Beware...Most of the time it is capital you give them. You forfeit anywhere from from 5k to 12k as training fee, enrollment fee to be given a chance to trade the firm's capital. This is a non-refundable fee, it is the firm's capital as soon as you hand it over. You will be ask to pay for more training as soon as you lose a small portion of your upfront fees. That is how you will be trading the firm's capital! This was a scam model first used by Oliver Velez. Now many so called prop firms are using this model to scam aspiring traders with a dream. You give the firm the capital, you pay the commisions, the firms gets a split, What a great deal !! A risk deposit, on the other hand, is yours until you lose it - and the firm can't claim that that you are trading their capital !
My question is "If you know otherwise, please I like to know". If you recoup your training fees, and now making a living working for such a prop firm after paying many thousands in training, please tell everyone here.
Hippie, I understand this but why do you either start 50 new threads or post the same info in all prop firms threads? I think most people get it, but for many its an only option. Not the best one, one with low probability of success but an option nevertheless. Besides, what would you have a firm do? Give new traders with no track record 200K buying power, charge them rock-bottom commissions and give them 90% payouts? More importantly, what would YOU like to see happen, and how would you structure it if you were the owner of a prop firm?
Hippie likes to read his own posts, a blog away from here might serve him and the members of this site well.
True prop firms don't charge any money for training and they don't request any money for a deposit EVER. They train you for free and your buying power increases as/if you experience more success. Payouts are split.
Agreed. True prop firms also don't hire just any monkey off the street, and most aspiring "traders" won't ever get in one of these places (Title and Swift notwithstanding, but I'm unsure of any real training that either place does).
What can a firm do? Charge a reasonable monthly fee instead of many thousands upfront - if its goal is to profit from the success of its traders and not from scamming them with an enormous non-refundable upfront fee. This was previously posted as discussion under Keystone. I re-posted here when I realized that it was not only Keystone, but the practice of most so called prop firms - esp the online ones!
Ok, why should they risk any of their money so you have a shot at making some? If you don't have a track record?
If these scam props really believe in their training, they won't be constantly recruiting newbies to give them the many thousands. They can have their trainee trader trade very small, first on simulator, then trade very small live, increase buying power as the trader learns. Even if a trading fee is merited, it is not worth the many thousands these fake props are charging. Yes, I am pissed because I had responded to many trader job ads, only to find that all they want was an enormous training fee or enrollment fee they is becomes the firms capital (not even as a risk deposit). WHY SHOULD ANY TRADER GIVE SUCH A FIRM MANY THOUSANDS IN ORDER TO GET A SPLIT BACK IF HE SUCCEEDS ?? The big issue here is that the firm has little or no interest in helping the trader in making profit. It makes its money from the enormous training fees it charges. For such a firm to say "you will be trading with the firm's capital" is an LIE.