It's kind of sad how obvious it is that TopStepTrader wants people to fail. Obviously, I get having risk rules, daily & weekly loss limits, contract size limits...but here's the problem. Their TST Platform (built on Tradeovate) has removed functionality to adjust risk settings that innately exists on the Tradovate's platform. I use Tradovate for my personal account, so I use this feature. So why would a company that wants to find good traders, specifically ask Tradovate to remove the ability to set daily, weekly and position size limits. Because they don't actually care about whether you can profit or not. They just want your monthly fees. Trading is hard enough. Let a person's profits prove whether they should be funded or not, don't purposely make it more difficult on them to remember your rules by removing functionality that already existed. Another example of this immoral business practice is trading the forward contract. Obviously this is something any decent trader should do and be aware of. But, If you break this rule with TST and don't adjust it within reasonable time. They'll end your funded account. Clearly, if they know you've made the "mistake", then they have the data to know you're trading the wrong contract, so why not just have automatic emails that are sent out to traders, rather than closing their funded accounts? Because they want you to go through the combine again... This company's ethics are non-existent.
The prop trading industry has many candidates vying for the pot of cash to trade. They can afford to set an extremely high bar and cherry pick only the best. Making mistakes strikes you out as a careless trader. Not putting you down, just saying.
Hehe, I said the same thing I think 6 years ago. Maybe it was 8, I don't remember. Nothing has changed. All those times when you are not allowed to trade could be easily automatized and first it would send you a message let's say 5-10 minutes in advance and/or kick you out of position before the forbidden times. How hard is that to implement? Instead of that you have to keep them in mind. And if you forget, they could just fine you, instead of kicking you out and starting all over. They would still get some money, you would still learn a lesson but at least you wouldn't lose TIME. As you said trading is hard enough, no need to make it artificially more difficult, unless you have a different agenda...
Topstep is a total scam. Their daily loss limits on the $30k account is $500 which is a max 10 point stop on ES. $50k account thats 20 points ES or 10 points x 2 contracts. Thats way too much of a handicap. Many pros through the years have said this. So you are forced to have picture perfect entries and take no heat day in and day out. Thats just not possible. There's no doubt that their business plan is completely based on fees. B/c how many good traders can follow such loss limits ? I had a trade go 17 handles against me in ES on the overnight session last week before it started going ITM. I think I made 25 or 26 handles @ $1250 a contract. I would have failed out on the $30k with just one contract trading like this.
Calling it a scam because you can't follow the rules doesn't seem fair ... Sure it is hard to pass, but that doesn't make it a scam.
I was kind of profitable but I kept failing anyway ... Accumulated 30K overall without ever crossing the zero line ... Now I trade my own 5k account. There is plenty to trade with 5k Financials, commodities, micros indexes ... I’ll keep the 0.2 commissions for myself.
It is kind of like when I go to Bush Gardens and they have the carnival games where you can do things to win prizes. They have this bar that if you can hang from it for two minutes you get a big stuffed animal. I paid the five bucks...it did not look too hard. However, the bar was very thin and was not stable. I lasted 60 seconds and kept on walking.