I'm not sure why this is so hard for you to understand. Any trader going through the combine whether they make a ton of money or don't is going to more then likely generate similar results. The only indicator I personally would value is the variance of the results. In other words, the less volatile the results, the better. A person who makes a "killing" in the combine but only does that because they had one or two large up days such as Austin, would not interest me. A trader who produces much less volatile results who is only slightly positive with relatively small draw downs is much more interesting to me as a backer. I still don't think you get it. Traders don't go from losing money to making a killing. It's a very long process. I think we agree that any guy or girl that is already doing very well is NOT going to do the combine. The combine attracts traders who are most likely NOT profitable yet. Well, if they are NOT profitable yet do you honestly think they "suddenly" will become so after doing a combine? LOL. No, it's a process. Just to get from losing to scratch is going to take a long time, trust me. Once they are a scratch trader and btw, since you obviously don't know what a scratch trader is, let me fill you in. A scratch trader is not someone who is exactly breakeven every day. In most cases they are profitable. But not enough to make any kind of meaningful income. In other words, they have all the right attributes and qualities a good trader has, they are just not fully developed yet. And yes, that also is going to take time. One of the things this combine is showing guys is that the process to becoming a consistently profitable trader is much longer then most people on here make it out to be. But TST is playing the law of large numbers. If they back 100's of these traders, some will develop into star traders, some will never be more then scratch traders, others will get stopped out and quit. But by casting a wide net, their long term expectancy should be positive.
Yes. Since March 20th. 71 days of trade activity. 100 days will provide a better picture as I usually throw one pitch a day...and not everyday. I am still with them. My performance is lower, but still has positive expectancy net net running 42% wins. 205/-120 win/loss avgs. I trade ES only. I would like to add that this is my first attempt at daytrading in over 4 years. So the results so far are not a disaster, so thats a positive. Always a student, Crispy.
Define relatively small. My example was $1500 drawdown out of the $2000 max. That is not small for a trader who can only breakeven. No trader worth a shit is going to stay with tst long because the deal flat out sucks unless you are a nieve rookie. Who want's 60% payout via 1099 paying short term rates and self employment tax and having to keep your money locked up just to get that. The facts speak for themself. After 3 years no traders there are making consistent decent money. If they were tst would be hyping them in their marketing.
Dude, do you even trade? Because every time you post I get this feeling you have no clue how this business works. And you are a mentor? Really? As in you charge people for your services? I hope I misread that. If you are trading futures, say crude oil, a product that moves 2k to 3k a day per contract, having a $1500 draw down peak to trough is nothing. You act like that is a big number. We are talking futures here, not trading 100 shares of GE. And again, you demonstrate that you don't even know what a scratch trader is. Again, I highly doubt you even trade yourself, you sound like just another vendor. One last time, a breakeven trader is not someone who is exactly breakeven. For example, a guy that makes 4k in a month could be considered a breakeven trader depending on his variance. And dude, enough with the effing bullshit. We've already established TST is NOT for guys who are already profitable. It's for guys who are TRYING to become profitable. The deal doesn't even matter because most of these guys are NOT close to getting checks. As for trading with scared money, how the f*ck are they suppose to even learn discipline? On a ninja sim? Really? So is that why all these guys who makes millions on the ninja sim and can't pass a combine? Maybe it's because the combine actually REQUIRES discipline while the ninja sim does not. You heard Austin himself say it, doing the combine is much harder then even trading with real money. Because the combine keeps you honest. It doesn't let you cheat, break your rules or throw risk management into the wind, it actually holds you accountable. THAT is how you learn to trade.
Obviously, there will still be profit objectives. Anyone saying otherwise is a complete farking moron. By the way I forgot #5 of the possible TST incomes: 5. Broker fees. Now Volente is right, there is simply no reason for TST suddenly backing just net positive traders. So for 3 years there is a profit objective and suddenly now they take anyone who isn't a loser??? Give me a break... Or just read the rules... But these frequent changes of rules certainly don't give out a well established business vibe. It was only a month or so ago that they changed back to the old (before February) rules, and they are changing again. It seems they can even see their future 4-6 weeks ahead of time...
For someone who claims to have so much trading knowledge you sure find a way to ignore facts. Do the math 3 years of combines and what 30 funded traders ? None who make over 30k before tst's cut So out of 3600-9600 combines, only 30 people are trading live and they can't even put up numbers better than minimum wage. Come on Mav, you know damn well those are worse odds then a retail trader at an fcm. Look at all of the people who failed at the combine, hell you failed to make it. Does that mean you are not a good trader ? I know of a few people who have multi year live track records and they too failed at the combine. So why are they profitable trading their own methodology live yet fail at sim under tst ? So if these traders can't perform under this criteria, how and the hell do you expect nieve rookies to have a chance ? Until there is clarification by tst, I don't think the profit objective has been dropped, just the performance metrics.
There is a decent misrepresentation on the TST website. It says, 2-3 funded traders per week, and that is simply not true. Their best quarter was with the relaxed rules and that ended with a record 26 funded traders. Now if my math is correct, 26 / 13 weeks = 2 traders per week, so that is some rounding on TST's behalf. Before and after that they were averaging like 1.5 traders a week. that is still far away from 3. But this brings up an interesting question: Why would you change the rules when it produced the most funded traders? The answer could be: 1. The funded traders were inferior, because they passed when the rules were relative easy. 2. Combine fees dropped, because too many people got a roll over. I would like to hear Michael's answer to the question....But I think they consider ET a hostile enviroment...