I had one person from this thread ask me this question. But, I couldn't reply to them directly. I suggest those of who you do not have enough money to trade the futures directly to give some consideration to trading NADEX spreads and binaries. These are CFTC regulated products which offer both high effective leverage and low up-front capital requirements. I suggest signing up through IGMarkets because the rates are better. www.nadex.com www.igmarkets.com Technically you could start with as little as a few hundred but realistically, you could probably get started with as little as 2k-3k. These products probably won't suite you if you scalp but if you scalp then you could trade the outright futures.
If it smells like doo doo usually it is. My friend that originally looked at them is trading for Title, for now, in Toronto. No fees or deposits of any kind. This contribution model and tryouts is a joke.
Oh lord.. this should make it abundantly clear that Patak is a joke. Even though several of the rules seem reasonable, this gives it away: "The recruit has hit or exceeded the loss limit -$500" I assume this is the daily loss limit. So, you are expected to hit home runs with no losses!!
Well... 2 weeks after agreeing to refund my $80 "deposit", I'm still waiting for my money. Apparently they aren't as strict with the refund rules as they are the trading rules. I'll give them a few more days, then it's a quick phone call to the Illinois atty. general's office.
I look at their offering as more of a simulator where you are paying for the chat room, realtime sim environment, and for someone to review your trading. I don't regret paying them $80 for that (I think the fee increased in the last couple of months to $120). If anything I think it probably helps aspiring traders see that trading is a real challenge. Has the experience saved a few blown accounts from new traders thinking they will be rock stars? If you did a combine every month for a year, it would cost $1,440 and I'm pretty sure you'd learn a bit about yourself and what might work in the markets.
The rules are absurd and are a recipe for failure. You could do the same exact thing on sim for free and at the end of 1 years have $1,440 saved to trade live.