Do they give an honest account of potential funding? It seems as if the possibility is into the millions for a good trader, but how realistic is that? PTP is not a tiny firm. Of course I understand the math behind giving up 20% of P&L, but if it means that much backing then it's not a terrible deal if you fit the profile. No personal risk and into the hundreds of thousands / millions inside of a year?
"No personal risk" is right, anyway. There are (rightly) no representations of "hundreds of thousands/millions" anywhere on their website. As explained on the previous page, that's not what TST is for, and I imagine that's not the kind of prospective trader they'd aim to attract, anyway. It's much better to think of and classify TST account sizes in terms of the numbers of lots/contacts permitted, which can admittedly grow pretty quickly after making only fairly small profits from a funded account. The details are in their scaling plan, which is here: https://topsteptrader.desk.com/customer/en/portal/articles/1950862-funded-trader-scaling-plan
cool, thanks. I recall from a couple of years ago that they listed the possibility of those higher amounts for Senior traders in their program, but yeah it's gone now lol.
Also, one has to consider the risk per trade as a percentage of equity in the account. There was some good banter between Pekelo and Maverick regarding this subject back in a thread from 2013. TST's factors a value of $10,000 equity per lot size when determining the allowable daily stop amount in the combine. The $150k combine has a $3,000 daily stop, or 2%. However, the maximum allowable draw is only $4,500 or 3% of total "equity" in the account. In other words, even though they are allocating a 2% daily stop allotment, it's easy to "blow up" the account since you'd only have to be down 3% on the account size. The same goes for the $100k. $2,000 daily stop is 2%, again, within reason for putting up 100k in your futures account. BUT...the max draw is $3,000, or 3%, yet the gain you need is $6,000, which is 6%. Let's say this was an equities firm, that allocated you a $100k equity account upon passing (forget about buying power, that is irrelevant when factoring risk). Is it within reason to allocate a $2,000 stop out on a day trade if you have $100k in your account? The answer is of course "yes". BUT...if you are down $3,000, would you think it's reasonable to make a claim that you "blew up" the account? The answer is of course "no" unless you think losing 3% is an enormous amount as a percentage of total capital. The same goes down the line for the 50k/30k/10k. If you factor $10,000 as a base value per lot traded, then you can see how the maximum lot size corresponds to each combine. Each combine has a 2%-3% total allocation of risk IF there was actual equity in the account. (The 10k actually allows for a 3% daily draw and a 10% total maximum draw, which is ironic since it is the smallest combine, but allows for the greatest risk a percentage of account size). However, you must also calculate the maximum you can lose before a "blow up" in the account! Contrary to Endicott's own opinion, I don't think he's a "shitty" trader. He was able to pass the combine on the first attempt. The problem is you cannot go "all guns blazing" in the combine, because the maximum allowable draw is too low as a percentage of total equity in the account. There is very little margin for error, and thus very difficult, if not impossible, to trade out of a jam. The maximum allowable draw does NOT provide enough leeway to allow any savvy trader the ability to recover from a few bad days, even though TST's allocation of risk as a percentage of equity on a daily stop is within reason. So you are correct, their trading methods aren't well suited to the Combine assessment requirements...because most traders know that losing 3% of your total equity is certainly no big deal, but it's considered a "blow up" of the combine metrics.
Speaking of Endicott, the 2 months is not up yet, but I wonder how he has been doing? (on my Ignore since early March) I see, he is degrading himself instead of acknowledging that TST and their set up is BS? Come on man, come over to the darkside! As Volente said, it is not you, it is them!
Define making a living Making 30k paid with a 1099 via TST is equivalent to $10 an hour paid w2. You don't get into to trading just to make a living. You are either in it to make a killing and get out or you will eventually blow out if you play the game long enough only making a living.
50k paid 1099 is $15 an hour after SE and federal. I don't think this person has a snowball chance in hell to pay normal living expenses and grow their account at the same time.
It is your profit at risk that you have to accumulate in order to scale up so at the start your personal risk is still your combine fee but then it becomes your profit that assumes primary risk on every trade forward.
I agree with your entire post, Joe, apart from the word "problem" in that sentence. I'd suggest that that's probably very deliberate, and is one of the ways TST identifies the people they want to back with real money and real risk, wanting to avoid the "all guns blazing" type of trader who might otherwise be attracted. That would be my reason for wanting to do that or something very similar, anyway, if I were backing people with my money.