fair enough. the pic being posted showed a max drawdown on a 150k acct at 4.5k. the commissions are way too high for a prop deal though.
I posted in the P/L threads daily for a couple years; it doesn't change beliefs because beliefs are based on personal experience and bias. When someone has a strong belief s/he will discard conflicting evidence, modify it internally, or search for any shred of data that supports the belief . As you correctly stated, I never made a claim to have an ATM machine trading system. The "ATM" conversation that Surf is referring to unfolded thusly: Since I'm not a long-term trend follower, I have no experience trading the Turtles method (though it produced tremendous profits for the participants despite a black swan event). I do however have ample experience trading breakouts and using 20-period EMA's in multiple time frames and can assure everyone here that under certain pre-defined price action conditions they are as close to an ATM machine as it gets in trading: the failure rate is less than 25% under these specific conditions. You have to put in the hours and do the work. No book, seminar, mentor, service, or packaged system can do the work for you. I spent 60-70 hours every week for years working on my trading. I still spend over 40 hours a week trading, studying, and mentoring, and continue to learn something new almost daily. I continue to believe that TST offers an excellent opportunity for those who have done the work, but lack sufficient funding to make a living trading. If you want to start any business you have to borrow money, solicit investors, or bootstrap yourself from the ground up. The TST program is brilliant for TST, and brilliant for aspiring traders who have built a strong foundation and need funding to make a living at this incredibly challenging business.
What's interesting about Maverick's combine results is he has thus far met all three performance metrics and has a winning % of days greater than 50%. (According to TST rules, you need to meet two of the three performance metrics). In other words, even if he does not meet the P&L objective, he would get a free retake or refund of the combine as long as the other performance metrics stay intact for the remaining 2 days. I know it was free, but had a trader paid the $175 combine fee and got a retake, he just reduced his avg cost over 2 combines, or got his refund and quit.
I see your point and you're right, it becomes more risky for the backer if the trader pulls their profits to remove the cushion. From the "Drill A Scout" session, someone asked this very same question, regarding the maintenance of the profit cushion. From what I recall, it was stated that the cushion is only required during the "Live Combine" and then once it's built, you can start taking checks (even the amount of the initial cushion). I think the "$30k in cumulative profits" infers that a trader has taken distributions after meeting the cushion, not that 30k would be the "new cushion." Maverick described how Chicago prop firms keep a portion of the P&L as "retained P&L" however PTP doesn't have that requirement after the initial cushion. Also, Patak stated on another thread that once a trader requests a distribution, the backer takes their cut. So if someone was up 30k in cumulative profits and took distributions along the way, then they could in theory get their account back to the "zero balance" level, which puts greater risk on the backer, since there is no longer a cushion.
Agreed. Anybody who has traded futures for more than a year is intimately familiar with 60/40 tax treatment. I'm supposed to believe that a guy with 20 years of experience can't comprehend the difference between 60/40 on personal futures profits vs. the tax bite of SE taxes on a profit split. WTF?
1) I believe that report, on page-118, is just for what he's done in the euro-currency futures. 2) He has to do "2 out of 3" for EACH futures market he has traded, i.e. all five listed on the report. :eek: 3) He has to be net-profitable for each of those five markets too in order to get the refund. His account balance is below $50,000. Therefore, he has a loss in atleast one of them. 4) That's my "interpretation" of those rules. I still hope he does the "blaze of glory" to the upside........or downside.
Maverick and Surf, I want to know, what emotions/feelings do you go through when people comment about your overall p&l ? Did the comments generated any negative feelings and if so , what type? thx
You make a good point but the exchange fees are where the real cheesecake is. I probably shouldn't write this but most people here do not know what competitors are paying in exchange fees on the ES. It's a stinking 19c per RT, not per side per round turn! I just wrote a tonne more and deleted it as there was no upside lol. commissions are 10c a RT at a true prop. Always stack the odds in your favour. Here is something for you to chomp down on. You can only win what others are prepared to lose.