I hardly doubt that he would know. I certainly wouldn't want others knowing about me if I was a trader at TST... I would simply just want to do my thing. To be honest, I'm a little uneasy about how much TST is being pushed, especially on this gentleman's blog. He hasn't said anything about his own trading yet, but the focus keeps being on TST. The more I've followed this thread, the more it seems to me that TST is more interested in generating income from people trying and failing. If they cannot find any traders who are making them rich with an 80/20 split of profits, then I can understand why having to survive on this revenue steam is important, but this certainly would seem a bit odd, and not in line with the idea. When a company interviews prospective applicants, they want to find the best person for the job. If they started charging people for interviews, they might quickly realize that it makes more money to leave the job unfilled and just keep hiring at hundreds of dollars per applicant. Lets put this another way. A while ago here there was a link to a trading room that showed months worth of trades and a monthly PnL, but this PnL probably only averaged about 2-3k per month. Now tell me this. Would you want to learn from someone who makes more money trading, or more money teaching? Likewise, if TST is making more money from combines, and less from their share of funded trader profits, then this changes everything, and I can see why the need to push TST and "help" people get funded. The idea isn't to help people get funded, its to get people to try. I don't want to accuse Wmorin of anything, but the more he talks about how great TST is and how much they give him hope and help him achieve his goals and blah blah blah, the more turned off I get.
Maybe the most public change to the company recently is the change to a single combine. But, before this happened, only weeks before, TST had two major announcements for their funded traders. The first, based on the training that funded traders are more successful if they pay themselves and withdraw money is that uu can keep 100% of your profit up to $5000. Then the split is 80/20 after that. The second, traders who wish to withdraw money from their account no longer have to pay any direct transfer fees if they wish the money deposited directly into their accounts
I agree that most may not want to share their profits with the public, some do. Last I saw in one of the chat rooms was someone saying their PnL went from $40000 to $50000 in that week particularly. I get the feeling that was above average performance for himself. But in my time in the chats nobody really talks about pnls or even lot size. Just entry and exit price. My blog is based around the idea of trading for Top step, so naturally, I will promote it often. It's only been up for one week as well. I worked for a month developing content before launch, so, more to come as far as my trading. As a chef, I can make the perfect dish, just the right way, every time. But there will be one person that just doesn't like it. Maybe I just can't make a blog you like, normally I would suggest something different. What would you rather be seeing in my writing?
To be honest, I haven't even much read it, just scanned it. But it just looks too commercial. Its looks just like web pages that promote trading material that will lead to instant profits for one special low price. Now this doesn't of course mean that your content is bad, but in trading, you have to be extra vigilant. I do want to thank you though for addressing my concerns. I just think that if you wanted to help traders, what comes first is learning/teaching how to trade. But if you wanted to help TST, then certainly putting them first is key. I will refrain from posting further though. I've made my point and you have nicely tried to address it so there really is no need for me to continue. Perhaps you will give more details in the future as you have said, so this will be good, because the only way to really move forward is with some hard data.
Come on now, they have 4-5 different sources of revenues: Combine fees, profit share, traders education/coaching, psychological help (is this still a thing?), piggy back. You can (l)earn a University PhD from these guys: https://www.topsteptrader.com/learnmore#learnmore-tstu
Well, I must be odd, too, because I agree. I think, also, that the overwhelming majority eligible for a refund chose to take a rollover instead (which "makes sense", I think?), and that very few refunds were actually paid out. Only about 20% pass combines. Refunds or rollovers were offered also to people who didn't pass, but didn't break any of the risk-management rules. Yes - they didn't. Indeed - and wishing him well with his funded account!
Quick note: about 1.5 years ago John Hoagland (TST director of trader development), pretty sure it was him and not M. Patak, mentioned in an interview that good funded traders made well into the 5 digits. I don't remember the specific wording but very low 6 digits would've been the most he saw. I don't necessarily see this as a negative however: it correlates well with the fact that the bulk of TST's funded traders are in their first year, and the more success you have the more likely you are to go trade on your own. (We saw one example a year or two ago.) So I'd expect only a tiny minority of funded traders to break that 6th digit, and very few of those to stay much longer after they achieve that level. I saw that, but to me those are just shiny gimmicks. I care more about the cost of entry than about how much they take off my profits afterwards. Let them take 50% of the first $5K and 20% after that and make the combine dirt-cheap, that'd be more in line with scouting talent in my book. Like I said, I seem to be odd compared to their typical member...
Yes, the ideal recruitment tool is to lower the combine fees for the larger combines, and only fund those traders, since it's the largest two combines (100k/150k) that provide higher odds for profitability overall. TST can continue making whatever changes to the program it wants, however the biggest hurdle to overcome is "10 day rule" of the live account, not the combine or live trader prep.
Sure, it's designed for literally unlimited lot sizes, as per the scale up rules. The key is to navigate through the combines where you can mimic the same trades in a live account in those first 10 critical days while utilizing the scale up rules. Remember, the key point is you are only backed on the maintenance margin on day 11 of the live account. The equity (built up profit) becomes your maximum allowable draw.
How many contracts were you trading per order to generate the $800/day average in the combine that got you the funded account? Your $800 daily average over the 10 days is impressive, however the live account won't allow more than 3 lots on the 100k to start, so to make a realistic comparison of the equity you'd have on day 11 (if it was a live account), you have to factor in the scale up rules. This is one of the biggest discrepancies with TST. The combine rules do NOT match the live funded rules.