They used to have 20-day Combines, but I think that was long ago. That's my instinct, too. I'm wondering if they look at it differently (and why, if they do). I've also been wondering whether they do that. They sponsor this forum, but seem (oddly?) not to post here at all? There's another forum where they're very actively involved, posting in threads, answering questions in detail, doing webinars, and so on. Sorry, no Youtube links: it's a while since I've watched all those videos and I didn't keep a list of the "evidential" ones.
The difference was that here the owner doesn't protect them, thus valid criticism has been allowed. (free speech and such, thanks Baron) They couldn't stand the heat here, that should tell us something itself. But threads like this keep the attention alive, so I guess they get their money's worth.... Funny thing about the piggyback issue: When I asked the CEO a straight question about it here, he pretended not to understand the question (yeah, an industry veteran) and side stepped it, although he could have simply just said, no. That to me indicated that he doesn't want to lie on a public forum. But maybe I have just watched too many investigative TV shows.
People taking the Combine lets say 1000nd hand over $100 per month, that's $1.2Mil per year from the Combines, there are a lot of desperate people in the world so 1000nd people is likely a low estimate. The fact you have to pass to Combine, then Pass another directly after then if they just don't like you, despite you've passed, they still won't fund you, bet they don't return your Combines fees. And if they do let you in, then they hit you with loads of charges for data and the like.
This is pure conjecture, based on receipts of 12,000 monthly Combine fees per year. My guess is that 1,000 is much closer. Again, let's not overlook that the monthly fee includes all exchange-charges (e.g. $85 per month for a CME data-feed alone). There are, but this has nothing to do with TST's Combine-fees. This simply isn't so: the Funded Trader Preparation (which not everyone has to do) has a far lower profit objective than the Combine, and in any case it seems that many of its participants are taken out of it and into a funded account after only a few days. I don't believe this is correct. After all these years of funding about 300 traders per year, I think there'd be plenty of evidence of that, online, if it were true. They just don't: you have to pay them yourself, directly to the exchanges whose data-feeds you want to subscribe to, just like any other trader does. I won't pretend to have read all 177 pages of this thread, but seeing some of the factual misinformation here, I'm gradually beginning to understand why TST might not consider spending time/effort here explaining all these things a particularly beneficial use of their time.
I saw someone pass and still get rejected, dont know the reason. I bet they make more off selling combines than trading profits. Dont get me wrong, its better than pure demo and less cost than actual trading.
It's $85 a month for each exchange. The more products you wanna trade the more you'll pay if they're on a dif exchange. Then you have platform fees. I'm only familiar with NinjaTrader and that costs $180 for a 3 month lease. So at a minimum you're looking at $265 to start.
They charge nothing: you have to pay the exchanges for their data, just like any other trader does (e.g. $85 per month for CME futures). There are no other monthly fees. Commissions start at $1.84 per side ($3.68 per round-trip), but can be negotiated downwards subsequently by funded traders, according to volume and profit.
That's one of the downsides vs trading personally: I'm playing with Sierra Chart right now for historical simulations (others like Ninja are just too resource-hungry for my taste). When I'll switch from historical to real-time, by monthly bill will come up to about $65/month for all the futures and stock exchanges I'm interested in, combined with SC's license fee itself. This is because the CME has a drastically reduced data fee if you have a brokerage account, and SC can connect to my Interactive Brokers account once a month to confirm mine. All this to say, for a small account, if I trade on my own my monthly data/platform fees are about $65 but if I happened to want 4 exchanges at TopStep, they go up to it seems $365 because since their backer is a professional trader, by association each funded trader is as well. Someone with $400/month to invest in combines and then data fees can probably afford to trade the same handful of lots on their own... I guess the only single advantage remaining at TopStep now is the black swan protection. It's the main reason I can't convince myself to write them off.