Hello trade2020, While we understand your point of view on fixed vs. trailing drawdowns, please don't forget that we are talking about live accounts in a very specific sense - accounts where the orders go to the exchange and actual contracts change hands. Before comparisons with other companies are made, it is important to make a mental note of that. Given that both the trader and the prop firm wants to make sure a significant portion of the gains remain in the account, trailing makes more sense for live accounts. We don't necessarily believe that a single day's $10,000 gain (to use your example) is a good idea to follow up with exactly the same in losses. Would you think the rules are better or worse if the prop firms enabled you to lose your entire gains in a single day and even more? The above argument can be made about the daily loss limit. Traders tend to ask if the prop firm could remove the daily loss limit once they profited enough that they are well above the starting account balance. Yes, traders can request that. Is that a good idea? Is it a good idea to remove a risk management tool to stop traders from losing their money? You can come down on either side of that argument. Finally, the Trader Career Path is specifically designed to make sure withdrawals don't adversely affect your account. You get to withdraw 80% of the entire profits and continue on a bigger account with more contracts with a clean slate. I'd suggest you read through that particular product if you are afraid that withdrawals are going to be the bane of your existence. We are not entirely sure how FTMO run their business, and we wouldn't like to comment on it. But it bears noting that funding hundreds of live accounts as the Earn2Trade group defines that term is extremely risky, even with the current drawdown schedule. Thank you for your notes on the matter and the discussion.
Have you guys ever thought of a profit stop? I.E. If you make some outsizeable gain, the trader's account is halted so those gains are permanent for the day? They cannot make more, sure, but they are guaranteed to not lose it. Imagine that...A trader manages to make $1000 bux per day consistently. You can keep your drawdown structure in place, but by capping gains with a trading account halt, you can prevent losses once the limit is hit. P.S. (Oh wait, that means you would never ever have an account reset fee, so you would never make any actual money because your prop traders would be suffering no losses. Forgot about that. Sorry, continue on with your original plan. My idea of prop firms trying to produce profitable traders is stupid. Don't know why I had that fleeting moment of logical thought. I apologize.)
Hard to compare programs. FTMO is strictly FOREX whereas Topstep and E2T are futures. There is completely different set of rules when it comes to internal risk management. Also, I believe your interpretation of our Trailing Max Loss Limit is incorrect. Topstep calculates at end-of-day. So if you made $10,000 in one day and then lost $5,000 you are up $5,000 and there isn't a rule violation. Not only that, our Trailing Max Loss Limit stops trailing once it reaches your accounts initial balance. So if you are really trading well it is a non-issue relatively quickly. OTHER firms do have an intra-day trailing loss limit on UNREALIZED profits which is... interesting.
actually FTMO is not strictly FOREX. it is strictly CFDs. most people on FTMO actually trade the S&P or nasdaq100 index cfds b/c they have wider ranges compared to currencies. as a result, FTMO this year had some ridiculously high payouts due to some traders swing trading the entire move down on the US equity indexes. [/QUOTE]Also, I believe your interpretation of our Trailing Max Loss Limit is incorrect. Topstep calculates at end-of-day. So if you made $10,000 in one day and then lost $5,000 you are up $5,000 and there isn't a rule violation. Not only that, our Trailing Max Loss Limit stops trailing once it reaches your accounts initial balance. So if you are really trading well it is a non-issue relatively quickly. OTHER firms do have an intra-day trailing loss limit on UNREALIZED profits which is... interesting.[/QUOTE] i believe TST is the only firm that employs an EOD trailing dd even in their live accounts (except for E2T's 200k account in the TCP, which is actually even better b/c it's a static drawdown) so that's something. however, the reason why most people avoid topstep is because you have way too many other restrictions such as: 1) two step combine: you guys use false advertising when you denote your accounts as "150k" or "100k" or "50k" but the true size is the DD. let's look at your 150k account. $4500 drawdown with a $9000 profit target. you're basically asking someone to produce a 200% return in a month, and to do that twice (so it's technically a 400% return). there is no trader on earth who can do that in a month or two consistently so you need a certain amount of luck to pass within a month. of course, it's intentionally designed this way to make money from resets and combines but no sane trader is going to go with TST when all other futures eval programs only require you to make the profit target once. 2) weekly loss limit: yes, you guys recently removed but you guys kept it for so long when it was an absolutely unnecessary and scummy rule. your justification for it was that the weekly loss limit forces traders to take a mental break for the rest of the week and prevents them from blowing up their accounts but you already have the daily loss limit for that. the true consequence of this rule was that it prevented people from being able to trade the rest of the week and thus increase the probability of them having to pay for an additional month. note, you guys still haven't removed the weekly loss limit for the swing combine (i wonder why) 3) anyone who requests a withdrawal (of any amount) automatically has their trailing DD moved up to the max and apparently you changed the withdrawal policy so that now you can only withdraw up to 50% of your account balance. once again, from the trader's perspective, these are all just shenanigans to make it as difficult as possible for the trader to withdraw profits on the go from topstep b/c topstep clearly understands that it's in their benefit to force the trader to keep as much of their profits in their account and continue rolling the dice in the casino. the good news for topstep is that topstep is not unique in this regard. there are a ton of other futures eval companies that impose all kinds of ridiculous withdrawal restrictions like only being able to withdraw profits over a certain threshold (making it similar to having a two-step combine), having to wait a month or in some cases, even a quarter (*cough cough apteros) before being able to make a withdrawal. you guys have made some changes to your rules in favor the trader recently (i imagine people are getting smarter about your competitors' more advantageous rules and you're feeling some pressure) but even after those changes, you should already know by now that as long as you retain that two-step combine process, no sane trader will ever want to go with you over someone like E2T who not only has 1 step but has almost no other restrictions whether it comes to trading or withdrawals.
Also, I believe your interpretation of our Trailing Max Loss Limit is incorrect. Topstep calculates at end-of-day. So if you made $10,000 in one day and then lost $5,000 you are up $5,000 and there isn't a rule violation. Not only that, our Trailing Max Loss Limit stops trailing once it reaches your accounts initial balance. So if you are really trading well it is a non-issue relatively quickly. OTHER firms do have an intra-day trailing loss limit on UNREALIZED profits which is... interesting.[/QUOTE] #1) Every single prop firm advertises their product like this. They show account size with parameters below. If you have examples of other prop firms that strictly show the Daily Loss Limit or Trailing Account Loss Limit I'd be more than happy to look and see how they advertise their offerings. I am not sure why you are assuming someone has to pass in a month. There is no rule that states that you must pass in one month unless you are strictly trying to avoid paying the second month which is entirely up to the trader. As far as a the 2-Step vs 1-Step argument it is not as simple as saying 2-Steps is more work than 1-Step because you have to define what a "Step" is and also the payout policy tied to the company. For example, a 1-Step program could require anywhere from 5-15 minimum traded days. Then from there you have to look at the payout policy and how easy it is to actually get paid after you are funded. For example, some firms offer 1-Step with one or two criteria to meet and are exceptionally cheap. But, once you look at the payout policy you might have to trade 20 days in the "funded account" before you can even take a payout and that payout might even be capped. So is a 1-Step program better if you are basically just funneled into a "second step" where you need to trade for almost a month before getting a payout? Up to the trader. Our first Step requires 5 minimum traded days and Step 2 you can pass in as little as 3. So all-in-all you can get funded at Topstep in as little as 8 trading days which is one of, if not THE fastest funding programs on the market. Our payout policy requires 5-traded days of at least $100 before you can take a payout. So you theoretically could get funded and take a payout in as little as 13 traded days which is unbelievably fast. To wrap this up. Each prop firm has to measure risk so typically what you see is that firms that have easier evaluations up front have more strict payout policies on the back-end and those who are more difficult up front have more lenient payout policies on the back-end. One way or another the risk is going to get managed. We prefer a 2-Step process as we feel it produces high quality traders and that is what we want. #2) This rule was removed months ago along with being flat for economic events. The reason this was not removed from the Swing Trading Combine is because the Weekly Loss Limit functions as the "Daily Loss Limit" for that Trading Combine. If you look at all of our programs now they have max drawdown and a "daily/weekly" loss limit. #3) Our payout policy is very reasonable. Asking a trader to have 5 non-consecutive $100 winning days should occur organically in any healthy trading account. The 5-day restriction is also to prevent "yolo" traders and to encourage a more slow approach to getting into the Funded Account. This is especially the case with our recent change to the program allowing ALL funded traders to return to Step 2 regardless of ending balance. Lastly, in the Funded Account and Premium Funded Account you can always elect to close the account and take the entire balance. Let me know if you have any additional questions
Hello Overnight, Firstly, there is no account reset fee on Live accounts. You are not able to reset Live accounts, and if a prop firm allows you to reset it, you are paying in risk capital, making it a regulatory problem to say the least. Secondly, we do appreciate the sarcasm, but in all honesty, how do you see stopping out profitable trades play out with traders? Would you appreciate getting locked out every time you make $1000? While I understand that may be your personal preference, I think you'd be in a minority with that opinion.
“Traders tend to ask if the prop firm could remove the daily loss limit once they profited enough that they are well above the starting account balance.” many firms offer (or have built into live acct trading parameters) that they will “eliminate” the trailing drawdown or loss limit once a trader has made profits equal to the amount of drawdown or greater however, the reality of that —in most cases—-is the following what most firms are really doing is removing their funding (and risk) in entirety because at that point your only cushion is the profits that you leave in your account and if they have eliminated the drawdown and loss limit that only applies to above the zero line meaning if you withdraw 100% of your profits (and take your 80% or greater cut you are entitled to) your account is closed as you have no funding below the zero line. Just remember if you have no funding below the zero line and you are required to keep profits in your account to have a cushion to trade with then you are paying the funding company 10% to 20% of your profits for trading with your own money at that point FTMO on the other hand doesn’t play word games and act like they are doing you a favor while what they are really doing is eliminating their funding
It is a guarantee that you would be making a profit along with the trader. I say it again...It is a guarantee! Look, man, which is better? A guaranteed gain for you and the trader, or a guaranteed loss for you and the trader? Are you about to tell us all here on this forum that guaranteed wins for the trader is not a guaranteed win for you, but guaranteed losses for the trader is a guaranteed win for you?
If you can trade CFD’s for Nasdaq 100, S&P 500 and Dow 30 with FTMO that is actually better than trading futures and micros as with forex you can trade lot sizes in virtually any amount (such a as for example 1.00, .021, .10, .05, .02 ,1.17 ands everything in between and even as little as .01 - so there is much more flexibility in building positions or taking profits than with futures and the main things are also 1) Fixed drawdowns - not trailing drawdowns of any kind whether they include unrealized intraday watermarks, or are based on EOD 2) the ability to withdraw 100% of your profits over and over again and still have the same amount of max funding still provided by the funding firm without any requirement by them that you have to leave any of your profits in the account in order to “have funding” 3) that the funding company pays you your full share of the profits (even if they are extremely large amounts) in full in a timely fashion with no hiccups or delays whatsoever or “gotchas” and also doesn’t try to change rules to traders detriment of f they see too many traders making too many profits
Also another key difference I see is the Trailing Max Drawdown that many firms use (also known as the Total Max Loss Limit). This is different from the Daily Loss Limit - in that it is the amount you cannot go under--even if you have a series of small daily losses that are all still within the "daily loss limit" See: https://help.futures.topstep.com/hc/en-us/articles/235514547-What-is-the-Trailing-Maximum-Drawdown- With FTMO as an example if you have a $200,000 account you have a $10,000 daily loss limit and a fixed $20,000 total loss limit (or total max drawdown limit). With FTMO it means that --in the case of a $200,000 acct with a $20,000 max drawdown that your account cannot hit $180,000 or below. The max drawdown limit does not "trail" up if you make profits. Example--you have a $10,000 daily loss limit and a $20,000 max drawdown limit. Lets say you make $8,500 in profits and your account balance is $208,500--the max drawdown limit cushion is now $28,500 (the difference between $208,500 and $180,000)--so--if for example--you have several losing sessions where you lose (but don't violate the $10,000 daily loss limit in those losing sessions)--you still have the full cushion (at least on the max drawdown limit) all the way down to $180,000 before violating it ---whereas with the Trailing Max Drawdown limit your max total loss line in the sand would have been moved up when you made the $8,500 in profits