So that is where the deposits go. TST has to make a sick amount of money from forfeited deposits, such a great business! Seriously, great job, can't lose. Unlike when trading on your own. Really would be great to know what Patak, the coaches, and scouts' trading records are. Are they deferring to the TST business model because they could not sustain their own trading careers? Would be nice to know that the CEO, coaches, and scouts are profitable traders and not just execs of a successful dream merchant. If anyone can succeed and stay funded without giving up their precious time and money returning from live back to combine like going in and out of jail, then more power to them. That would be the very rare scenario in which the trader AND TST win. But if you achieve sustained success and they are only taking 20% of your big money, why stick around? TST will be just fine without you anyway! Regardless of TST's personnel trading histories, it's a good structured environment for a lot of people and can be of help with keeping to rules and discipline. But I don't believe this should be considered a be-all, end-all destination at which to park your trading ambitions. For many reasons, all of which have been discussed on ET and elsewhere ad nauseum.
Is patek the ideal place to trade? Probably not. Is it the worst place to trade? I don't think so. Yes it would be great to see some numbers but lets face it most traders fail. I think they are not making any promises of riches or trading success. They state what you need to do to become successful with them. If their expectations are too much don't join them. The choice is up to the individual they explain what the deal is so take it or leave it but to constantly complain about their terms is silly. It seems to me they are not a bunch of liers as other firms make trading look easy these guys are not doing that. I actually believe they have been honest with everyone and I don't see what the big deal is if you can trade without them go ahead. As to why someone would stay when they could leave I don't know maybe they like the community and don't want to be alone. But again it's their choice. To claim no one has ever made money with them I think that claim needs proof too. So bashers need to prove their claims too. And no I don't trade for them I just think they are not even close to the sort of firms led by a man named Oliver
Amen, brother. They are not as bad as Hitl.... I mean Oliver. Now if your comparison standard is this low, of course everything is going to look as a good deal for you. What I don't understand is, since you only post 3 times a year, why do you waste your quarterly allowance post on a topic you admittedly don't know shit about? Nobody is bashing them here, what is happening we are discussing a would be employer here. If you think that due diligence is a bad thing, well, that says a lot about you.
I never said due diligence is a bad thing, putting words in my mouth says a lot about you and how many times I post is not relevant. My point is that Patek is not tricking anyone. DO you disagree?
It was implied in your post when you called people who rightfully criticize (due diligence) a company bashers. The case is very simple, TST comes here advertising their services, and we look into it. Sounds logical and natural to me. They didn't like the heat (that itself tells a lot about them) and they never came back. On other forums where the owner protects them from criticism they flourish and do AMAs. My point is that Patak is not tricking anyone. DO you disagree? Of course. Now you might disagree with the wording, so I will use misrepresentation instead of tricking. Here are a few things: 1. They say the Combine rules tests you and helps you going live. Really? In the Combine you are allowed to trade overnight and average down, but not when you are Live. So how does having completely different sets of rules helps or tests you correctly? Isn't that misrepresentation? 2. The funded account is HUGELY overstated. By at least 3-500%. Do the math on intraday margin requirements and see how big an account you need to trade 3 cars in any instrument. Hint: You need way less than 30K.... 3. They try to imply that more people getting funded (2-3 per week!) when the real average is 1-1.5 per week. Even if it is 2, rounding it up to 3 is a huge Hollywood type of accounting. Clear misrepresentation for the average Joe about the number of funded traders. 4. Now you might call this good business practice (in an Amazon way), but if you knew them 1-2 years ago, they were a talent search company for backing good traders. Now they slowly transfered themselves into a trading university type educational company. My guess is that they realized that it is very hard to find good talent, but there is plenty money in (a never ending) trading education. 5. It is not misrepresentation, but it is sure tricky. They keep changing the rules all the times. In a 6 months period they changed the Combine rules in a major way 3 times. Why is it bad? Well, it send the message that they don't really know what they are doing and you can count on long term stability. First the stats were all the rage, then since August they don't care about the stats anymore. 6. The Live prep were in the place I guess all the time but they only started to disclose it publicly since February. Bottomline is, the candidate wasn't given the full info what it took to get funded. They are getting better at full disclosure, probably due to valid criticism. I am sure I could find more, but for the weekend these should be enough for you to chew on...... P.S.: Oh why not, I will also throw this one in: 7. There is a good chance they might piggyback certain traders, the representative (Patak himself) never denied it, when asked about it.
My guess is that they realized that it is very hard to find good talent, but there is plenty money in (a never ending) trading education. I think you get to the core issue about trading. Also. ET can be credited for being a noBS place for trading/trader information - as plenty of posters will look to the "details" that make all the difference.
Pekelo is being a troll. It's as simple as that. He admitted to doing 3 combines or so and failing at them. I guess you could call him a disgruntled customer. Only he did it to himself. LOL. All the points he raised were false. See, I actually agree with him that online communities are a great medium to exercise our first amendment rights. We can call individuals and firms out anonymously and put factual information out there. However, the downside to this is inverse, people and firms can operate with impunity and put "false" information out there offsetting any benefit coming from the former. See most the people on ET are not "qualified" to give their opinion but they do so anyway. The guy actually believes it's easy to back traders and "cherry pick" the winning traders using small sample sets of random data. Outside of never taking a course in statistics, he is simply clueless about this business. But he does have a right to troll even if it does violate the member agreement of ET. To be fair and balanced, there have been valid criticisms of TST and many of them brought up by myself. Of course there were many criticisms of Jesus Christ as well. Anything can be criticized. The goal here is not merely to criticize but to add value. And Pekelo has not added any value here in quite some time.
People can criticize Patek all they want. But if someone signs up and does a combine and does not like it who is to Blame? If Patek made good on their agreement don't blame Patek if you don't like their deal don't sign up. My point is take responsibility for your choices.
I see you took my advice and took all weekend to read my answers and think it over. I also see that you didn't really have anything else to say to the contrary, because I presented you with facts, and those are stubborn things. But if someone passes the Combine than he is told later that the Live traders have different rules, who is to blame? .... My point is not to misrepresent/lie to your costumers. Now you already wasted like 3 of your rather rare and precious posts on this topic (and this type of remark was/is an obvious joke by the way) do you still want to discuss this matter or will you let it go? P.S.: You can say the same just about anybody, even Oliver's business. If you don't like it, don't sign up.
Whatever. There is no point in arguing. You are claiming they lied and if you are telling the truth then by all means go bash them. But for the most part, many posters have complained that they did not like the agreement IE stop loss amount or whatever. In their case I say don't sign up. The point about Oliver is he enticed people with .02 commissions and made his deal sound sweet. It is not that people did not like his agreement it is that they claimed he broke the agreement. Patek does not appear to be enticing people as he appears to be offering a deal that is not attainable for most. IE the combines appear to be difficult to pass and the 60% split is not awesome. Curious if you felt enticed by Patek's deal?