Baudo 

This payout scheme is completely understandable from their risk perspective. They strip away all kind of rules and this is what you get back. Lots of traders with bad risk management will pass the evaluation just by being lucky. Therefore, most will fail in the performance account. For apex to have longevity these probably have to be filtered out. If not in the evaluation stage, then in de first stages of the performance account. It seems they want to minimise their risk by stretching payouts in time the way they do. Nevertheless: if you are consistently profitable (which most of us aren't), this is not really problem except for the patience. Maybe for myself, it would have been a more logical choice to go with a funding party with tight rules, but immediate payout opportunity (like topstep). Either go for a minimum rules & low cost of the evaluation of companies like Apex, or go for a tight risk ruled/consistency/double combine, (very) premium priced alternative like topstep that gives opportunity for complete and immediate payout in their funded accounts. You can't have both in one provider. Which is completely logical to me.

@Baudo, I have no prior knowledge of Apex and am not commenting one way or another on the company or its program, but thanks for this very detailed account of your experience and your thoughts on their program, and particularly your assessment of the risk/reward situation, both for traders trying it out and for the company. I think you explained your viewpoint on the plusses and minuses very well, and offered a useful perspective on the entire funding company industry.

The simple reality is that any attempt at trading will be inherently risky, and that anyone approaching a funding opportunity should understand how that risk is going to affect them. Many traders apparently just see dollar signs and assume they will naturally trade brilliantly and will be effortlessly profitable, which is not generally going to be the case. I hope more aspiring traders can understand and properly manage the risks of trading and realistically assess how their trading responds to them.

I hope your review helps others to have a realistic assessment of how they want to approach this and any other funding opportunity, with an open-eyed understanding of the risks as well as the positive potential.

I also hope you will find that your experience with Apex works out well for you, and I look forward to any future posts you have on it.

Bob.

(Edited for clarity)

bobwest 

@Baudo, I have no prior knowledge of Apex and am not commenting one way or another on the company or its program, but thanks for this very detailed account of your experience and your thoughts on their program, and particularly your assessment of the risk/reward situation, both for traders trying it out and for the company. I think you explained your viewpoint on the plusses and minuses very well, and offered a useful perspective on the entire funding company industry. The simple reality is that any attempt at trading will be inherently risky, and that anyone approaching a funding opportunity should understand how that risk is going to affect them. Many traders apparently just see dollar signs and assume they will naturally trade brilliantly and will be effortlessly profitable, which is not generally going to be the case. I hope more aspiring traders can understand and properly manage the risks of trading and realistically assess how their trading responds to them. I hope your review helps others to have a realistic assessment of how they want to approach this and any other funding opportunity, with an open-eyed understanding of the risks as well as the positive potential. I also hope you will find that your experience with Apex works out well for you, and I look forward to any future posts you have on it. Bob. (Edited for clarity)

Hi BobWest,

Thanks for your reply. Since most traders fail the funded account in several days, it's understandable why parties like Topstep offer their Pro account, LiveSim and other synthetic accounts in order to keep clients from trading directly on the exchange. If the evaluation step is made easier without any demands on consistency, this necessarily has effects on the way the funded account has to be managed. Hence the amount of synthetic funded accounts.

I agree with you, that risk management is one of the primordial elements of trading. By having no/less rules, no consistency rules, and huge allowed lot sizes compared to the loss limits, funding companies for marketing reasons tend to advertise with widened risk parameters which in the end will be a huge disadvantage for beginning traders, both from a learning perspective (learning how to trade consistently and limit the risk of ruin) as well as the speed of failure in the paid account. It's kind of ridiculous to give traders a certificate that they passed such an evaluation stage, like some companies do. It reinforces the false belief that their approach is successful. It's a known fact that almost all traders who pass the evaluation stage of a funding company, will fail in no time. I'm convinced only a very small fraction will make it to the 25th day. Therefore, the only certificate that's significant is a track record of consistent trading, celebrated by your first payouts

I'll keep you posted. Thanks for your reply. Good luck all.

Baudo 

It's a known fact that almost all traders who pass the evaluation stage of a funding company, will fail in no time. I'm convinced only a very small fraction will make it to the 25th day. Therefore, the only certificate that's significant is a track record of consistent trading, celebrated by your first payouts

I think this is the simple fact of life of the funding account business, and unfortunately many traders will believe that they didn't succeed due to the desire of the funding company to cheat them with arbitrary and overly difficult rules, when in fact they failed simply for the same reasons that traders generally fail. It is reported that something over 90% of traders trading their own accounts go broke, and there is no reason to think that the traders attempting a funded account do not face the same odds, for the same reasons.

They could look at the attempt to get a funded account as a cheap way to learn to face the risks and pressures of trading (a few hundred dollars for the entry fee is much less expensive than blowing a real account.) I'm afraid that being realistic about the risks of trading, and about one's own need to change and improve, is as big a problem with people trying for a funded account as it is for everyone else.

I am not being critical of these traders, because everyone faces the same issues, and success or failure depends on meeting them head-on and finding a way past them. I just wish that people could be more aware of this and would focus on what their experiences, good and bad, have to teach them.

Bob.

so a question for those that have contacted @ApexTraderFunding - only customer service is through email ? I couldnt find a phone number and address is for a generic mail forwarding office. No direct messaging on site either.

garyboy275 

so a question for those that have contacted @ApexTraderFunding - only customer service is through email ? I couldnt find a phone number and address is for a generic mail forwarding office. No direct messaging on site either.

Hi Garyboy, we do have a phone number which is listed on the bottom of the About page. We also have a live chat option. But honestly, since we are growing so fast all of our help desk representatives are busy with answering tickets all day long.
We also do a lot of remote sessions to help our clients to get everything up and running as fast as possible, which is quite time consuming as you can imagine.

Marion

k7ler 

there is any update to add eurex data on challange to trade europeen time zone , more attractive for news trader and more option challange can now there is many micro contract low margin , thanx you

We would love to offer Eurex but Rithmic does not offer it to us. They used to but stopped last year I believe it was.

Marion

Baudo 

Here is my promised REVIEW on customer experience and passing the evaluation account with APEX Very detailed Information on their website and per mail Much Kudo's to Apextrader funding for warning their traders for rookie mistakes, like: - not understanding the live trailing drawdown: it's ridiculous that aspiring traders are to lazy to monitor this, and then complain about this in online reviews. APEX had repeatedly warned for this on their website, in their contracts, in the mails they sent, they have video footage where they clarify this extensively, and it's clearly stated on the site and explicitly in their advertised products (live trailing drawdow)

Thanks for your honest review.
I find it very interesting that you mentioned the "not understanding the live trailing drawdown" issue. As you said we try really hard to get this message out to everyone, we try to be as transparent as possible.

Baudo 

Here is my promised REVIEW on customer experience and passing the evaluation account with APEX I have 150k account, so I have to trade up to 155k, I can only pay out the amount that surpasses this 155k. So this 5k generated profits permanently needs to stay in the account. This 5k practically can not be payed out. I won't disclose details from the contract (most funding parties have non-disclosure in their contracts) but let me say this: on their website I couldn't find their policy how to get this 5k paid out as a trader.

I want clarify this misconception.
Using your example, the 150K account... Required Minimum Balance to do a withdrawal is $155,000. You can withdrawal up to $2750 for the first 3 month. The 5K generated profit does NOT have to stay in your account permanently.
When the limits are lifted after the 3rd month you can withdrawal up to the threshold of $150.100 (when you decide to take all the money out to fund your own account for example)
So, all you give up on the profits you generated are these $100.
Hope this makes sense

Marion

ApexTraderFunding 

I want clarify this misconception. Using your example, the 150K account... Required Minimum Balance to do a withdrawal is $155,000. You can withdrawal up to $2750 for the first 3 month. The 5K generated profit does NOT have to stay in your account permanently. When the limits are lifted after the 3rd month you can withdrawal up to the threshold of $150.100 (when you decide to take all the money out to fund your own account for example) So, all you give up on the profits you generated are these $100. Hope this makes sense Marion

Hi Marion,

Thank you for this clarification.

I checked the contract again and you are right, I misconceived.

So in summary:
- There Required Minimum For Payout, this is 155k
- There is a Minimum Balance Threshold, which, after reaching 155.1k will stay fixed at 150.100.
- After payouts, there has to be at least 100$ profit in the account (not the 5k, as I stated before). Because of withdrawal limits on the first three payouts, such a withdrawal to 150.100 is only possible after the fourth month.
- In all cases, you can only request for a payout when above 155k.

I'll add a correction to the previous post on this point.

Best regards

Baudo 

Here is my promised REVIEW on customer experience and passing the evaluation account with APEX There is a minimum balance threshold, which in my opinion is practically a second combine Caveat: you first have to trade up to a minimum account balance. I have 150k account, so I have to trade up to 155k, I can only pay out the amount that surpasses this 155k. So this 5k generated profits permanently needs to stay in the account. This 5k practically can not be payed out. I won't disclose details from the contract (most funding parties have non-disclosure in their contracts) but let me say this: on their website I couldn't find their policy how to get this 5k paid out as a trader. From the traders perspective, it's wise to just see this as a 'second combine'. You need to achieve this before you can make profits than can actually be paid out. So forget about the first 5k generated profits. To me this is a MAJOR disadvantage in their proposition.

RECTIFICATION

This element of my post was a misconception. See the the posts above.
All profits, except for first 100$, can be paid out after reaching your withdrawal threshold.
Be aware that you can only apply for a payout as long as your account is above the minimum balance threshold (>155k for a 150k account).

Thanks to Apex for fast reply.