Review of One up trader

I joined not expecting to actually get funded they had a sale(trying to attract customers i guess the community is not very active) but to see if I could pass as I was going through a draw down at the time and decided to reduce size on my personal trading.

The Pros are the criteria to get funded is simple trade for a min of 15/30 days and reach the target, trade consistent(your largest trade must less than the sum of 3 of your trades(obviously you would pick the second, third, and fourth largest trades), not go under the trailing stop.

Now for the bad they use Ninja trader 8 which I wasn't used to and had several issues with it not syncing data between the DOM and chart, customer support is only through email which took about 22 minutes to respond to an issue that I had which was actually my mistake I was essentially trading in demo but closed the position in the live account but by the time I realized it with no response by the way the position was grossly negative so i decided to just leave it alone hence blowing the simulated account. Since this is a new service I constantly posted in the "community" to share my experiences with the system examples of my post was about the stalled data, customer service only in email being a huge issue when problems come up which anyone that trades live knows you cant wait 20+ minutes for a resolution when money is on the line, realities of a 15 day evaluation basically that's not enough time to prove someone can be profitable and the rules are to light and i see them making the rules more strict in the future since there seemed to be lots of people passing the combine, how the market reacts to orders and there will be alot traders that will bust out in a live account especially the /CL traders, asking if any of the funded traders could prove they were give a live account simple experiment place a limit order and what the size increase and decrease on the DOM this was done because one of the funded traders asked shouldn't the liquidity increase if we place a limit order 2 said that it doesn't and 2 said it did.

This is when I was kicked out the community for trolling. I actually had nothing against them just very skeptical overall the concept was good easy funding(if it was real). Like others have said about these type of programs you can do this yourself following the rules they laid out with a $2k live account. if it take you a year or so to learn since most of the people going into these are likely newer traders you funded your live trading simply trade on a sim until you have system to works for you and then maybe do the combine which may give you the psychology input you need because of the money at risk and potential the amount to gain.

 

I started an evaluation with OneUp [AKA MES Capital] at launch. I passed the evaluation and consequentially received a live, funded, account with them. I can confirm that the DOM doesn't update liquidity which suggests that their 'live account' is actually a simulator. I'm close to $6,000 profit in their 'live' account and will update here if I actually am able to withdraw & receive the money that I have earned.

There's only two ways that I see this going down:

1) This is consumer fraud eerily similar to Nonko's demo account shenanigans but using TopStep Trader's business model as some kind of Ponzi scheme; marketing a scouting business to receive funding, signing a contract in which you're an independent contractor trading a live account -- but in reality not trading a live account. This operation would basically be OneUp cashing in on all of the evaluation money without ever taking real risk or offering truly funded accounts. If OneUp ends up not paying the traders who actually do earn money, then this would be very dangerous for those involved in this operation as it would involve the FTC, SEC, authorities, and lots of court cases/jail-time.

2) Alternatively, their business model is to take in money from evaluations with the premise that most traders, including initial funded traders, end up failing almost immediately by hitting the draw down. As a result, they legitimately pay out the ~3% of successful funded traders from the profits taken in from the ~97%+ failed test-takers/initial funded accounts. In this way, successful funded traders still can earn legitimate money, but they're still only trading simulated accounts.

At any rate, I want to reiterate for emphasis that their live account isn't live. It's the same simulator as their evaluation. Time will tell whether or not successful funded traders can legitimately withdraw money or not.

 

After reviewing the contract that I signed, in fine print, it appears that OneUp has the authority to switch their 'live traders' managed accounts from 'live' to 'demo' environments at will without notifying the trader. In practicality, this is probably legal protection, and if you read in between the lines, probably means that OneUp primarily earns money from failed evaluations and that they either don't offer truly 'live' accounts or that truly 'live' accounts are reserved for people who are successful on their 'live' simulator.

Kind of like how TopStep has 'funded preparation', OneUp basically has a secondary "hidden" 'live demo'. I put that in quotation marks to emphasize that technically anyone can read the contract and discover the same information and that OneUp has done absolutely nothing legally wrong (yet). It's clear in the contract that even if you're a live trader with them that they don't have to give you a real funded account to trade.

At any rate, and how this affects most people, is that contained in the same clause is affirmation that the trader is paid compensation regardless of if they traded/performed on live or demo. So, basically, it doesn't matter that their 'live account' is demo; if you earn money within their parameters they (theoretically, remember I've not confirmed a withdrawal yet) will indeed payout. Perhaps after a few weeks or months of performance, once they trust you, then maybe you truly do go 'live' for real, but this is just my conjecture.

So, as of now, I think OneUp is following bullet point #2 in my above post; to summarize:

1) Their business model is to primarily make money off of failed evaluations and eventually find the holy grail of true talent. Nothing new here, TST does the exact same thing.
2) If you fail the evaluation, they make money. If you pass, you're essentially put on a probation period where you have to further prove yourself, but this has the caveat that you're still paid compensation as if it was real. If the trader fails at this step, no harm no foul, OneUp takes no risk, liability, or realized losses.
3) This is conjecture, but I'd imagine that eventually, after you have proven your statistical market advantage, that you truly do go live and they earn 20% commissions off of you. OneUp takes a realized loss at first [but is a far lower realized loss than having a larger quantity of live accounts implode] but has now found their 'holy grail' of trading talent -- the 3% -- and they move them to a real account and probably begin earning 20% commissions immediately based on the trader's historic performance record.

P.S. As an aside, this is probably a better business model to find real trading talent because it takes out of the equation all of the failed traders from the evaluations and all of the failed traders who essentially got lucky for a funded account only to immediately implode it. It's, in my opinion, a pretty effective approach to make money on the journey of finding the cream of the crop of traders.

 

This probably is the reason why they have a withdrawal Threshold.
So i assume they switch you to live once you hit the withdrawal threshold expecting most people will fail and start again.
This is a perfect explanation for the withdrawal threshold since it probably is demo.
Interesting to know.

 

I would hope that a company that wants to follow this model would be smart enough to have lawyers so they arent able to be sued. I would image that their model is to make money off failed traders as well the only reason i signed up was because of the sale they had and if by some miracle that this is real why not. I cant image that they will continue to pay people real money at the rate people were passing at the time I was a member unless they have a ton of money stashed somewhere at some point I expect this model to change closer to the TopStep rat race model basically you must be a super accurate trader in order to get funded and eben then your paying them fees.

Like I said I have nothing against the company the current model works for traders but I wouldn't expect that to continue. Not sure it any of you remember MES Capital(basically the same company) they did free evaluations probably as a way to get the statistics of failure first handle and model a payout that they lose little or no money at first then once customers are added they will be able to change the rules slowly over time to increase their profit margin.

If your funded I wouldn't hold any money with them as soon as you can take your money I would do it. Continue riding it until it stops. For people thinking about trying this I would have your system down in a free demo first and wouldn't do more than 2 trials I would do the one with the larger draw down unless your system can make the profit target in 15-30 days. make sure you cancel the subscription when your done.

My last email to them was asking for the rules that state I cant share my experience with the "community" and for them to remove my information from their servers and have yet to get a reply from those.

 

I missed your first reply wow $6K in profit and you havent been able to withdraw yet? I though the min was $500 or so hmm that doesnt sound good. I suspected that the person that keep replying to everyone on the board was a One Up Trader employee to try and make people think this was more legit. If you look at my screenshots he claimed he got paid if he is real this leans toward the ponzi scheme model but as you said would the company be that stupid??

 

Not sure which account he is trading but OneUp does have a withdrawal threshold, so he must first reach the withdrawal threshold and then another 1K since 1K is the minimum withdrawal.

My guess is they use the withdrawal threshold as some kind of FTP like Topsteptrader does and you go live after you hit the withdrawal threshold.
However if this is the case they should have been honest about it instead of hiding it in the contract.

 

I have the $150,000 account so my withdrawal threshold is $5,000 and since you can only withdraw in amounts of $1,000+, I won't be able to determine if this is 'real' until I hit that $6,000 threshold and request the payout.

As of now, though, these are the facts: I'm 100% certain that new funded traders initially begin on demo. I'm 100% certain that the contract authorizes OneUp to switch funded managed accounts between live and demo at their discretion. I'm 100% certain that OneUp's contract entitles compensation based on whether you traded truly live OR demo.

This is completely theoretical, but I'd imagine the model works something similar to this:

~80% of attempts fail the evaluation stage. OneUp basically profits 100% to their bottom line from evaluation fees + reset fees.
~15% of attempts that pass the evaluation stage end up imploding the funded account. OneUp doesn't make money or lose money on these traders because it's actually demo.
~5% of attempts pass the evaluation stage and end up being profitable in the live account. OneUp loses money on initial payouts. Once that trader begins withdrawing consistently, they're moved to the 'real' live account because they've essentially proven themselves and OneUp will earn this payout back from the 20% live commissions.

So, to break this down into numbers, say we have 100 attempts for simplicity:

~ 80 people pay around $362.5 and fail. [I calculated this number by taking their lowest fee, $125 a month, and highest fee, $650 a month, and divided it by 2 to figure out their 'average' fee. I then added $100 for one reset of account. Obviously this is going to fluctuate greatly from variables such as 1) how many months people are paying for because it's a monthly recurring subscription 2) how many resets they're activating 3) how many people are opting for the $125 account versus the $375 account (as an aside, in my opinion, given the parameters, the best chance at success is trading small size in the $375/$150000 account), etc.] Anyways, based on such simple calculations, that's at least $29,000 profit brought in.
~ 20 people are funded but 15 of those people end up blowing up their account.
~ 5 people are funded, actually reach the withdrawal threshold, and withdraw money while still in demo.

So, those 5 traders total would each have to earn the $5,000 withdrawal limit and another $5,800 on top of that for OneUp to break-even. However, I am more inclined to believe that OneUp will move you from demo to live if you start hitting profit targets as it implies that you actually are a proven trader with a statistical market advantage [you would basically have made over $10,000 trading in 1-3 months, similar in time and scope to TopStep's program of Combine + Funded Trader Preparation].

 

I also want to mention that in regards to your comments about how many people were funded and why this suggests that it's not sustainable, it's a bit skewed and incorrect because OneUp just launched and as a result had an enormous amount of evaluation participants, far beyond what is normal or average.

If TopStep, for example, has 100 people per month and fund say 10, it would only make sense that if OneUp had 500 people sign up at launch, then 50 passed (it's 10% either way), and it only 'appears' inflated. I visit the community website occasionally and can tell you that it's fairly inactive (yes, people post daily, but most of the people week-to-week are different people), suggesting that the vast majority of people don't stick around long/fail, and that OneUp's business model is thus far profitable. I also notice a very large difference in activity from launch to now; at launch, there were probably 100+ posting per day, now there's probably like 5. This suggests to me that of those 500+ people who signed up at launch, only a handful have been successful, in-line with my aforementioned statistics in prior posts.

Again, I can't make any real decision until I hit my profit target and determine if the withdrawals are real or not. As of now though, nothing that I've seen illegitmizes this company.

 

The philosophical/moral question of the day is:

Did OneUp also steal the hamster wheel nature of TST and they are only after the fees, or have they actually perfected the end process and they are a legit backing firm???