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These programs just aren't as bad as you guys act like. If you trade within the rules, they do pay you out. Also, not every account is live sim, particularly with E2T they have live account options and move you to live quicker. Every company that is selling you something, is going to stack the deck in their favor one way or the other or else they would be called a charity. Who cares if they make money off of people failing the test, most people fail at trading anyways. If you actually have a real edge in intra-day trading there's not really an issue trading your own account or these type of accounts. Most people just can't pass the test and get a withdrawal, so it makes them salty.
Those programs are designed to be failed by most everyone and only capitalize on the fees paid. The entire math from a user's perspective fails from the get go. If you don't realize this then you are the product. Their interest is directly opposed to a user's interest. They have zero interest in a user succeeding because it would mean lots of admin work and risk management, all expenses when they can collect user fees so easily. Just plant a bug in stupid peoples' heads and off it is to the races to collect fees...
Ok? I don't really disagree with anything you're saying. I established essentially the same thing you did. Well aware that most people fail and these companies make lions share of their money off of failed evaluations. Broker's also advertise for people and most retail traders end of losing too, yet I don't see people making too many threads to avoid brokers. Am fully aware of the pro's and con's. The issue is people over state the negatives. These companies do pay out if you can trade, just like some retail traders make consistent money. What is the issue if I am fully aware of all the negatives you speak of? Regardless if with these companies, broker, a prop firm or whatever it all comes down to one thing. Can you trade consistently or not? Everything else is just an excuse people use as to why they can't do it or how they are mad that someone else can. Do not care if other people are failing. With my current strategy I can trade within the company rules and I have been paid out by them.
The issue is not with the few who can trade and make money. The issue is that naive and stupid people don't understand how they are taken advantage of. There is not enough regulations to keep those charlatans from selling nothing but unfounded hope to dreamers. They charge a not of money in exchange for almost nothing. Even if you can trade and pass all those rounds then how much funding do you get? In most cases meaningless amounts that offer really no progression in life. The problem I see is that the companies charge fees from users for training and that is almost the only revenue those companies generate. Their interest is directly opposed to the interest of their customers. The more often the customer fails the more he got to pay in fees to continue. The disclosures are most of the time at best obscure and opaque. The companies know exactly that they are all skirting the law and abuse a regulatory loophole.
You have many misunderstandings on this issue. If you want to trade prop firms you need to learn to pick up good value. First you need to understand drawdown is the funds you get from prop firms , not the nominal account value that prop firms claim.Compare the fee you pay and drawdown, you have a sense if it is a good value for you. Then you compare profit target with drawdown, you will find the profit target is not 10% prop firms claim , but it is actually 150% or 200% .The formular is : profit target / drawdown = real profit target. Now you said if you can make consistent profit, you will have no problem trading prop firms account. I say you will have big problem here. If you have a real profit target of 117%, and you are charged $150 monthly fee, for a 1500 drawdown challenge, and assume you can make 10% monthly return consistently, then you will need 12 months to reach your profit target, therefore you pay $1800 for $1500 fund from prop firm. Not only this, you split profit with prop firm for the profit from this $1500. It is much worse than trading your own $1800 .
You also have misunderstanding for prop firms. You said prop firms have conflict interest with traders. It is not true. There are prop firms that set tough rules for traders. But there are also plenty prop firms that have easier rules and they encourage good traders to pass their challenges. They set rules to filter out gamblers and losers.But once you pass challenge, their rules become much rewarding. For example, Myforexfunds, who has become the industry leader, sets rule that once you pass challenge, they refund your fee with extra bonus totalling 140% of your fee. If you fail to reach profit target in 30 days but your account is positive, they allow you extra 4 weeks to continue the current challenge. And if you still can' t reach profit target, but still keep your account in plus, they will give you a free new challenge. As long as you can keep your account in plus at the end of challenge ,you will have unlimited free reentries.They now launch a VIP program that if you have live account with them for more than 3 months and are consistently profitable, you will have higher profit split and will be able to withdraw profit anytime you have profit and want to withdraw. Now you can see, all these rules are set to encourage real winning traders. Why they do this? Because they can follow real winning traders and make much more money on them. So prop firms have conflict interest with losing traders but have same interest with winning traders.
I don't really disagree with anything you're saying, but again if you have a real intra-day edge it is do able. For example I trade a $2,500.00 account essentially with them. That is a relatively small amount for futures, however if you approach it from a business stand point it is not that bad. That is equivalent of 500 points (minus commissions) of risk in the MES. If your strategy or plan cannot generate a net profit with having that many points of risk, it is highly unlikely you have a real edge in the markets and therefore should not be putting real capital at risk. It's a cheap way to test a strategy if you don't want to put real money on the line, but also want some skin in the game plus the ability to earn money off of it. For $20-$120 dollars (depending on the company and discounts) you can do this, as oppose to funding an account with thousands of dollars or more. What is the basket of edges that a lot of traders pull from: (1) Account size (2) Averaging down (3) Time (4) Position sizing Just off the top of my head. These are not inherently what I would call a true intra-day edge. In other words if you put these people on a smaller account and they have to actually use reasonable risk, a lot of them will unlikely advance the account and fail. Nothing wrong if you can do this is a consistent way, but just because others have to pull from those basket of edges to be net profitable, doesn't mean everyone has to.