Yes, I was lazy and/or ignorant and I was experimenting, which means wasting money and time. I still have questions about how it all works.

Northernlimit 

I just went through a few months of TopStep on a $150k Combine and finally hit the loss limit. Here are my thoughts for what it's worth. 1. You can't scale up to a higher combine. If you sign up for a 50k then that is what you are locked in at until you do another combine; you can't move from a lower combine to a higher combine. I initially signed for a 50k and determined a couple of days later that I wanted a $150k. I didn't even trade and they wouldn't give me a credit to up-grade. I realized too late that I can't earn enough on the small lot size to make the time worthwhile on a 50k. 2. It's not clear that the loss limit is from the peak earned. The loss limit on $150k combine is $4.5k, so that's $144.50k; but nope I peaked near $153.5k, so when my account dropped to $149k I was out. Didn't realize that. With the extra money that I thought I had in the account I was scaling up from 3 lots to 6-9 lots, unaware that the loss limit is peak to trough. It would be nice if they gave an email notice of the limit changes, but you really should log into your account every day. Also, this means that if your style means risking x$ on x lots then that is your risk / style and you are locked into that, unless you change your approach, regardless of the maximum lot limit. In other words your style determines your position size, therefore those who are struggling in defining their style might also have trouble defining their appropriate position size and by extension their loss limit. 3. Further on point#2 on a $150k the maximum lot limit is 15 lots. I only hit that limit once, most trades were 3 lots, with a view to build a consistent approach, but really I should have blown the doors off every month with 15 lots, tried to hit the $9k target, and if I lost $4.5k then re-sign for another combine; which really isn't what their model is all about, but with a monthly fee they are asking for traders to do this. It doesn't make any sense to me that I pay a full monthly fee and I'm penalized because I utilize a conservative risk approach that takes longer to hit $9 win level. I realized this too late. 4. If I do this again I will be better prepared in my trading. I would want to test my trades live on paper, and define my style in a consistent fashion then determine which Combine is best before committing the money, bearing in mind that at some point under their fixed structure you are eventually better off trading your own money. Hope this helps.

In regards to point 1 it does say here, https://help.futures.topstep.com/hc/en-us/articles/220389528-What-is-the-Scaling-Plan-, that once $5k profit has been made you can request adjusted risk parameters.

Hi guys,

It is my pleasure to welcome John Hoagland @ TopstepTrader for a webinar on Thursday, October 26th @ 4:30PM Eastern US.

The topic of this webinar is "Profiting in Futures Markets Without Risking Your Own Money", and bullet points include:

Presented by: John Hoagland, who has 35 years of futures trading experience. After trading on the floor at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange for 20 years, he migrated to screen trading in 2009. He has helped develop thousands of traders at TopstepTrader over the past six years.

A little about TST:

TopstepTrader has backed more than 1,000 traders since launching in 2012. Join John as he discusses how TopstepTrader puts its capital to work in the market for individual traders:

- How does TopstepTrader find and evaluate traders?
- What is the process that individual traders go through to earn a funded trading account?
- How can TopstepTrader help traders become disciplined and profitable?
- How much capital does TopstepTrader back its traders with?
- And much more

Register for the event:
https://on.futures.io/cft3b

Mike

Mr. Hoagland should be required to address the reason why TradingSchools.org revoked their 5 star rating.

Regardless of your feelings about Emmett, going from a 5 star to a "TopStepTrader sucks" almost never happens. Remember John, the truth shall set you free.

tommartin321 

Mr. Hoagland should be required to address the reason why TradingSchools.org revoked their 5 star rating. Regardless of your feelings about Emmett, going from a 5 star to a "TopStepTrader sucks" almost never happens. Remember John, the truth shall set you free.

We'd encourage anyone interested in our program to check out what our actual users have to say about us. We have earned 9.1 out of 10 stars on Trustpilot, 4.8 stars out of 5 on Facebook, and 4.7 out of 5 stars on Google - based on 345 independent reviews.

We continue to innovate and make our program better every day. That's why we are the leading option for futures traders to get funding.

Webinar recording:

Mike

What did everyone think of the webinar?

Mike

tommartin321 

Mr. Hoagland should be required to address the reason why TradingSchools.org revoked their 5 star rating. Regardless of your feelings about Emmett, going from a 5 star to a "TopStepTrader sucks" almost never happens. Remember John, the truth shall set you free.

“MES Capital rebranded their name to One Up Trader and decided to offer a better deal for consumers. How much of a better deal? Much better. They addressed some of the most egregious practices of TopStep Trader. I won’t go into the specifics, but the business model of OneUp Trader is now attempting to offer a better deal to consumers.”

“Thanks for reading. This is a story that I would truly love to read your comments. Personally, these buttholes at TopStep Trader have really gotten under my skin. Its time that someone knocks them square in the jaw.”
Article: https://www.tradingschools.org/topstep-trader-vs-oneup-trader/



These are my favourite quotes. Sounds like he really went out of his way to put together a constructively argued and objective article.
I like the way he criticises Topstep for charging for Combines, (because it is a business that has running costs and overheads, and horror of horrors makes a profit for the people who risked their time and money to set the business up), unlike the way MES used to, then MES fails, turns into One Up and starts charging for Combines. But whereas TST charging is bad, somehow One Up charging is good, and an improvement on it having been free before.

In a previous TST v One Up review he listed all the things that were bad about TST and glossed over the fact that the same rules all now applied to One Up since they had just copied them all. There are now only a few differences between the two, such as:

TST require a 10 day minimum Combine followed by a 10 day minimum FTP, One Up only require a 15 day minimum Combine.

One Up are a little cheaper.

But then, One Up has some extra rules, such as the 80 % rule for three days profits in relation to the highest day’s profits.

Also TST went to the trouble and expense of integrating the trading platforms in to their risk management interface/software so that you can’t for instance exceed the maximum number of contracts allowable to trade as the order is refused. One Up it appears haven’t gone to the expense of doing that as was clearly shown by a newly funded One Up trader last week writing a journal on this site who accidentally added a contract to a position instead of taking one of, exceeded their maximum position size, and lost their account. He is now racing through a TST Combine as with One Up, once it is over that’s it. Find me one trader that has never accidentally clicked buy instead of sell, or vice versa, before realising and taking it off. (

Lone's Oneup Journal Well, I did not get a warning.

,

TopStep Combine Journal Hi all since Oneup didn't work out and they took away my funded account I decided to start one with TopStep and see how it goes. Will update my progress from the start. Strategy is still to actively daytrade NQ and S/R scalp other instruments with …

)

Lastly TST have chat rooms and lots of help videos they are producing every week clearly showing their staff and the company CEO, all former floor traders offering advice and showing the company philosophy. One Up has an address on their website and no other information about the people involved with the company.

Nobody is forced to buy either company’s product. I have chosen TST. It is a bit more expensive but I trust them and I think the extras add value.
Coming to the original point, I don’t see why TST should address anything to TradingSchools, the brief working relationship they had has soured and the guy is clearly completely biased against them.

I've tried the combine multiple times, and I'm just not good enough to pass them at this time. I made a video with my thoughts and criticism of how the combines work.

TWDsje 

I've tried the combine multiple times, and I'm just not good enough to pass them at this time. I made a video with my thoughts and criticism of how the combines work.

Thanks TWDsje for the update.
Your experience was exactly my experience when I tried the combined last year for about 6 months.
TST is a great place for a trader to begin because you protect your capital while taking on the challenge to make money at low risk.
My lessons are:
1. Verify my strategy trailing drawdown from a back test is not more than TST combine trailing drawdown.
2. Follow the rules of my strategy and TST rules with no exceptions.
The challenge of TST is the trailing drawdown, you must make sure your strategy does not hit this. It is tuff to find a strategy with $2K drawdown over X amount of trades. I think the timing of when you start the strategy on the market you want to trade needs to align. For example, I would not start an intra-day trend following strategy for the ES in the summer cause of know chop chop. Just my opinion and my experience.
If the strategy hits the drawdown and you followed the rules, then it is what it is. It was a great experience for me, but I stopped cause like you I didn’t have a strategy I was comfortable and confident with following. I am still in the lab looking for it. I encourage all newbies to start at TST. Protect your capital.