With apologies for "replying to my own post", I've now confirmed that this is actually so. There are now only continuous Combines. The former 2-month minimum for paying for them has also been dropped, and they can now be cancelled at any time.
Wow, that's a bombshell for me. Without the refundable 10-day combine they've become significantly less attractive, though still an option to explore. I really don't like that now there is an absolute certainty of spending several hundred dollars on them to get funded, because in my eyes it skews their business model from profiting 20% off funded traders to mostly selling expensive sim trading accounts. Makes you suspect whether their funded traders are performing much at all, and whether the subjective final say in passing the LTP may be skewed towards going back to combines for guaranteed revenue. I bet next we'll find out that combines for funded traders who accidentally touch their loss limit will no longer be complimentary either... I guess the first sign of this approaching was the new rule offering 100% of the first $3-5K in funded profits, which in the grand scheme of things shouldn't be a factor for serious aspiring underfunded traders (80% is already high). This seemed more like a marketing gimmick than anything else to me, and I'd much rather have the refundable 10-day combine as a gimmick instead, to feel like there's at least a chance to get in free of charge on merit, out of principle. If they had only one combine level, with a reasonable monthly fee to cover data feed and overhead costs, I could get on board but paying up to $375/month for the privilege of accumulating an audit trail for them is awfully wasteful. Maybe if the $95/month level was for the 5-lot scale, it'd make more sense as a training platform.
They start at $95. People who could qualify for a 10-day one can surely qualify in a month? Unless huge numbers of them are lying, falsifying all their documents, and so on? There always been a $100 reset-fee, I think, who people who go over their loss limits? Depends how you look at it, I guess. To me, that sounds a little like not buying a car because a Rolls Royce costs $250,000, or whatever. You don't have to buy the most expensive one? I hear you there. But bear in mind that (if trading a CME product like ES or NQ, for example), the $95 you'd pay TopStep does include the $85 you'd otherwise have to pay to CME for the data, not to mention the temporary use of NinjaTrader or whatever. Anyway, I suspect your perspective is rather different from mine. I think the pass-rate for 10-day Combines was rather low, and it's pretty understandable for them to withdraw it, myself, perhaps partly in an attempt to reduce the numbers of people posting in forums the opinion that "they're in it for the Combine fees", which is clearly not the case.
1. Yes people who can qualify for a 10 day combine can also do it in 1 moth, the difference is that the fee for the 10 day combine was refunded if you successfully completed the combine. 2. I have never seen to many traders with a funded account, diffidently not over the longer term? If you do please share them with us. 3. There is a reset fee for the combines, not for the funded traders. 4. Nothing to say on this one however almost 400$ is a lot of money 5. The fee is for the combine only, so once you start trading a funded account you do have to pay data connections and fix the platform for yourself, so buy or lease it. Depending on the platform off course
@Ruben De Kock addressed most points, so I'll just add my two cents on this one. When I'll upgrade from historical to real-time data with Sierra Chart, I'll be spending roughly US$60-65 per month for the CME, NASDAQ and NYSE combined there. (I have a linkable brokerage account, which reduces some of the fees.) Therefore from that perspective, the combine is pricey (at the higher levels) just for logging an audit trail with TopStep. Also just to clarify @Ruben De Kock point 5, ideed it's $85/month for data at TopStep, and for the instruments I was interested in, it's pretty much once per instrument (i.e. Gold, currencies and the NQ/ES are in 3 different data categories, each $85/month). In my case, I only intend to enter their combine if/when I'll be able to somewhat reliably pass their criteria in my private simulations, so one month at TST should suffice, but it's still a bummer that it's no longer refundable.
What is up over at Topstep? They took away the S&P 500 Pit audio and they also reduced the number of chat rooms. I don't have anything against Eddie and Viraj but they spend more time telling jokes than saying what is going on in the market. To anyone who thinks pit audio is irrelevant think again, if I heard the whole pit yelling "half ON 10" for example and 80s started trading at the Offer then the Bid would usually step up to 75s on the ES Mini. Ben Lichetenstien is good but you can't even hear the pit in his broadcast and he only talks about paper that is about to trade or just traded. Anytime a company takes away something and constantly changes their terms of service is that a good sign?
Haha, the only sure thing about TST is that they are going to change the rules in every 3-4 months. Whatever I ever said about them was true 3-4 years ago and still will be true 2 years from now. That being said: 1. Maybe, maybe not. After all it is easy to break the so many rules. So if the trader's daily P/L is very low time is really not on his side. The bigger problem of removing the time element is that it is harder to compare 2 traders. If I made $2000 profit to your $1000 profit, I was twice as good, it took 2 seconds to figure it out. Now we both make eventually $2000 bucks but I need 5 days, you need 3.27 months, it is much harder to compare. Also, they are supposed to look for EXPERT traders, not lucky ones who following stupid rules eventually reach a predetermined amount. Expert traders produce profits and good profits. If you reached the profit goal in 10 days your return is (pulling out of my ass) let's say 30% per month. If I need a whole year to reach the very same amount, my return might be 0.7% and why would they want to BACK such a minuscule returns???? The point is, with no time limit combines anyone can eventually reach the profitgoal, but that doesn't make a person a good trader... 2. We would like to see those documents. Specially for the top 10 best traders.... 3. The reset fee idea is only a year old IIRC. The only constant thing with TST is that NOTHING is constant with them.... I have heard that the National Olympic Committee will pay for the trip to the next Games to ANY runner who eventually finishes the Marathon's distance, no time limits. The runner only have to keep his movement continuous, not deviate from the route, not having any other outside help, etc. but even if it takes 5 days, he will go to the next Games. Now, where are my running shoes?
My apologies, but they have just released that after passing this continuous running/walking Marathon, one has to pass a Live Runner Preparation test with "slightly" different rules. Once I hear what those rules are, I will post them, stay tuned!!!!
There seem to be very large numbers of them on Youtube, on TST's "squawk radio" and posting at futures.io. Unless, as I mentioned above, all of them are collectively lying, consistently falsifying documents and screenshots, and so on. A possibility, I concede, but not my own impression. It seems so. They're certainly highly responsive to customer feedback, quick to take people's feedback on board, flexible in their approach, naturally evolving, and especially keen to change any wording which appears to have misled anyone. They're not trying "to compare 2 traders": they're simply trying to discover whether each individual applicant is able to keep to the risk-management rules their backer requires. Indeed so, but fortunately such a comparison isn't relevant to them: they're simply trying to discover whether each individual applicant is able to keep to the risk-management rules their backer requires. I'm not sure what has given you this impression: it seems to me that they're supposed simply to discover whether each individual applicant is able to keep to the risk-management rules their backer requires. A month contains 21 or 22 trading days, so let's call 10 days "half a month"? The profit-targets on all but the $10k Combine are 5-6% of the nominal account-size. To me, that looks more like 10-12% per month, not 30% per month. From their backer's perspective, it seems to me that funding traders is primarily about risk-management rather than profit-maximisation. (That happens always to have been my own approach to my own trading, too.) I suspect that's perhaps part of the reason why they've withdrawn the 10-day Combines, too - to make that even clearer. I don't disagree with you there, but that's perhaps a rather extreme and non-characteristic example? Again, I suspect that their primary concern relates to whether or not people are "safe traders" to invest in. I think I'd take that view, myself, too, if I were putting up the money. Wouldn't you? To be realistic, it perhaps usually takes longer than just a quick Combine-test to discover whether someone's actually a "good" trader, doesn't it? That's going to emerge in the fulness of time, after they're funded. But you can see that they need to know people are "safe traders" before getting that far? Some of their email lists of the top funded traders' monthly performances have actually been reproduced over at futures.io, and on Youtube. I think it's not for you, and I'm sure you don't need them anyway. I hadn't appreciated that posting in this thread simply to inform people that all Combines are now continuous ones would occasion quite so much comment. Anyway, there's the "news", for anyone interested.
Xela, thanks for your detailed response. I am not going to respond in detail, because that would be repeating myself. Since you said TST has been listening to suggestions, and assuming they are really after talent, here are mine: 1. The Combine should be 10 to 20 days (10 minimum but 20 max. Obviously a backer wants to see a statistical minimum trades but there has to be a time limit and app. profitgoal, slow gainers shouldn't be backed.) and actually one should be enough because using 5 cars one can already show scaling in and out or trade multiple instruments at once.... Starting account size should be based on merits, not on initial fees.... 2. They should piggyback the shit out of certain Live traders with proven record and swing style trading. That is where the real money is. I assume they already do so though.... By the way in the past they did listen to suggestions I already made, so let's see how long this one takes... Also can you provide links to the Youtube records...?