Yeah I saw that they have 48 now. Take a snap shot of that page and check back in 3 months and see how many of just those people are still there.
Ok, I believe that, especially looking at how inexperienced some of these folks are. That would explain why they are willing to fund so many people since most will get booted after inevitably hitting their stop-loss. I'm too sleepy now, but maybe we should write a list here of all the traders, then check back later in time and see how many have turned over. An empirical study. Or I guess we could ask Patak...
I know people who were funded but got booted. It's a pretty tight leash they give. The "$50k" and "$100k" accounts are really just for marketing. No one is getting near that leeway. Nor should they based on a few weeks to a month of trading. They aren't technically lying as they have "funded" those traders. Just most of those traders can't keep up or they figured out what they needed and just moved on to their own accounts with similar risk parameters. The 48 "Live Traders" are people who have gone Live. Not how many are STILL trading with them. As Maverick mentioned before STAYING LIVE - is harder than it sounds. I too would be surprised if they have more than 10 Live traders consistently taking profits. It's a revolving door I imagine - a true "Combine" to keep practicing. There is added value for sure for newbies and people wanting to try out different strategies without risking their own capital. They are operating a business and some of the risk deposits are helping to facilitate those costs which seem fair. The value of what they provide is different for each trader. People should be given the facts and they should choose on their own.
Regarding the 48 live traders, that IS actually the number of traders currently live. If you go to the site and go to their profile, they have an "L" badge which designates being live. The "C" badge means they are currently in the combine. When they get booted from the live account their badge changes back to "C". When I said I thought there were no more then 10 live traders, I meant traders who are still live after 6 months. Like many posters here, I get notifications when a new trader goes live. I have them on my facebook page. I get about 3 to 4 notifications a week. That's the furious pace in which they are backing guys. If you go to youtube you can see all the interviews they do with the live traders. If they live in the Chicago area, they interview on the floor of the CME. If they don't, they do an audio interview. I think they have backed 10 new traders in the last 2 weeks alone. So the 65 number is where they stand now. The point I was making to the OP is to take a snapshot of those current names and check back in 3 months. My guess is they will have probably 75 or more live traders but maybe only 10 or 15 names from the list 3 months back. The good thing about guys that get kicked out is they no longer have to pay for the combines. Meaning you can work on your trading at no cost and once you qualify go back to a live account. I think that's more then fair. And I'm sure many guys just fund their own account. Important to note, once you go live, there are no more rules you have to follow or metrics you have to hit. The only thing they keep in is the maximum daily draw down limit which increases as you build equity.
I think everyone is getting too hung up on the issue of the account size (i.e. $50K, $100K, etc). Think of it more in terms of buying power. With the $50K account you can trade up to 5 lots, so that's your buying power. In reality you'd need a good profit cushion to do 5 lots since the most you're allowed to lose in a day with that account size is $1K.