Howard Roark 

Glad to hear you're progressing well, phantomtrader! I'm rooting for your continued success. Most futures brokers seems to offer intraday margins, i.e., $500 for index futures. Interactive Brokers have way too high margins. With OneUp, you'll intially get to trade 5 contracts once you're funded. So, on your own, you would have to put up $2500/$5000 to do the same. Not that good of a deal, IMO, unless there's a trader with a great talent who only have $350 in his bank account. The interesting thing which is stated in the thread title is long term success and if these companies or OneUp specifically here will at any point stake you. The way I interpret it - they won't. If you withdraw profits, you're back to square one. Meaning you might as well trade your own account with a 100% profit split. The cushion you're building with OneUp is basically your own unrealized profits anyway. So, as long as that's in place it's your own profits that are at risk. Might as well risk them in one's own account then. But maybe I'm missing something obvious.

I view the margin requirements somewhat differently. I think it depends on your strategy and what your strategy requires as a cushion to trade efficiently. I'm a scalper as I described in a previous post. Sure, I can easily trade 6 with a $5,000 cushion. But that's the average day. If there's a true trend day and I want to add contracts, I need an additional cushion to add those contracts (actually, that's why I was curious about your windfall profit comment). I've assigned specific guidelines as to what cushion I need to trade the "average day" and what I need for that windfall day. Remember there are losses too - some days are highly inefficient where I might be in and out a half dozen times or more to achieve the goal.

So it really depends on your strategy and not so much what the brokerages will allow for margin. It's all numbers and calculations based on your strategy.

Also, remember my goal is to scale up to the maximum number of contracts using the same calculations. Right now I'm planning on moving to 8 contracts around September 15th. We'll see if it works out.

phantomtrader 

I view the margin requirements somewhat differently. I think it depends on your strategy and what your strategy requires as a cushion to trade efficiently. I'm a scalper as I described in a previous post. Sure, I can easily trade 6 with a $5,000 cushion. But that's the average day. If there's a true trend day and I want to add contracts, I need an additional cushion to add those contracts (actually, that's why I was curious about your windfall profit comment). I've assigned specific guidelines as to what cushion I need to trade the "average day" and what I need for that windfall day. Remember there are losses too - some days are highly inefficient where I might be in and out a half dozen times or more to achieve the goal. So it really depends on your strategy and not so much what the brokerages will allow for margin. It's all numbers and calculations based on your strategy. Also, remember my goal is to scale up to the maximum number of contracts using the same calculations. Right now I'm planning on moving to 8 contracts around September 15th. We'll see if it works out.

Wouldn't you be able to add more contracts if it was a real account, too?

Regardless, I'm glad you're happy. And I wish you the best in scaling up and hoping it works out for you long term. Hell - maybe you'll even make me a believer again!

FWIW, I'm back with my real account on the 1st of September. Been a few crazy months with not much time for trading, but finally finding the time to do so and I don't mind risking my own capital then. It would be great to get some funding at some point, though, as it would make me reach my independence faster than if I'm all on my own.

Howard Roark 

Wouldn't you be able to add more contracts if it was a real account, too? Regardless, I'm glad you're happy. And I wish you the best in scaling up and hoping it works out for you long term. Hell - maybe you'll even make me a believer again! FWIW, I'm back with my real account on the 1st of September. Been a few crazy months with not much time for trading, but finally finding the time to do so and I don't mind risking my own capital then. It would be great to get some funding at some point, though, as it would make me reach my independence faster than if I'm all on my own.

I still have my personal account which runs a different strategy on a different computer. I have 2 lifetime licenses with Ninja. I could certainly scalp in my own account but I wanted to try this out to see how fast I could run up to 15 contracts with a smaller margin (I generally have 3x margin per strategy in my personal account). I fully recognize that it's my money in the OneUp account that I'm trading. This is sort of an experiment for me. When, and if, I get to 15 contracts, I intend to re-evaluate my margin requirements, etc for my strategy.

I also wanted to see what it was like to trade with one of these companies As I mentioned before, I've had no problems with OneUp. I think it's a good company. At the very least, they're not adverse to scalpers like TopStep is.

Good luck with your trading.

Any news?

Did you manage to scale up to 15 contracts, phantomtrader?

Would be nice to hear an update if and if you're still happy with OneUp if you don't mind sharing. Thank you.

Howard Roark 

Did you manage to scale up to 15 contracts, phantomtrader? Would be nice to hear an update if and if you're still happy with OneUp if you don't mind sharing. Thank you.

No. Staying at 6 lots. The reason is the $4,000 per day drawdown. My method simply doesn't work well if the daily drawdown doesn't scale along with it. So won't be scaling up to the 15 that I had originally planned.
Anything beyond 6 lots is dangerous and unrealistic.

OnUp is still good. No complaints. Withdrawals no problem. Support is good.

I'll probably be going back to my personal account at some point. I realize now that it's too difficult to move forward because of that $4,000 daily drawdown regardless how much you
have in your account, which is something I failed to understand at the beginning. I thought that if I had profit in the account that the drawdown would increase as the profit increased.
That said, I've made money with the account. But my plan didn't turned out to be realistic.

Overall, the company is good.

How is your new personal account going?

phantomtrader 

No. Staying at 6 lots. The reason is the $4,000 per day drawdown. My method simply doesn't work well if the daily drawdown doesn't scale along with it. So won't be scaling up to the 15 that I had originally planned. Anything beyond 6 lots is dangerous and unrealistic. OnUp is still good. No complaints. Withdrawals no problem. Support is good. I'll probably be going back to my personal account at some point. I realize now that it's too difficult to move forward because of that $4,000 daily drawdown regardless how much you have in your account, which is something I failed to understand at the beginning. I thought that if I had profit in the account that the drawdown would increase as the profit increased. That said, I've made money with the account. But my plan didn't turned out to be realistic. Overall, the company is good. How is your new personal account going?

Thanks for your good and honest feedback. Glad to hear things are going well.

That sucks about the daily drawdown, though. I was also thinking initially (and even at this point) that they would remove this as long as you risk your own money. In a way they're prohibiting growth of the trader, then. Did you talk to them about this?

I don't know what other companies do, but I have the impression that most won't really change the rules at any point or give you more loose parameters as you prove yourself. Which was much what I was asking in the OP.

The private account is going okay. A bit inconsistent, but overall moving in the right direction.

Best.

Howard

Howard Roark 

Thanks for your good and honest feedback. Glad to hear things are going well. That sucks about the daily drawdown, though. I was also thinking initially (and even at this point) that they would remove this as long as you risk your own money. In a way they're prohibiting growth of the trader, then. Did you talk to them about this? I don't know what other companies do, but I have the impression that most won't really change the rules at any point or give you more loose parameters as you prove yourself. Which was much what I was asking in the OP. The private account is going okay. A bit inconsistent, but overall moving in the right direction. Best. Howard

No, I haven't talked to them about the issue. They have a policy, they obviously have their reasons. In any case, it was an experiment. I wouldn't say it failed, but revealed nuances about this type of prop trading that people may not realize.
It's true that you really can't advance beyond a certain level regardless your strategy. I agree with you that a trader should be able to utilize their profit for drawdown, perhaps with a limit of say 90% of the total profit in the account.

In the end, there are severe limitations as to how much you can achieve with these firms. If you make enough profit with them, take it out and open your own account. I haven't traded my personal account since I started with OneUP - too difficult to scalp two platforms simultaneously. Will be back trading my personal account soon.

Glad your personal account is going well.

phantomtrader 

No. Staying at 6 lots. The reason is the $4,000 per day drawdown. My method simply doesn't work well if the daily drawdown doesn't scale along with it. So won't be scaling up to the 15 that I had originally planned. Anything beyond 6 lots is dangerous and unrealistic. OnUp is still good. No complaints. Withdrawals no problem. Support is good. I'll probably be going back to my personal account at some point. I realize now that it's too difficult to move forward because of that $4,000 daily drawdown regardless how much you have in your account, which is something I failed to understand at the beginning. I thought that if I had profit in the account that the drawdown would increase as the profit increased. That said, I've made money with the account. But my plan didn't turned out to be realistic. Overall, the company is good. How is your new personal account going?

Good morning,

maybe Leeloo or Apex can be a solution for this problem.
Both have no daily drawdown if you are in the Performance account. The trailing stops after it’s past the “threshold”. Then you are able to work with your own parameters.


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MR79 

Good morning, maybe Leeloo or Apex can be a solution for this problem. Both have no daily drawdown if you are in the Performance account. The trailing stops after it’s past the “threshold”. Then you are able to work with your own parameters. Sent using the NexusFi mobile app

I think Leelo system is not viable, it is clearly designed so that a trader will break the rules no matter what.
The trailing drawdown is computed intraday on the open profits. So you must always remember what your open equity peak was.

Trading is hard enough without having to remember this.
Most of other companies, for instance Earn2trade or topstep remove the trailing drawdown once it reaches a certain level plus they don't compute intraday and they don't compute it using open profits.

When I see leelo's condition I wonder if they have ever traded a single day in their life and if they could pass the evaluation.

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