believe that the profession of being a teacher, educator or Mentor, or however you want to call it, is reserved for people who are not good at a certain field, and therefore have to resort to “faking” it through “education.” Please allow us to say that it is entirely possible to be passionate about something, and teaching that very thing at the same time. We are not trying to compete with a Harvard finance degree. You are right about that, 100%. All that ever speaks in our favor, if you measure us against academia is the promise that at the end of your education, if you pass the exam, you WILL without fail, get an offer from our partners. You can of course attain the same education, and a lot more at a university, if the level of knowledge you desire is that deep, if you have the time and the funds. Once again, thank you for the points you have raised. The more discussion, the better and we agree that transparency is very important to have, as the industry can be a wilderness. If any other questions come to mind, don’t hesitate to ask!
Ok so to clarify further 1) When a client purchase the Boot camp at $2499 and lets assume he/ she is successful at lower end, the person gets 10 K REAL money and overnight position facility Correct? so ES as an example it will be 2 contracts Max? ( $4600 something per ES overnight margin by your FCM) and then how much is he/she allowed to loose before being stopped? So out of 10K the first 2.5 K is the clients itself! If the STOP limit is less or equal to $2499 then we are trading with our Own money! not the Firms! This is a legit question so before "risking" teh education money I am sure you would agree as a consumer one can ask you that question Now back to the ethics 2) You say it is not a Money grab even at $349! per "Test" how so? it is same as TST and others model, still seems to be grab the $349 as many times as possible! Some True Prop firms won;t let you appear for an exam if you failed, where as your business model is simply "if you fail pay another $349 and take the test again and again ...." Yes you are correct it is the "Ethics" of the business model that is what raises red flag, When it is very clear that TRUE props dont walk that path. but then you will argue that the "Education " is worth it! and then I will argue that if the Education is so worth it why are you not using the same "knowledge" managing a public fund ! the traditional 80/20 model .. ( many so called educators have all sort of evasive answers on this because they know to manage other people's money means scrutiny but to sell education it is risk free!) I take the comment " risk they are taking is limited to the price of the education package" with a pinch of salt... any way this seems to be the New frontier of perfectly legal but ethically questionable business in the trading industry! Lets agree to disagree! ( but if you could clarify point 1 that would be great then at least we can work out if the $2499 is worth it)
Let me do my best to answer your questions: Ok so to clarify further 1) When a client purchase the Boot camp at $2499 and lets assume he/ she is successful at lower end, the person gets 10 K REAL money and overnight position facility Correct? so ES as an example it will be 2 contracts Max? ( $4600 something per ES overnight margin by your FCM) and then how much is he/she allowed to loose before being stopped? So out of 10K the first 2.5 K is the clients itself! If the STOP limit is less or equal to $2499 then we are trading with our Own money! not the Firms! This is a legit question so before "risking" teh education money I am sure you would agree as a consumer one can ask you that question We just launched the bootcamp and none of the bootcamp graduates have even started The Gauntlet™, so I cannot give you any statistics on this particular scenario yet. Regardless, you keep focusing on the cost of the Bootcamp as a downpayment on money you are using to trade, but it’s not. As I mentioned before, the education and prop firm businesses are completely separated from one another. When you pay money for education you are paying for education, pure and simple. If you don’t want to pay for education you can take The Gauntlet™ without paying for education. The Gauntlet™ costs $349, so if you want to use your example, the first 10K would have $349 of the candidates money. Again that is your logic, and we disagree with it, but you’re entitled to your opinion. I’d like to press that point once more since you’ve brought it up multiple times and I want you to be 100% clear. In the Bootcamp you are paying for education and The Gauntlet™ together. When you pay for the education, you are paying for education. It’s disingenuous to apply that money spent towards education as money you would receive in the future in The Gauntlet™. The two companies operate with different funds, different bank accounts, different budgets and different business models. One doesn’t take money from the other or the other way around. I can tell you that every 10k account from Helios so far has been given 50% drawdown. You can see an example of one of the offers on ET as well as on our site. That’s $5,000 of Helios funds at risk. At no point are there any client funds at risk. The testing funds paid to Earn2Trade cover testing the candidate, account management, labor costs and business overhead, providing the data feed, software fees, and writing up a detailed analysis report for Helios to objectively make an offer putting their own money at risk. It costs money to run a business and provide a service. We do not recommend for anyone to attempt the Gauntlet™ unless they are sure they can pass. Yes, we do generate income from each attempt however the profit margin on this for us is extremely low. We made our Gauntlet™ in a way that provides more flexibility than others and we take into consideration personal needs. This is the same principle we apply to accepting different or unique trading styles. We aren’t out to just make money from people failing. We want people to pass, and then we can really grow. Now back to the ethics 2) You say it is not a Money grab even at $349! per "Test" how so? it is same as TST and others model, still seems to be grab the $349 as many times as possible! Some True Prop firms won;t let you appear for an exam if you failed, where as your business model is simply "if you fail pay another $349 and take the test again and again ...." As mentioned above, we do everything we can to limit the attempts by traders and we are more than happy to do what we can to help them pass, however we’re not going to stop people from taking The GauntletTM again if they feel they need a fresh start. Yes you are correct it is the "Ethics" of the business model that is what raises red flag, When it is very clear that TRUE props dont walk that path. but then you will argue that the "Education " is worth it! and then I will argue that if the Education is so worth it why are you not using the same "knowledge" managing a public fund ! the traditional 80/20 model .. ( many so called educators have all sort of evasive answers on this because they know to manage other people's money means scrutiny but to sell education it is risk free!) I take the comment " risk they are taking is limited to the price of the education package" with a pinch of salt... any way this seems to be the New frontier of perfectly legal but ethically questionable business in the trading industry! Lets agree to disagree! ( but if you could clarify point 1 that would be great then at least we can work out if the $2499 is worth it) The only true futures prop firms that I know of that don’t require you to pay, instead require $500k/yr in trading tax returns proven to them or a very long proven track record. The main futures prop firms I know of do charge for their tryout and also take 50% earnings. Others require you to put up some of your own money and they just give you additional leverage with mainly your own money at risk. If you know of other “true prop firms” that do futures and don’t charge or need a long successful proven record like I mentioned, please do let me know. You ask why we aren’t using the same knowledge to run a public fund, I’ve already mentioned that I also run a CTA with public funds under management. My vision for Earn2Trade was that I saw a huge gap in the industry for quality, professionally produced education and mentoring by instructors who have passed their NFA exams. I wanted to help people learn to trade without being inundated by get rich promises or fake performance. Of course I see the business model in it. I’m not claiming to work for free. We’re not running a charity. We see a real business opportunity taking an existing business model and building on it and making it more fair for the traders. We are a business and we provide a value add to traders and to our partners. We are transparent about everything. If someone doesn’t agree with our Earn2Trade business model they are more than welcome to submit their performance directly to other “true prop firms.” I hope my answers have provided some clarification and have demonstrated we aren’t out to hide anything or to take advantage of anyone. If you or anyone has further questions please let us know. You are also more than welcome to give us a call or come chat with us on our live chat.
Ok Forget the ethics lets agree to disagree on that point, Value for money : I take your point about the maths, Client risk $349 may be once twice for the gauntlet TM and get to trade 10 K real money with 5000 Draw down and with overnight allowed, Fair enough, thanks for clarifying that. so the break even would be approx, 10-12 Gauntlets With The Boot camp the break even changes though any way (by the way I am assuming that this 10k/5K is in the terms and conditions of the gauntlet itself so that anybody even risking that first $349 knows what he/ she is getting in to.) - CTA: You mention you run a CTA , could you please disclose it and its' performance - Other props which dont seems to ask for "Training fees" and dont seems to have the business of education selling! but I am sure you know more https://www.optiver.com/ap/en/job-opportunities https://www.flowtraders.com/careers https://www.tibra.com/careers/ https://propex.com.au/trainee-traders https://www.citadel.com/careers/ https://b2tradinggroup.com/jobs/
I’m glad we’ve made some progress on clarifying some points. To reiterate, the bootcamp includes education. You cannot apply the same logic to that situation. It’s the cost of learning just as if you were going to pay for a training course to get some sort of professional training in any other industry so that you could hopefully get a job doing what you learned. I looked at the firms you mentioned, I had only heard of Citadel. It seems the general consensus with all of them is they are mainly internationally based, heavy on equities/options/fixed-income, and require a lengthy intern/interview process along with a college degree. They all seem to require 6mo-5+ years successful trading experience and require you to work in their offices. If you have this, great! For those that don’t have this proven experience, background, or desire to work in an office environment then maybe the Earn2Trade offering is beneficial. Regarding my CTA, due to regulatory restrictions as what may be construed as advertising to generate clients, I direct you to check out our website where our performance and proper disclosures can be found, mastenlojko.com. If you have any questions regarding my CTA, I please ask that you direct those questions through our website or cta@mastenlojko.com so that proper regulatory communication procedures can be followed. One final note, no, the 10/15k is not mentioned in the T&C as it’s not a guarantee, it’s also not Earn2Trade making the offer to the trader. The only thing Earn2Trade can guarantee is that if the trader passes The Gauntlet™, Helios will make a customized offer to them based on their trading results. The minimum account size offered by Helios is 10k and the minimum drawdown is 20% (2k). This amount is the minimum offered and any trader can request increases whenever they would like a performance review. Please also remember that unlike many of our competitors and more in the “true prop firm” fashion, Helios traders are not 1099 contractors but actual part of the firm and receive K1 tax statements to receive the full tax savings benefit.
"I looked at the firms you mentioned, I had only heard of Citadel. It seems the general consensus with all of them is they are mainly internationally based, heavy on equities/options/fixed-income, So what? if they are in Equity and Options and they may or may not be in Futures ... what diff does it makes? .. perhaps truth is Equity Props are more regulated than Futures props just the same way SIPC protects Equity broker's clients but not FCM clients.. Futures industry seems to be slightly thinner on regulation.. but that is another matter... point is "Intent of business" like the example i gave about Ford or google they dont charge a "training fee" they genuinely hunt for talent at own expenses, there are millions of Engineers who would like to get in to these companies and if tomorrow apple/ GE/ google/ Tesla start charging $1000 for a test I am sure thousands will apply, but these companies don;t do that neither True Props, Claim of Noble aim of "We want to bring trading to the masses is a hogwash " (IMHO) but I guess there are enough suckers out there! For any firm claiming to be a "Prop" with technology and automation it would not be that difficult to have a true free test to hunt talent. IF (and it is a big IF) the intent is to truly hunt for talent! How about few other firms they dont seem to A) charge a fee" or B) have a side kick selling education or some monthly tests! https://www.janestreet.com/join-jane-street/ http://chicagotrading.com/careers Schneider Trading http://www.transmarketgroup.com/tmg-university/
Traderjo, We have an honest and transparent business that is beneficial to traders. We have worked very hard to change the way the industry operates by making the process adaptive to the differences each trader brings. I don’t see many trading related open positions (mainly accounting, legal, and technology) with the companies you mentioned but if someone has the degree/experience required for these and wants on-site interviews and an on-site job, then maybe that is the path they want to take, assuming they can even find an opening they are qualified for. For those that don’t have the requirements or desire for that sort of position, we offer a more flexible approach that has helped many. I really don’t have much more to add to this conversation as we seem to be going in circles You don’t agree with the business and that’s your right. We wish you the best!
Hi just questions about the 6 month track record, can't find it any where on the site ? Would there be any bias when compared with those you have done your program. Suggestion for others out there would be to join trading competitions, good for showcasing skills.
It’s not through Earn2Trade, it’s through Helios. You can find it on www.heliostp.com. Helios changed it recently to 12 months but I’m sure if you submitted 6mo of a nice record Helios would take a look. Good luck!!
Is the forex you offer Spot or Futures? I looked all over the website and tried a search via google, but couldn't find that info. I currently trade the 14 majors using spot.