How bout choice C Get 200 people a month to pay $80 for a chance. 99 % will not be able to qualify with the rules imposed. Back the 1% that do with profits from those that failed the combine. If the 1% lose money trading live, it cost the backer nothing. If they are profitable live the backer gets 40% plus charges them steep commission. Rinse and repeat
Most people are very accurate here in describing the practices of patak. I am sharing my experience because I think it would be beneficial to people thinking about doing this. Don't get me wrong it is a good learning experience but odds are you won't succeed, even if you go live. The rules are changing every other week to make things more unrealistic and more unreasonable. I been doing combines since November and deciding to finally give up because the rules keep getting more and more ridiculous. When I started the initial was $10k with the goal being $6,000.. I made the $6,000 in 3 weeks and before the 4th week they changed it to $8,000. Ok, fine, I got to do another combine for free, no sweat I'll go again. By 2nd combine, now there are additional rules like you can't trade a market with<50k average volume. So say good bye to trading mini's and more importantly say GOOD-BYE to reducing position size and MY strategy. (by the way, the same week i was up $15k trading e-minis was the week they imposed the 50k volume rule.. i even asked a scout if i was allowed to trade e-mini litterely 3 days before and the answer was yes). On top of this, they changed the live trader set-up from $1,000 loss limit to $500 loss limit. AWESOME. The 4-week combine where I got used to $1k loss limit would completely be shattered if I went live. Confusion clusterfuck to the maximum and a great way to screw-up your flow. $10,000 with $1,000 loss limit is 10%.. I thought this would be a fixed parameter.. ie $5,000 loss limit on $50,000.. but nope.. why the fuck would they do that? So I didn't qualify for live because i was trading illiquid markets. And was told to "use stops" 3rd combine I was trying to trade it with $500 loss limit in mind and using stops. Guess what happened? Everytime I made a trade, POP to stop-loss, then 100% reversal to target. I got stopped out faster by following their advice. Impose already impossible rules such that I cannot trade my strategy normally, along with conflicting combine and live parameters so I am just confused as fuck trying to match the parameters AND then tell me I need to use stops to "better manage my risk"-- every single trade I made hit the stop-loss or daily loss limit before showing any profitable tick, just great. I wish I saved the screen shots of all charts/trades to show you guys this RIDICULOUSNESS. The market would literely go flat right after I made a trade and RUSH to stop-loss and after taking me out for the day.. 100% reversal.. VIOLENT reversal. EVERY TRADE. (not some slow wiggle back) By the time 3rd combine was over the accelerated "invites" started pouring in my mailbox. So I tried it thinking $2k was do-able. So I signed up...guess what happens midweek?- the limit now becomes 2.5k. I cannot help but LOL because the rules are getting more impossible the closer you get to the goal. 2nd accelerated.. guess what? NOT ONE PROFITABLE TRADE. Make a trade with a stop, stop gets hit. Make a trade without a stop.. market goes flat for MINUTES and then POPS up 40 handles. Shit.. if I didn't know better it seems like someone is using my trade data to volume-fuck the price ladder against me. To use stops and meet daily goal while keeping volume below 100 contracts is nearly impossible because you cant reduce size. Make a trade and 400 lots show up on the opposite side trying to get filled, everytime, to the 'T'....-o-p-s-t-e-p. During this time I also saw LIVE traders get smacked hard. 1 week after going live, back to the combine, then live again, then back to combine. At this point, I am giving up.. the rules are impossible. The goal is to get you to go live, get fucked because nothing makes sense from combine, and do the combine again. OVER and OVER and OVER. And when a majority are getting close to the goal but don't quite make it and sign up for another combine.. the rules change. ALWAYS. I am going to get a fucking JOB and save enough $$$ to go trade on my own. I would recommend the same for anyone who is cash-tight but has a decent strategy. The only thing your going to learn from TsT is how to get fucked. They are making more money than $80-$120 per sign-up.. especially if they use the information for their own trading. They will say it's herd mentality that's stopping you out, but it's really them. herd mentality doesn't put 400-500 lots on the other side of your trade. when you reverse ur trade the 400-500 lot reverses to the other side. Don't believe me? Sign up for a combine and see for yourself. You are guaranteed to get NAILED. (not the good kind ie. not by the girl on the main page, sorry) If you want to dull the shit out of your strategy and falsely lose faith in a successful strategy, sign up for a combine. Stay far away from this firm until their rules and parameters are consistent and make sense. Telling traders to trade under their parameters is telling traders how to trade. Only traders KNOW how to trade. If anyone from patak is reading this, I am sorry but I won't follow your losing strategy. Learn to keep your parameters consistent. You say you weed out the luck traders from the consistent ones, but it seems the only ones that GO LIVE are the trigger happy gamblers. GL and I hope there is a pending CFTC/NFA investigation.
Well I signed up - after one week I could see the writing on the wall. The T3 platform sucks - no market orders, no complex order types. Yesterday, I lost $750 on their platform while making $850 on my own account - because the fills are horrible and you can't work the orders. The "AutoOCO" is a joke - sometimes it places the orders and sometimes it doesn't. In order to get filled in a fast market you have to drag the order up or down the ladder until you get a fill because you can't place a market order - how ridiculous is that?? Also the "support" is terrible. They have two girls who are not traders and know nothing about the platform who only give you a link to the User Manual. Sorry I wasted my money but it's a good learning experience. It's definitely a scam to accumulate enough "traders" to spend $120 a month. Yesterday they had 75 people in the room, most of them Combine traders - that's a nice piece of cash at end of the month. Good business model for them; lousy experience for anyone who's serious about trading. Anyway, back to my own account.
I did the free training week with Patak before deciding to give them any of my money. I wanted to see what they were about and it seemed legit so I took a chance and signed up for a combine. I figured worst case scenario I'd be out 120 bucks....now i'm currently in my 2nd combine and while I haven't made the profit objective yet to go live, I'm getting better every week. It's definitely a good learning experience but the parameters they set to go live are pretty tough. When they changed the profit objective I asked why and they said it was because the wanted to be sure they were getting the "best quality traders" or something like that, but i get why they're doing it. They want to make sure they're not going to give their money to someone who's just gonna turn around and lose it. I think they're on the right track. They are offering something I haven't seen anywhere else--at least not as good. I plan on sticking with it for a few more tries to see how I do. Fingers crossed!
I don't trust prop firms after this experience. I think it's statistically impossible that every single trade that was made hit the daily loss limit before becoming profitable. 90% to the PIP. and 10% wiggled 10-15 pips more against before violent reversal. BUT ALWAYS A REVERSAL, EITHER SAME DAY OR NEXT DAY. (but before the overnight rollover). I went short 6E at 1.3880 a few days ago, got stopped out EXACTLY at the high, and now its ~$1.38. I think I am gonna go crazy.
I did one of the accelerated combines. I stuck to the rules & met every objective. One of the rules for the accelerated combine is the 2 lot max position size(if your P/L is under +$500 for the day). There was one incident where I got filled on an extra 1 lot (short 3), & that eliminated my shot for the week. Consistently profitable every day, profit objective for the week met, consistent volume traded every day, & stop orders used on every position -- didn't matter. All other guidelines & rules were strictly followed, but this one incident screwed me. Naturally, they gave me the option to roll my "deposit" into another accel. combine, or to have my money refunded. Based on my personal experience, & from what I've read about them on here, I chose to have my money refunded. Nonetheless, it is their business, & they make the rules. If you are in the main chat room, there are about 70 people, all of which are paying for either combines or tryouts. The last day I was in the room, not one single person in the chatroom was trading a live account. My conclusion is I will not ever use them again, and I definitely will not recommend them to anyone. They clearly put more weight on combine/tryout fees & less on actual trading profits.
I don't understand this accel / combine... what the hell is it? You put a deposit up and are not allowed to trade with real $$$??... what a joke. I can tell you one thing for sure though... this is NOT PROP TRADING and gives the whole industry a bad name. Do yourself a favor and find yourself somewhere else to trade... don't give b***s*** like this a moments consideration