c'mon mav... I'd expect more from you than that type of bush-league stupid talk. Notional value and control means less than nothing when it comes to intraday futures trading. Whether your account is $5,000 or $50,000 or $5,000,000 balance and you trade 1 ES contract, you still risk -$100 per trade and you will still never make one dime if you don't know how to trade. The only thing that matters is how much you risk per contract, and what your win/loss results are. Notional values and futures account intraday trade size have zero correlation with one another. Less than zero, actually.
You are responding to the wrong person. My post has to deal with the fact that whether you trade one contract or 500, it's ALL YOUR money. They are "letting" you lose your own capital. Therefore the idea they "let" you scale up is a moot pt.
Come on, scaling up is the same everywhere. In your own account too, you need decent capital per lot, before scaling up, otherwise you run the risk of getting blown out. Anyone who has ever traded own account knows that. You cannot hit all your margin money, and put it at stake. generally i would double my lots, if i triple or more my margin money. or 10kusd per lot in crude, where the margin is only 3k per lot. I know that if i scale up before this amount, there is a serious risk of blowing up the account. And there is no hurry either if you have a decent win rate, you get there slowly but surely.
I misspoke, I meant "retirement home". Seriously people, nowadays I use ET mostly for entertainment... Anyhow I have 2 points to make: 1. Time wasted is actually a good point to bring up. Not about us, posters, but would be traders using TST. Let's compare 2 newbies: A/ Puts 20K into a futures account, blows it quickly, then decides trading isn't for him and finds another job. B/ Pays for multiple Combines (let's say 2K fees) and for a year trying to pass the combine when after a year finally gives up after realizing trading isn't for him. So which trader is actually better off? Trader B lost much less using TST, but he also used more time to realize that this profession wasn't made for him. Time wasted also should be taken into account, when we are talking about carrier path. So Trader A might have lost more to the markets, but he also got out of it much faster and time is something what we humans can never make more.... The bottomline is, TST can make the dream of being a trader to survive much longer than a real account, but that isn't necessary a good thing. 2. I can't believe they let this Martha to pay a double fee for a 30 cars Combine, when everything else is being equal. After all, those are just numbers, not real contracts, and size management can be shown with 5 cars too. Since there is no way they would let her swing that much without building the cushion first in a real account, there was absolutely no advantage for her to pay a double fee, and from where I see it, this was like stealing candy from a 4 years old. Just because a combiner is stupid, they shouldn't take advantage of her....
Say someone has an edge, maybe can eke out 50-100 bucks a day trading ES in their PA on 1-2 lots. Maybe 15-30k notional value in the account, but they cant size up because they need to pull a few hundred out to pay bills or cant accept the risk/reward or have any number of other personal reasons that keeps them from just doubling or tripling the amount of contracts they do. So in a year this guy pulls in 15-25k from his 1 and 2 lots, keeping 100% payout! I see no reason why he shouldnt go to TST and try the combine to get a backer... Given the TST parameters, he could rescale his entries to 4-8 lots (instead of 1-2) and although the initial few months would be a loss compared to trading his own account, by the end of the year if he is funded he is making significantly more money, PLUS having the option to spread his bets from 1-10 contracts instead of 1-2. One other big issue is bet sizing. If someone is trading 1-2 lots in their own account, this means that on a half-decent trade they bet 1 unit, and on the best trade in the world/optimal setup they only bet 2 units?!? One of the biggest hurdles newer traders face is the fact that the difference they can bet on a mediocre setup versus a better risk-reward setup is very small, so they either end up having to pass on a ton of opportunities for which a feeler bet may keep them in the game. I realize I may not be addressing one of the primary questions in the thread, which seems to be why would a profitable trader with plenty of capital do the combine, but I cant imagine that there arent a ton of moderately profitable traders who would benefit from the TST structure and psychological benefits that come from being backed versus trading one's own account with 5-10k and the limits of trading with a short stack.
Generally I agree with your post, there are plenty of reasons one would want a little extra backing, no shame in that. But everything is NOT being equal as rules go comparing your own account and the TST account. Well, just to give you a few reasons: - The rules could be way too different. Maybe he has bigger than TST allowed DDs, maybe he averages once down, maybe he has less than 55% daily win rate, etc.etc. The point is that some of the TST rules simply makes no sense (55%, I am looking at you) so one profitable trader has to be pretty desperate to implement extra rules on himself for the backing advantage. - More distraction. Even if he trades the 2 accounts exactly the same, the distraction is there, specially with the extra set of rules. -More cars can mess up his game/mind set. Maybe not worth it... -I forgot exactly what the TST requirement is, but is he supposed to trade his own account parallel with the TST one? If a quick opportunity comes, which account does he trade first? -Tax-wise, it might put him in a different bracket... -etc.etc. So to answer your dilemma, there are perfectly valid reasons why an extra TST backing isn't good for an already profitable trader....
Got an email today about a special guest presenter tomorrow at TST.....is that the Austin from this site??