It is just common sense that they have to be strict. People do crazy stuff. Most people fail. They can't do it any other way!
Michael, Thanks for answering the questions. I was silent the whole day. Wanted to relax myself, so that I could have a nice conversation with you. So, here we go: Your website clearly mentions the rules of what it takes to go from combine to live. However, there is no mention of what has been the historical passing rates. If you can release this information, it will help potential traders to better gauge their chances of moving from combines to live trading. Thanks in advance. So, to help remove some of the doubts, please give numbers for the following questions: 1) Total number of traders that have participated in combines, starting from TST inception till today. 2) Total number of traders who have ever been live, from TST inception till today. Nothing speaks like success and failure is an orphan. So, if you are truly successful in discovering good traders using your current model and those good traders are also making money, you should be happy to share following numbers: 3) Total number of live traders who have made more than 20k till today, in their live account. 4) Total number of live traders who have made more than 10k till today, in their live account. 5) Total number of live traders who have made more than 5k till today, in their live account. And I hope you didn't mind my suggestion to Maverick and others to open TST clones. If the whole industry develops, you might make a bit less coin than otherwise, but you will be remembered as THE PIONEER, as the guy who started it all.
Why is it relevant what others can do ? The only thing that matters at the end of the day is what you can do I will venture to say 95-97% fail at the combine Of those that go live I will estimate 88-90% get sent back down eventually. My question for Mike is Why do you have such high profit targets with small risk ? I think there is a big pool of traders that could make you a lot of money if you backed every profitable trader that shows $1500+ in the smallest combine who over multiple combines show consistent lower profit targets with the same risk parameters.
I agree. I just want TST to confirm this, so that traders considering doing combines can see the reality. Here are the bets I am willing to take with anyone: 1) I am willing to bet 10k that failure rate from combine to live is at least 90%. 2) I am willing to bet 3k that failure rate from combine to live is at least 95%.
I noticed there are two ways to join a Combine, with or without a paid membership. The membership allows for daily trade reports and journal on the simulator account, whereas paying for the Combine itself does not. If a trader pays for the $150 membership in order to get the initial reduced rate for the Combine and access to their daily trade logs in the simulated account, do they still require a paid membership in order to access their daily logs when they go live? I also noticed there is no platform fee, only the charts for $25/month (which is listed as optional). Since there is no recurring combine fee, a trader's fixed costs if required to maintain a membership is $175/month ($150 plus $25 for charts), is that correct?
Holy Moly! I didn't notice that one can get daily trade reports only if he takes paid membership. That is like Obama saying pay a tax of 100$ if you want to breathe air! Daily trade reports are such a fundamental thing and require absolutely ZERO cost to generate. Once the script has been written, you just press a button and boom - you have the daily trade report. Patak wants money for traders to have access to daily trade report - damn that is 1 or 2 pages of transaction information - not much analysis there. LOL Another revenue stream!!! Just to put things in perspective: When I was at a true prop, we used to get lengthy, detailed and intricate risk reports - with multiple excel sheets generated every day containing all kinds of numbers. The biggest spreadsheet had 18 pages to report all kinds of risk numbers. And it was all FREE and if quants didn't do it in time, we used to shout at them. No disrespect intended to quants - actually I respect them a lot
You do not need a membership to get the daily trade reports. They are offered for free for everyone that does a combine whether you get a membership or not. It's on the combine page very clearly to read. All your risk metrics are listed very clearly to see if you are meeting the criteria. Come on guys, it's all there. There are legitimate grips here, that's not one of them.
http://www.topsteptrader.com/Combine This is what is included copied right off their website word for word: Real-time Trading Simulator Trade Report Trading Coaches Trade Journal Interactive trader chat room Access to professional trading platform Performance review with a Trading Scout Pre-market morning reports Levels and Value Areas provided hourly Charting software Live chat support Chat Room Trading Badge
Let me be the first to admit. If info about daily reports that ScalperJoe gave is incorrect, then my post is irrelevant. I hope however that more relevant questions get answered by Patak tomorrow. Good Night.