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I have experience working with several funded programs, and obtaining funding from these systems is a challenging task. However, if you want to save money and gain some practice, you can create a demo account with many trading firms. This will allow you to practice trading for 10-15 days before you decide to open a real account." to get funding from the system. Say you want to save money and use a demo account, which can be freely created with many trading firms. This gives 10-15 days of practice before you can open a real account.
Paper trading is a popular method for practicing trading strategies without risking real money. While it has many benefits, it also has some potential issues that traders should be aware of.
One of the biggest challenges with paper trading is that it doesn't involve real money, so traders may experience different emotional reactions than they would with actual investments. This lack of emotional involvement can lead to unrealistic decision-making and overconfidence.
Another issue is that since there's no real money at stake, traders may not take paper trading as seriously as they would live trading. This can lead to unrealistic risk-taking behavior and skewed results. Additionally, trade executions in paper trading may not accurately reflect real-world conditions. For example, slippage and liquidity issues may not be accurately simulated, leading to unrealistic expectations about trading performance.
Furthermore, paper trading platforms may use delayed or inaccurate market data, which can affect the realism of the trading experience and the accuracy of results. Psychological factors such as a false sense of security or overconfidence can also be created if early success is achieved in paper trading. Conversely, repeated failures in paper trading can lead to frustration and loss of confidence, impacting future trading decisions.
Lastly, paper trading doesn't accurately simulate the psychological and emotional aspects of actual trading, such as managing positions in volatile markets, dealing with sudden price movements, and making split-second decisions. These skills are crucial for successful trading but cannot be fully developed in a simulated environment.
Despite these issues, paper trading can still be a valuable tool for beginners to learn about trading strategies, practice executing trades, and familiarize themselves with trading platforms. However, it's essential for traders to recognize the limitations of paper trading and to complement it with real trading experience to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the markets. Paper trading, which involves practicing trading strategies without risking real money by using simulated accounts, has several potential issues.
I made a lot of money in paper trading but incurred heavy losses when I tested my strategy with real money in day trading. No discipline was developed, and risk management was not learned, which are some primary reasons for my failure.
I am using the funded programs to develop a system that can work without losing a lot of my money. A $2000-$3000 blowout can be gained from $50, and you can experience real emotion, journal, and try to understand yourself before betting big money.
Using funded trading programs as a stepping stone to develop and refine a trading system before risking significant personal capital can be a prudent approach. Here's how you can maximize the benefits of such programs:
Risk management: Treat the funded account as if it were your own capital. Even though you're not risking your money initially, adopting sound risk management practices will help you develop discipline and protect your capital in the long run. Set realistic risk limits and stick to them.
Emotional involvement: Even though the money in a funded account isn't yours, try to treat each trade as if it were. This will help you experience the emotions associated with trading without risking your own capital. Use this opportunity to observe how you react to wins and losses and work on maintaining emotional balance.
Journaling: Keep a detailed trading journal to record your thoughts, strategies, emotions, and the outcomes of each trade. Analyzing your journal entries can provide valuable insights into your trading habits, strengths, and areas for improvement. Use this information to refine your trading approach over time.
Understanding yourself: Take advantage of the funded trading program to gain a deeper understanding of your risk tolerance, decision-making process, and psychological biases. Use this self-awareness to tailor your trading strategy to align with your strengths and mitigate your weaknesses.
Gradual scaling: Once you've developed a profitable trading system and gained confidence in your abilities, consider scaling up gradually by increasing position sizes or transitioning to trading with your own capital. This approach allows you to test the viability of your system in live market conditions while minimizing the risk of significant losses.
Remember that funded trading programs typically come with their own rules and requirements, so familiarize yourself with the terms and conditions before participating. Stay disciplined, patient, and committed to continuous learning and improvement throughout your trading journey.
Some have only a one-off fee now (and more will surely follow, as the game is now so competitive) but even the ones with a monthly fee don‘t charge it after you’re funded.
I am currently on 12 Apex PAs and 1 Topstep XFA when I signed up for them both about 5-6 weeks ago. I've withdrawn profits out of Topstep as they are easier to get to a payout level, but the Apex accounts are hard going.
Prior to that I was trading my own capital and was doing fine and could keep on doing fine for the years to come. The reason I switched over is they offer multiple accounts for a small outlay of capital. Each Apex PA has cost me $160 ($140 to activate their lifetime fee and ~$20 for the eval) which is the only cost to me. I plan to make $200 a day per account (5 MNQ at 20pts) and with a trade copier, when that's multiplied out it's $2,400 over the 12 accounts (hell even $100/day is more than enough)
To make the equivalent on my live account I would have to trade 6 minis which needs $6000 for margin + drawdown buffer, which in my prior rules is $5,000 per mini resulting in an account size of about $36,000. I have never traded 6 minis before and my brain would probably pop if I attempted it, but I can handle the 5 micros with ease.
The Apex accounts are harder because of the trailing drawdown and you need to take profits quickly to minimise the effect on this. I have to make $2500 in profit for the trailing DD to stop and I'm sitting at about $1100 profit.
Provided you know the rules the company puts up and you know how to play the long game, they can be profitable only if you can trade already and you have the financial security to wait out the 2-3 months to build up the accounts to where you can take a payout.
I've been funded and has taken withdrawals from both E2T and Topstep. E2T now will deduct the activation/setup fee directly from profits when a withdrawal is made. You don't pay the activation fee (only for LiveSim as Live does not have this fee) if you never make a withdrawal. So that probably make them the cheapest to get funded in terms of upfront cost if take advantage of their promos. However, their minimum trading days requirement isn't for the impatient.
I learned a little more about Trade The Pool and their "copy trading" prohibition. Not only can you not copy other traders, but you can't have the same strategy in >2 of your own funded accounts. Their terms and conditions were vague so I did a chat and learned this.
I'm disappointed, since I was hoping to rack up multiple funded like some you have described on Apex, but I can't. I really don't have more than one strategy.
Also, once funded, they don't want any trade to lose more than 30% of your daily drawdown limit.
I get that they care about risk management, but these rules really impact the size that you can realistically trade.
I traded and gotten payouts from (most) of these companies: Apex Trader Funding (ATF), TopStep, My Funded Futures (MFF), Take Profit Trader (TFT)
Are they the same thing as trading a personal brokerage? no, but its a cheap way to supplement my other trading or just get my foot in the door with trading. Also losing $50 for a bad trade (and time spent trading) has been much nicer than losing real money.
I think the problem comes in when people do try and gamble or take higher-risk trades with these accounts. Then you are really just feeding the fee machine (new accounts or resets) and that's not healthy for your long term trading longevity.
But like others said use them as a tool to add to your personal account, or if you are only doing online prop sim trading, then go slow. Also this post from ejg0 is right on the money, focus on the prize for each stage of the account
One thing I would add, is stop thinking of the accounts as a $50k account... It's not a $50k account, its a $3k account. The amount of money you can lose is the account size, and you should adjust the number of contracts you trade accordingly. For me personally, when I'm in my brokerage I like 1k of risk per contract in NQ when scalping, so when in a prop firm with 3k drawdown, that's 3 contracts for my trading style. If you don't know what your personal acceptable risk is, try in a free practice account until you find the amount of money you usually call a trade bad or close it, and double it. Now since its a sim prop account most people don't do the double, but I feel that's just creating bad risk habits for when you eventually are trading your own money
Also on this topic...
It seems to me like these are legitimate server issues with Rithmic. Other data providers are not having the same issues. I'm assuming going with a lower cost provider like Rithmic has its drawbacks like this, since they might have under sized their IT infrastructure so during high load there are glitches
