There's now no such thing as "FTP" any more, at TST. (And the 10-day rule was abolished long ago.) It's all been restructured and renamed: it's now Combine parts 1 and 2; the first stage of the Combine is now only a 5-day minimum, and some of the profit targets have also been reduced. Like all the changes TST has made over the last two or three years, it can only increase the proportion of people qualifying.
And that is not a good thing. I am still waiting for the 1 day minimum... But seriously, if you are a real backer, you want to see more time and trades, not less.
Agreed. I would, anyway. Especially more trades. I suspect they barely look at the first stage of the Combines, and what used to be called the "FTP" is what they use, for that. I think that still has a 10-day minimum. They've reduced the profit target for the "50k Combine" from $3,000 to $2,500, which makes it pro rata to the others.
I will still go with one up trader. I wonder if price went for 50 pips with target being 60 pips and profit taken say at 30-40 pips will account still show 20-30 pips draw down? Looks like 10 days rule is not always and is it only for the first 10 days or every 10 days...
Emmett is not pulling punches at all: https://www.tradingschools.org/topstep-trader-vs-oneup-trader/ ".. Top Step Trader is a “fake” proprietary trading company where futures trading newbies pay hundreds of dollars each month to trade on a simulator. The Top Step Trader funded accounts program is the ultimate gimmick. Where the newbie and the naive with no trading account, is encouraged to use a credit card to purchase access to a trading simulator. They get caught up in a ridiculous cycle of (usually) perpetual failure. Encouraged to keep spending hundreds of dollars each month at the elusive chance at winning the prize." View attachment upload_2018-2-28_8-17-25.gif Can you win a funded trading account? But he has some positive things too: "The business model is here to stay. It’s not going anywhere. As distasteful and crappy the deal for the consumer, it still has the potential to have incredible benefits to the retail trader."
True ... but let's not forget that he's also both an idiot and a convicted felon, himself. And of course for the most part he conveniently overlooks the many hundreds of people successfully funded by TST, because that suits his purpose. The two people I know, myself, who got started through TST are both real success stories. Both were exactly in TST's target market, in that they had trading skills but not enough capital realisitcally to trade futures on their own accounts. Both sailed through the Combine and FTP at their first attempts (and that was when it was harder to pass than it is now). One is now successfully trading OPM and the other making a good living trading her own account, after some months' decent withdrawals from TST. I strongly suspect that because of the absence of any meaningful entry-barriers to TST, hundreds of people without adequate trading skills also take Combines, screw up and fail, some of them repeatedly. Their continual fees are doubtless contributing to TST's wage-bill, office overheads, and so on, and I suppose the whole thing couldn't really exist viably without them. What sometimes amuses me is when you see people pointing out that the fees of all the unsuccessful applicants are keeping TST going, because they tend to point it out as if it were some great "shock" or "criticism", perhaps not quite realising that that's both obvious and necessary for the thing to exist at all! Doubtless they have more failures than successes, just like everyone and everything else related to trading. It is what it is.
Maybe so, but neither has anything to do with his criticism, what is actually fact based. It is called shooting the messenger in logical fallacy circles...
That is also kind of irrelevant. What is it good for you if you are out after 3 weeks never receiving a check from them? What would be the relevant is, how many % of all combiners actually can make a living or at least a supplementary income from being backed by TST. Now the longer the time frame we apply the smaller this number gets. How many stuck with them for longer than a year? Probably less than a few dozens...
I congratulate them, but from TST's POV neither one is a long term success story because they are not making money FOR TST anymore. But as we both know, that is not how their business model operates...
"Probably"? Do you have any fact, on this subject, or are you just guessing (as ever)? I think you've misunderstood how their funding deal works, myself. First, they only offer a one-year deal anyway; and secondly, why would anyone, ever, stay with them for more than a year, giving up 20% of their profits? As ever, you're finding fault with TST on the basis of misunderstandings.