I don't think this is a shitty business model. Are those gamblers placing big bet at firm's risk shitty? I have seen too many traders trading hundreds contracts on one order,hoping to pass challenge in 10 minutes. If these guys get funded,they will make big bet with firm's capital. So either they go bust or firms go bust. If prop firms don't fail the gamblers, the gamblers will fail prop firms, and prop firms themselves will go bankrupt. If you are a loser, then don't blame prop firms bet against you. Because if you don't lose to prop firms, trading your personal account, you will lose to someone else.So it is your own fault.
Those who survive those tests have an edge that specifically works for those constraints. That's really tough. I'm pretty sure I couldn't pass the test and most people would call me a good trader, though i'm probably not as good as those people think i am.
My friends see how much I make daytrading ES and either a) ask me to mentor them, which I flat out tell them no for many reasons or b) say they've "been thinking about getting into that," as if it's like learning to play golf. I have to explain to them it took me almost a decade of intense study and losses of 10s of thousand before I became profitable. I think of it like when Jesus said a prophet is never accepted in their hometown. These guys think if a moron like me can do it then they can surely do it.
I am daytrading ES and eur/usd. The most rewarding and least risky method for trading ES is to trade market open, when market is most trendy of the day. But EUR/USD is much easier and rewarding than ES. Forex generally is more trendy and more technical in nature. I can trade eur/usd since europe market open and throughout the day to US market close. But ES generally is tough to trade after 11:00 am ET. All the prop firms are not same. Topsteptrader is like 10 times worse than myforexfunds, I means judging from risk-reward. Not only MFF fees are much cheaper, its profit target is much lower than TST and drawdown is much higher. Besides, at MFF you can have unlimited free retries if you fail to reach profit target but hold positive balance without breaking any rules at the end of your challenge. You will also get a free extension if you fail to reach profit target but hold positive balance without breaking any rules at the end of your challenge. That is, if you are up 5% at the end of challenge, which fail 8% target, then you will get another 4 weeks starting from 105% of your original balance.So you only need to make 3% in the next 4 weeks. TST is tough to pass, MFF is not so tough.
I suspect the objective function of the test is to find those who can produce the most transactions in the shortest time. Profitability is secondary and only "for show".
at $99 per paid test, in two months they raised over $910k for 41 traders passing the tests. damn, that pisses me off.
True. These firms that "fund" wannabe traders make their trading rules so stringent that one has to trade with a very narrow stop-loss in order not to blow up and go back to step 1, hence making money very hard. Any pro trader that trades his own account and trades with a comfortable stop-loss will never pass one of these combines and get funded. It's a trap for the newbie wannabe trader.
Apparently @padutrader did. He kept blowing up his accounts trading microforex lots, but has passed the Combine. He was bragging about it all month in January. Hrm, wonder why we have not seen him lately.
I understand your point, but I wouldn't say ANY pro trader. There has to be a few out there, that have a direct trading edge or some type of alpha.