Well, my concern would be if they'd actually pay you if you're doing really well. And no, I'm not talking about pocket change, i.e., a few thousand dollars. Do you know anyone who withdrew substantial money from one such firm? There was a guy on here who was eligible for a huge payout with one FX firm and they did not pay him and he was taking legal action. I'll dig it up for you if you're interested. Personally, I would never do business with a firm that have a conflict of interest with me, i.e., the simulator firms. If I were to do business with a "get-funded" firm I would make sure it's one that actually puts me on a real live account such that money in my pocket is also money in their pocket. Why do business with a firm that's eligible for a huge loss if you do really well? Would you trust that they don't rig their system in some way to make sure you lose your connection in the middle of a big trade and break a rule? Or just declare bankruptcy instead of paying you? Well, it sure comes close to being a scam. These firms pretend they're "funding" traders with big accounts, looking for talent, etc., but like you yourself said their business model is based on the high failure rate of would-be-traders who keep buying evaluations and resets. TopstepTrader used to call it a 150K account, but I see that in recent time they changed the wording to "150K buying power". I'm sure someone made them aware of their misleading marketing. I see that Apex for example still calls it a 150K account which is a joke as what they're offering is a 5K account (your drawdown). Trust me. These firms don't need anyone looking out for them. They're doing very well already fleecing naive newbies.
I'll have to correct that as they're not even offering you a 5K account as you're effectively trading on a simulator. These firms are modern day bucket shops. Anyone who knows their trading history knows that Jesse Livermore was outlawed and banned from bucket shops as he was actually making money as opposed to most other customers. And for buckets shops a profitable trader was a net loss and not interesting for business. I don't see this as any different at all.
Yes true, at least you acknoledge but then that itself raises a question of transparency and sustainability..and honesty Honest prop firms base should be on finding talented funders/ supporting them and making money for both parties not this semi ponzy scheme of robbing Peter to pay Paul type of thing ! NOW I am not suggesting that every company is doing that but the marketing push indicated that they might be doing that ! Hence the issue . Other thing is if firm goes belly up because of this model those who have traded also burn their earnings! how fair is that.. the entire industry is unregulated that is why this happens... like mushrooms there are "Neo prop firms" Where as properly regulated props are far and few.
lie? in my example would be if I market myself saying LOOK I fund you for 200K without mentioning that it is the notional value due to internal leverage of the ES future in this case.. any way you don't care as far as you get paid so nothing more to discuss
You would be right if the $200K is all they mentioned ... But they don't ... It's clearly mentioned what the maximum trading size is or what the draw down is so it is more than obvious what you are paying for.
I know one guy who is at around $10K in withdrawals at Apex. But anyway, i couldn't imagine why anyone would want to stay after $25K (in the Apex example since that's what you can get without having to give up a share of the profits). At that point the $25K is all you can lose, so why not withdraw it, fund your own account and don't give away a share of the profits ... They literally provide 0 advantages after a certain point, unlike real prop desks, so why stick around ...
Okay. Thanks. I wouldn't say that's a substantial sum of money, though - especially if it's over multiple withdrawals. @Sekiyo have an ambitious goal of withdrawing $410K from Apex. I'm very skeptical if they would allow users to withdraw that kind of money and my take is that they would somehow engineer a failure (one way or the other) to prevent that from happening. No firm wants to give you $410K out of their own pockets. Okay. We seem to be in agreement then as per my prior posts which in summary would be that these firms can provide the opportunity to take out a smaller sum of capital which you could use to fund your own account.
Darrel Martin of Apex claims to have withdrawn $300K just from one funding company before he decided to start one of his own. Curious how many here actually believe this? I'm done believing a long time ago, so I call BULLSHITE on this claim. I would be surprised if this guy was even able to withdraw $3K from a funding firm. Prior to this recent business venture he was scamming people by selling worthless indicators.
I like how in all the trading copy, they throw in the "he was a rancher" bit. Um, that is relevant why? The hell that has to do with anything? I mean, that gives this all the credibility in the world. He's a Marlboro Man!
Scandinavian Capital charges $7 commission for a 1 Lot trade. So, a half lot is going to be $3.50, which extrapolates to $0.70 for 0.1 Lots, and $0.07 for 0.01 Lots.