OK, I know I'm going to get attacked here. This might sound harsh, but dude, if you are losing that kind of money, no one is ever going to back you. And I don't mean "you" personally. I'm not try to make this about you. But that guy you are describing is not going to get backed. This is what I was talking about earlier about becoming consistent. Look, trading is very hard. I think all of us can find common ground there. The fact of the matter is, most guys here will never get hired by a prop firm, never get 100% backed and probably never be even profitable trading their own account. That is the sad reality. Here's the deal. Trading is very very very easy provided you never have to use stops. Provided you never have to control losses. Provided you never have to exit losing positions. Anyone can trade under those conditions. What makes trading actually difficult is having to honor stops, controlling losses and getting out of bad positions. If you are losing 2% of your account on a regular basis daytrading the math will NEVER work for you. Not you personally, but whoever. It just won't work. Please don't lecture me on profit factors and all that stuff. I've heard the sales pitch far too many times by guys at my old firm trying to get backed.
So 200 combiners a month paying $160-$350 a month with 99% failing = ~500k yearly risk free profit Back the 1 % who do meet your strict rules with the profit made from those who failed the combine and make them sign a 1 year contract taking 30-40% of their profits and you are forced to always keep 5k -10k of your profits in the account as a cushion to protect against a drawdown all to be able to trade $2000 -$7500 worth of intraday margin while they back others with your trading profits ? I have to admit this is a great business model for the owners. Come on Mav, if you are really a trader then I don't see how you think this is a great gig
LOOOLLLLLLLL Have you really gone nuts maverick! I presented you with logic and a detailed example, and this is your best response! Just to put things back to track and expose your arbitrary reply: On a 50k account, 1k is 2%. In my example, the trader was hitting 2% (950$) on 2 days out of 20. That means he is losing 2% of his account on 10% of days, not on a REGULAR basis. Remember, the trader is profitable on 70% of days. Is this not consistent? what is consistency in your book - 90% positive days - you think guys who make money on 90% days - only they get backed in true prop shops and make money? MAN - go over and look at Lescor's journal and see on how many weeks in a year he made money and how many weeks he lost money. Then go and see on how many days he made money and how many days he lost money. 70% profitable days is extremely good. Reality is - People trade with 2% trade risk, and easily they can have 2 losing trades in a row for a 4% down day. Really, you need to think before hitting reply. You are doing a disservice to your own ET credibility by writing without thinking through.
From his ACD thread, my impression was that Mav must be raking in 500k at least a year. But alas, now I think maybe he makes 50k a year from his trading. That is also good performance for an independent trader - but nothing compared to how highly I used to think of him before.
There is no way they have 200 paid combines running a month. I'll take that bet right now and bet Michael the first beer on that! I never said it was a great gig. Some of you guys are not listening. I wrote an entire post earlier on this thread about the options available to traders today. None of them are good. The odds are horrible at every option. But most guys don't have much of a choice. They will NOT get hired. They will NOT be able to start a fund. They will NOT work for a big bank. And they most likely are seriously under capitalized to fund themselves. What should they do? Probably go back to school and start over. But for the ones that have that hunger, that ambition, that belief in themselves that they are NOT one of those statistics, then maybe, maybe this is a viable option for them. And don't even tell me with a straight face you would tell a guy to fund a 2k account at Amp Futures and start trading futures to make a living. Keep this conversation serious.
You are massively underestimating. They have around 50 live guys now. So, at a 10% conversion rate (which is extremely generous, Mav says it is like 1% for first timers), you can compute number of combiners to be at least 500 a month.
No, once again gmst, you are acting like a child. I see you are reverting back to your old self before you started acting semi-mature. I never said a trader can't make it losing 2% a day, twice a month. I said you will never get BACKED with those numbers. Do you have any fucking clue what you are up against in the Chicago HFT community. These firms that hire and back traders run algos that make money 240 out of 250 days a year. These firms measure their down days in basis points. If you are going to knock on their door and try to convince them to allocate some of their money away from their algos to a point and click discretionary trader who loses 2% of his nut twice a month on a regular basis daytrading, you are nuts. I'm not saying you can't trade your own account that way. I'm saying that no prop firm is going to return your phone call. That is a fact!
Interesting this started out as free, then $40 a combine, then $80, now $160-$350 but yea it's all about helping young traders and not about making risk free profit on a side venture other than trading. Perhaps someone on ET should investigate the chatroom and see how many combiners are currently present
My impression was that when you say you are not going to be backed, you were referring that Patak and similar shops will not back with that kind of DD. If you suddenly started comparison with Getco and Citadel of the world, ofcourse they won't back with 2% daily DD. I know that. But please don't mix HFTs here, all the perf. numbers etc. we are talking about here are about Patak and company. So, now can you make a more 'adult' and 'mature' response to my numbers where I showed that a 1500$ day would be outlier for a trader at Patak and not 500$ day. We were discussing trailing stops at Patak.