No. What prop firms offer is *leverage*. That's not really an edge. A futures contract also represents leverage but that in itself is 0 edge. Access to capital on the other hand, while also encompassing leverage, goes way beyond the prop firm bs. What a prop firm offers, is really no edge at all. Well, it's bit better than the guy at home with his ameritrade acct & 5 yo pc but that's not really your competition. That's like someone giving shoes to a long distance runner and telling them they now have an edge over their competitors. Well, unless there was something really hi-tech about the shoes.
Look at the recent trend in swimming competitions and the ruckus over the hi-tech swimsuits. They've given the swimmers enough of an edge to set world records. So now, if your competitors wears one & you don't, he most likely has an edge over you.
Money management would be compared to the race car driver making sure there are guard-rails on the track, safety equip is all working, fire extinguisher, helmet is on, ambulance is nearby. It's a *component* of the process but it won't really produce the winning result. Your competition has the exact same thing.
Your "edge" is the expectancy of your trading method. Your "odds" is the average winner of your trading method. The ratio of the two is your optimal betting strategy. This is well-know stuff. This guy explains it all, top to bottom: http://www.tradingpatterns.com/Kelly.pdf "The expected gain E(g) represents the âedgeâ, which is how much the trading system is expected to win on average, and the average winning trade is the âoddsâ, which is the average amount won each time the trading system is profitable. Therefore, the optimal bet size according to the Kelly formula is equal to edge divided by odds. This is the ratio that is known to maximize geometric equity growth of a profitable trading system or betting strategy." I recommend you stop arguing about things winners understand very well and work to get your edge and odds in place.
imo, perhaps Expectancy (good or bad, positive or negative) is the end result of two major factors: Probability and Consistency. (Rather than the probability alone.) Edge is the main cause for these two critical effects: Probability and Consistency. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causality " Causality is the process of making something happen. Often it denotes a necessary relationship between one event (called cause) and another event (called effect) which is the direct consequence of the first.[1] "