Daily loss limit before being halted until the next session is different from what I'm talking about, which is real-time draw down based on unrealized gains. In the accounts I traded the draw on the account was $5,000. Example: Hypothetically say you traded CL in which each contract will fluctuate your PnL by $10 for every penny or tick WTI moves. Say you trade 3-5 contracts at a time, effectively only using 20%-33% of your total buying power at any one time. Say the market moves up and down 50 ticks in a few minutes, something the Oil market will do inevitability and occurs far more commonly than you'd think. You earn 50 ticks, or $1500-$2500, but don't close the trade, either because you didn't have limit orders previously in the system to close, didn't have time to close as a market order, or were greedy and trying to let your winner run. Then Oil returns to your break-even point and you stop out. You'd think, since you didn't lose anything, as in your ROI is 0%, you'd be completely neutral, right? Wrong -- your $5,000 draw down just became $3500-$2500. It gets worse the more you make unrealized before a reversal, or if you lose money after: Example: 3 contracts, you earn 60 ticks but then return to break even. Your next trade loses 60 ticks. Effectively you've lost $1800, but the draw is now down $3.6k. During your next trade, you now only have $1.4k to work with, so you can't afford another 40 tick unrealized loss on 3 contracts (due to being forced auto liquidated) and either need a stricter trade setup or have to reduce size, effectively meaning you now need to work harder to just get back to break-even, screwing up your consistency. Say you used 5 contracts -- you actually lost $3000, but it is treated as losing $6k, AKA you failed the evaluation in excess of $1k. The only way to be successful with such parameters is to trade an extremely small position size relative to your total buying power -- say 1 or 2 contracts on a 15 lot account -- to basically always stop out, in practice meaning you never let your winners run and you always cap your gains by small trailing stop, or lastly to basically always make money and always close trades at their peaks -- as in you're selling and shorting every top and covering/buying at every bottom -- virtually impossible to do consistently over time. It doesn't take much calculation to realize that neither one of those first 2 strategies makes a lot of money materially, or to realize option 3 is not feasible. Even if you do earn a lot of money, withdrawals count as losses, so to trade 'real size', you'd need to first create an enormous buffer -- but doing so means you're leaving all of your gains in the company's account & means you're risking *your* profits, not the company's capital -- as in OneUp/MES is taking ZERO risk to collect 20% of your profits. Considering your gains are further taxed as an independent contractor (not utilizing the tax advantages of futures trading), you're earning even less after everything is said and done. In summary, it's not sustainable unless, like I said previously, you handcuff yourself. And even then, you're making so much less money compared to your potential, it's pathetic. At that point, you might as well just save the few thousand dollars for a discount broker & trade 1 CL on your own -- making the entire 100% + being taxed favorably.
Also, to put all of this into perspective (going back to my "potential" comment above), the 'real' fund I am employed at now works as follows: They want you to make basically 15%-20% a YEAR. If you can do that, you're as valuable as Warren Buffet basically. Investors run to you if you have an established track record. If you're net profitable or passing TsT/OneUp evaluations with any kind of consistency at all, then you're already hitting these targets hands over fists. With my track record, I was able to get a trial, pass the trial, and become employed. My compensation is as follows: I earn $83k salary base per year (with additional medical, dental, vision) + 20% of the profits I generate on the $2M account as carried interest (taxed at 23.8% versus the 39.6% that ordinary income would normally be taxed at), only payable if I earn over 7% annually. Example: say I hit my annual target of 15% on the $2M fund. That's me making $300k/year or $25k/month. In CL futures trading, that's me trading the promised lot size of OneUp/TsT AKA 15, and earning ~$1.7/bbl a month -- which ultimately amounts to me being net profitable by about 7-8 pennies a day. I then earn 20% of that, $60k (taxed at ~24%), to be added to my base. Before taxes I earn $83k guaranteed even if I don't perform, and $143k if I perform to the most basic level. I'm only 32 years old, making almost double than all of my friends/family members, making on-par with people 20-30 years older than me working C-suite jobs. That's right folks, if you can prove with any kind of consistency at all that you on average earn 7-8 ticks/day in Oil, you too can receive the above compensation package if you market your track record to the right funds. Puts trading with OneUp/TsT in perspective, doesn't it?
Hamster Wheel? What exactly is the definition? Around and around we go continuously? The truth is I put so much effort and energy into these companies in which I was funded once with OneUpTrader and funded several times with TST. Never once did I withdrew any money which I am to be blamed. One of the main features of this Hamster Wheel is the fact that after making the initial maximum profit which is required, I got bored and invent other things. Now after depositing $1500 in Amp Futures two days ago, and withdrew $500 dollars already with a balance of $1691 remaining, I would say it's a priceless wonderful feeling. I do not want money 10 days later, 15 days later or even a month later, I want it now !!!
I dont like bashing these companies they service a purpose(entertainment/lotto ticket) but the way they market themselves is as if they are solely there for the trader when that cant be the case. The rules are ridiculous you essentially have to make about 300% profit on risk capital to be funded over a 15 day trail period (as James Edwards on youtube pointed out the trading coaches couldn't even pass they had to stop doing the combines). For normal people this will lead to gambling which is more closely to what the real business model is. Dont get me wrong the rules of limiting your loss is good but thats generic most trading books/people will tell you to limit your loses. Like you stated at a real desk they are happy with 15-20% returns looked at an established track record(part of the reason i might give earn2trade another shot although it will be past summer and i can start trading my real account again). Combines are a decent gambling opportunity if you can pass it in a month or 2 i think anyone that trades should at least attempt it because they give out money but no one should spend more than 1-2 months. a normal person will not trade this the same way they trade their real account because of the target rules you have to meet or at least for me that is the case. Even if you can pass just the step 1/Oneup that is a 150% return on for example $2k risk captial(really its $1k risk capital because thats your max lose for a week so the average person is turning $1k into $3k) if you can save up for a $1,500-2000 real account and practice in a free demo you will be much better off even if you loss it all losing a real $1.5-2k will be more beneficial than losing a $160 combine that you can just hit a $99 reset button. if your doing combines trust me you can save up this amount just use the combine money you would spent simulate the rules on a demo and pay the fees to yourself
Could not agree more , however the dilemma is ( and it is this "dilemma" on which these business thrive are built upon but keeping aside the ethics of this what about a solution) A) If you dont have a degree and cant be hired by real top level prop firms or fund mangers via campus interview etc what alternative is there? B) Doing a sim and "market your results" DO such top firms look at sim results? In your case how did you get the foot in the door with the " 'real' fund" When you say I took my results of last few years Just posted in other thread about a better Business model
I guess there are three ways, chiefly, if you want to operate investments as a career: 1) Use your own money to build a fund, or network and use money from your friends and family members. This is of course not ideal (too much stress from my personal experience in managing close relations' money) but if you've actually proven yourself many family fund structures are built upon this foundation. 2) Use nepotism/social networking to join an established company. Fully utilize all networking by cold calling companies, joining LinkedIn, speaking with head hunters, etc. Don't be afraid to get absolutely any contact with anyone of relevance, and if able, try to speak on the phone instead of email, etc. I would recommend private equity over public -- look for smaller companies instead of larger ones; IE don't try to apply to Goldman Sachs -- find offices with <$50M. Even if you're only starting out trading $100k for them that's a start. You'll get more access to pools of capital as you perform. Again, all of this goes back to the fact that this industry is not a 'get rich quick' scheme. It's very slow and methodical. 3) Join a company as an analyst and work your way up the ladder to portfolio manager. This is basically joining a large public institution like JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, etc. This is leagues more difficult than 2), so this would be my last resort personally. It's because too much labor supply is looking for 'brand name' jobs when you can access the equivalent amount of private equity through 'no-name' companies. At the end of the day, managing $1M for Goldman is basically the same as managing $1M for [insert company-with-no-public-prestige]. Many people earn X for no-name then transition to Goldman once they have results -- A LOT easier. As to your above, you're right in A) that if you don't possess a relevant degree, don't have the opportunity for on-campus interviews, etc., that it is more difficult. But that does not mean that it is impossible. It just takes huge amounts of effort, ambition, and aggressiveness, and you need to be able to handle rejection >95%. Most would lose faith far before this, which again, is why only ~3% of people succeed in this industry. Very few people possess such persistence in the face of such immense obstacles. In other words, you're really looking for that perfect match between you and the office's 'corporate culture'. Last resort, but also possible, is go back as an adult and obtain a degree from university. College right now is basically just a business willing to accept any sob story if you have the money (or credit to support a student loan), and if you make it abundantly clear that you're advancing/improving yourself, you'll be accepted to pretty much any top tier state school. It's so much easier to apply and be accepted to top-tier bachelor programs as an adult than straight out of high school. As for your B), I didn't have SIM results. I had nearly 5 years of trading account statements that documented my >40% annualized ROIs on futures. Before that I traded equities, and had a lot of hit and misses in my youth. It's all percentage based, btw. I started with about $35,000 that I had saved from working jobs in my early teens and 20s. By my late 20s, my account size was large enough that I was earning >$250k a year on investments which on a % basis was still on average >40%. I just lived extremely frugally, lived in a low cost of living state, saved every penny basically, and didn't blow money like my friends on alcohol/concerts/vacations. My portfolio personally has its roots in my (savings + loans, loans I received from family members) and now has been converted to just (returns on investments + savings, paid off my loans long ago).
How this relates to OneUp/TsT: You're consistently wasting capital on evaluation fees that could instead be put into savings. Once your savings reaches a certain point, THEN you can begin trading. Think long-term and NOT short-term. SUFFICIENT CAPITAL is a REQUIRED and CRITICAL price of successful trading. DO NOT trade before your inventory can support it. Otherwise, like caacapital said, these companies are actually thinly veiled lotto tickets -- you're gambling a few hundred dollars to see how much how fast you can make, but will ultimately fail 97% of the time. 3% of the time you get a payout of a few grand and can make a few thousand percent ROI. Basically no one who is profitable sticks with these companies for more than a few months, as they eventually realize that they're risking their own profits with the same position size that they could do in their own personal account, but would be taxed 20%+ better, utilize trader tax status, etc. Not to mention the company isn't providing absolutely anything of value/resource. With TsT in particular, they actually detract with the amount of unnecessary phone calls.
This is so true. I would also add what most people may already know. Id say 99.9% of Trade rooms and educational services that are selling anything Trading related are a complete waste of time and money. Oneup Traders seems a tad better than Topsteptrader, but You must have your method down 100% or you will lose every time. its definitely not for newer traders who think that if they are following rules , they will take it more seriously. its for Elite level traders with loads of experience. Some stupid comments on here about Trading 3 lots on CL with $1000 loss limit, hahahahaha.
I wonder, if trader is profitable can he withdraw all the money with Oneup trader once he has amount that is 100% his and before he has to pay 20% to Oneup trader?