1 - From their website under the "Rules Comparison Chart"... "Once you become a Senior Trader, the further away you get from your initial balance, the greater negotiating powers you will have for increasing Max Position size and Daily Loss Limit, as well as the opportunity to trade other products and/or markets." My guess is you keep your same daily limits as you did in the Jr Trader phase, until "the further away you get from your initial balance". So that's a subjective call. 2 - If you lower the winning day ratio, then you have to compensate it with something else, which you can probably ask when doing a customized combine. 3 - The P&L is NET of fees, so if you breakeven, you will still have a negative balance for that day, and thus a "losing" day.
And it is also worthless. I mean on the surface it almost makes sense, but once you realize just how easy it is to bypass it, the rule becomes meaningless. Since I am a playful fella, I will buy 2 donuts to anyone who can tell us how to bypass the "no averaging down" rule! Anybody hungry? (It was the same shit with their old characteristic of the winning time duration vs. losing time duration. It just added to the confusion and made Combiners to fail, but was completely worthless and easily fixable.)
The trader has to either change their style or adapt to the more rigid rules of the Jr Trader funded account. The term "fail twice" needs to be clarified. If the Jr Trader adds to a winning position before his P&L is net $500, then he technically "fails" and gets sent back to combine. If the Jr Trader screws up and hits the daily loss limit even if his rolling net P&L is positive, he technically "fails" and gets sent back to combine. In fact, there are MANY other ways to get sent back to combine. You've suggested that traders view TST as a "training tool" so I'm not sure why you believe it's "stupid" for them to give the guy a few extra combines, especially since the trader now has to follow an additional set of rules.
Ya, I remember now. Sell 1, then immediately buy 2. It works as long as the maximum starting contracts are 2 or above. Now if you can figure out how to bypass the "no averaging up" rule, I will buy you 3 donuts!
No, I meant it was stupid to have some arbitrary number like 2. Either offer no free combines which will force traders to get their shit together or just keep it unlimited. By offering 2 free combines I think they are just delaying the inevitable. If a trader can't follow the rules, get him out now instead of playing this thing out for so long. So I agree, it's stupid on their part. They have made a lot of stupid changes and it's no doubt correlated to the bloating of their payroll. Their staff is getting huge and highly inefficient.
This is not directed at you, but this is the shit that makes people never want to back traders. I've said this before, if traders spent half the time working on their edge as they do trying to get around rules, they would be far more successful. It reminds me of thieves who put more work into robbing people then furthering their education to get a real job, it just makes no sense. Sure, go ahead and sneak around the rules. That's the ticket to profitable trading!
I think it won't matter if it's "2" or "20" or whatever amount. As I've stated numerous times, passing the combine is NOT the main hurdle. So kicking the trader back to doing another combine where the rules are different, and with a time limit, really doesn't do any justice to help the trader pass the Jr Trader phase. If the goal is truly to get traders funded so they can start cashing checks, then why not just keep the rules consistent between combine and Jr Trader? If a trader follows the rules, then it would prevent "playing this thing out for so long."
No problem, I was just having a bit of fun. You know from my prior posts that I've been ADVOCATING the incorporation of the Jr Trader rules to the combine. In fact, I suggested that if a trader's goal is truly to get funded, then the trader should ADD the rules on their own while taking the combine! I also posted earlier that there has to be a reason why despite "100's of combines passed" we don't get much word of the number of traders who made Sr Trader. Volente correctly pointed out that TST would promote the numbers, it's in their best interest. You've stated that perhaps traders were prone to taking more risk in the combine, which they then had to tame down in the Jr account, and therefore TST was justified in having the weekly loss limit for the 50k and above accounts. Whatever the reasons, the disconnect still exists, and we simply keep pointing to them, that's all.
Back in 2003 when I was at Refco they used to have all the new traders go on a TT simulator for a month. One of the dudes in the first training class figured out how to add fills to his activity. So instead of actually working hard and following the markets/sim trading he just spent his time inputting trades. The people who ran Mac/Refco wanted their traders doing a gazillion trades a day so he had his work cut out for him. Well...schockingly he showed great numbers with his bs trades, then went live and got annihilated. It's hard enough for new guys to go from Sim to live, but doing it that way is just asking to fail miserably.