See my previous post. Also, know also that 15 days is the MINIMUM for MES. And on the OneUp website, I routinely tell evaluees to take their time and don't rush - to "take 30, 60, or even 90 days to complete the trial. "
Completing any one of the OneUp/MES evaluations in 15 days requires a daily return on available capital that is BETTER THAN THE BEST TRADER IN THE WORLD. (Just an educated guess here based on the numbers in the next paragraph.)
For example, the $150k evaluation is $9k profit in 15 trading days and the max draw down is $5k. Do the math! To do $9k in 15 days is $600 per day. $600 per day/$5,000 is 12% PER DAY day consistently for 15 days. What is the annual return? 3,000%.
Even if you make the evaluation in 30 days, you are doing 6% per day (1,500% annual) and 60 days = 3% per day (750% annual).
So no, its not realistic at all!!! But however unrealistic and unsustainable the returns are, the evaluations are short term. And I think they give TST, OneUp/MES, LeeLoo, Earn2Trade, and many others something to judge potential traders buy. It could just be a combine money maker, but as I posted before, I do think MES and OneUp are separate, and I have talked with two traders who have been LIVE with MES for almost 2 years now.
Congrats on trying out the micro contracts! The ES is one option, but the micro NQ is also a good mover.
I am currently trading MNQ and MYM. Unfortunately, I have just learned a hard lesson. The small size allowed me to increase my stops, but I made them too big. While I have been trading my Live MES account and my new trial account on LeeLoo (I like the rules better), I have also been taking small trades with MNQ and MYM. And with the market moving up so fast the last 5 days, I let some trades get away.
So keep it tight, and trade them just like you would the ES, NQ, or YM. But be aware of the slightly larger spreads and almost double the RT costs as a % of the potential profit compared to the Emini's. ($.78 RT all in at AMP for MESM9 vs $4.00 RT all in for ESM9).
what do you like more about LeeLoo's rules? also is the free 10-day option available to even people like me who have signed Rithmic data agreements due to attempting combines with other companies like TST/OUT/E2T?
The last I heard, the 10 day free option (12 contract account) ends on June 10 (this Monday). If you don't finish in 10 days, THAT IS OKAY, you just need to pay the $195 to continue for another 30 days.
I don't know anything about the Rithmic rules on account combining.
LeeLoo things I like better than MES (But still not up to speed on all of them!):
1) You do not have to be flat through any specific news events. If you wanted to have an open trade walking into the NFP yesterday, you could have done it with no penalty. (But you should have your head examined!) On MES, being forced to stay flat 1 min before through 1 minute after specific news releases can be really hard, especially when there is is a HUGE spike or dip that you might want to fade. And you have to be flat during FOMC press conferences. But when is the press conference officially over??? This one is tough. I know a trader who lost his funded MES account because of this very thing.
2) You can hold through the close. (But again, a wise day trader should be flat and have a restful sleep, letting the Trump Tweets and Asian and European markets do their nightly dance with no help from you.)
3) You do not have to scale your contracts. On the 12 contract account, I could trade all 12 out the gate on the live account and not scale like MES requires. (On MES, you have to build up the account to trade all the contracts).
4) The system will not allow you to trade with more contracts than allowed. It will simply reject the order. On MES, you will get kicked out for this, even though it would be really easy for MES to implement this.
I think the first three rules in the MES world are actually not too bad, and a trader would probably be better off following them. But the last rule on MES seems punitive, and Leeloo got this one right for sure.
Do you know if Leeloo has a withdrawal threshold like OUT? For example, with the 150k account with OUT, you can only withdraw once you've achieved $5000 in profits.
Still trying to figure out the details on Leeloo. They are a new company, which has its own risks. The rules are a bit confusing to me still, having done both TST and OneUp.
On a positive note, they just decided to eliminate the $100/mo live account data/wire fee. So on an ongoing basis a trader has no charges except any wire fees.
I was reminded today that by discussing any of these companies I am putting myself in legal harm's way. However, I will continue to take the risk. I think it is important. I am not discussing proprietary information, and I am sharing MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE with them, and I am being as factual and fair as I can be. I have even had several compliments to this end.
If you decide to do business with One/UP or LeeLoo or even trade the CME micro contracts because of anything I have written, you do so at your own risk and must hold me harmless.
I think you have done a stellar job of parsing out information and then publishing it to FIO pertaining to intricacies of how these prop trading firms operate. In reading through their public information it is sometimes difficult to find the answers to seemingly simple questions that anyone investigating their opportunity would ask.
Thank you for your due diligence; for all the time you have donated in the effort to help others. Your postings have changed my attitude towards these firms somewhat and have certainly cleared up many questions that could only be answered by someone already within the belly of the beast so to speak.
Thank you again for your constant flow of information. Your latest info on leeloo not requiring the $100/month data fee is HUGE.
Best regards Always
“The major work of the world is not done by geniuses. It is done by ordinary people, with balance in their lives, who have learned to work in an extraordinary manner.”
― Gordon B. Hinckley
The following user says Thank You to mbondiett for this post:
Good to know they dropped the exchange fee, just like OneUp.
As far as i know and by what i got from communicating with them it seems that currently their trailing draw down (calculated on open equity) keeps trailing forever.
They have told me they are working on a different solution just like the one that OneUp has, a trailing draw down until you reached a certain profit level. Hopefully they go for a non trailing draw down or a draw down calculated by end of day balance.
Right now i would still pick OneUp over LeeLoo since the rules are exactly the same (if LeeLoo changes to trailing draw down until you reach a certain profit level), but OneUp has been out there for much longer with traders who got paid, as proven in this thread.
LeeLoo is a new company and so far there is nothing that differentiates them from the established companies out there.
Just as sstheo mentioned, this is just my opinion. Not an advice of any kind. Every trader should do his/her own research in each of these companies.
Does anyone know if when you're funded with LeeLoo does your orders appear in the live dom?
And is that trailing drawdown still active in the funded account?
A trailing drawdown that keeps going on forever sounds like a nightmare, like what if you want to withdraw profits? you will have even less of a drawdown.
Also curious if MES, TST, leeloo etc resets your drawdown if you withdraw all profits or are they really going to let you trade where 1 tick = lose the account(since you have no drawdown as you withdrawn all your profits and in this case, they didn't reset the trailing drawdown)
I'm interested to understand why people are concerned whether a funded account from a trading evaluator operates in a sim or live environment.
A sim account means that the evaluator has a financial liability if the trader is profitable and no liability if they are not.
A live account means that the evaluator has a financial liability if the trader is not profitable and no liability if they are.
From the trader's perspective, so long as the trading evaluator is solvent and honours their contractual obligations to meet profit withdrawal requests, what difference? I don't think the lack of the newly-funded trader's 1-2 lots is going to make a difference to the supply and demand in the market and make the trader's hoped-for move any more or less likely
You are right, it doesn't make a huge difference, but if you are a bonds/notes scalper and go for 1 or 2 ticks, there is a huge difference, because the SIM account doesn't have the logic of FIFO.
The following user says Thank You to tr8er for this post:
Agree with Tr8er's point about scalping. If the platform required price to go through a level before filling you that could be a disadvantage. I remember some of the older platforms used to fill you on the first touch of a level, optimistic fills rather than the pessimistic fill Tr8er describes. Optimistic sim fills would be like finding the HolyGrail if you actually got paid real money on the profits. Bring back the old platforms! .
Psychologically I think this could be an advantage. You complete your Combine/Gauntlet/test (an intermediate step between sim and live), then you go 'live' where you get to keep any profit but know that you can't lose any of your own money, but also know that if it goes badly you also don't lose any money for the people who you want to be funding you. So another intermediate step to trading live with real risk rather than the traditional zero risk sim, full risk live.
Trading, ideally structured, is a vehicle for expanding consciousness, not damaging it. - Brett Steenbarger
The following user says Thank You to matthew28 for this post:
Incentive, With all these shady info, rules, terms, contracts etc a simple test on if there is skin in the game for the prop firm will weed out the bs. As if you make money in the sim obviously the prop firm loses money, and I dont want to deal with someone who has the opposite interest. Whereas if its a live market and trader wins, the prop firm wins 20% too. Also These companies are not public so solvency is not known, but, if your orders show up live, who cares about solvency as the money is from the exchange not the prop firm.
There are many reason more, the reality is if its not a big deal, why doesn't oneup clarify the funded sim/live info, instead you find them saying the exchange "fees are covered by the funding partners. " really, exchange fees for a sim :/
Now im not saying anyone is not legit, also there could be great reason why they are not open about it. But for me personally, where free time is scarce, I would rather work with someone on the same page/incentives as me as there will be less ulterior motives and worry to think about
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MES supposedly goes fully "live" after a trader has reached the "reserve" threshold. I was at $4,800 on my live account when the threshold was $3,500 and the DOM still was not registering. Maybe the live DOM threshold was $5,000. I will try it again when I get back up there. (Struggling a bit right now after trying multiple small shorts on last week's relentless rocket ride to the moon on the indicies.)
LeeLoo says that once live the account is fully funded live with Dorman. One of the guys in our chat room just passed the LeeLoo trial, so we should have some data soon.
Regarding MES, I just found an official communication regarding the issue from MES to a trader who shared it in the OneUp chat room.
"They reside on our server/exchange if placed through R Trader or R-Trader Pro. If through a third-party platform the oco functionality portion could be on your local side but the orders will be on the server/exchange. As far as the cue, we have subaccounts and a master account where all traders trade into their subaccount. To protect from disaster as well as for compliance reasons, all traders have access only to their subaccount because we can't rely on the stability of their connections, internet, and history of their trading with us. This is also mainly done because we have an overriding risk desk, where we can jump in on the master account if they are uncomfortable with their exposure or not cohesive with our underlying market model. As your contract specifies, the risk manager has the discretion to flip execution from sim to live and vice versa at any point of the day or week, etc. You will be paid out based on your performance no matter which environment profit or loss is made on."
Unless you are consistently making good trades on a sim account, then I recommend the following 3 steps first:
1) Take OneUp's 14 day free trial and get really used to the setup. OR take LeeLoo's 10 day trial. For a while, the LeeLoo trial may still offer a truly free step to a live account without paying anything.
2) Once you have done that, then if you don't already have a live brokerage account at Amp or Ninja (or another) then I recommend you put $500 in a new live brokerage account. Now, trade the MES, MNQ, or MYM micro contracts. Trade just ONE contract at a time until you can make $30 per day on average. (That's like $300/day on the Emini's.) Trust me, the current volatility will let you get this in just a few trades! This is for good solid practice, at 1/10 the size so you will not kill your account too soon. Even though the risk is low though, your purpose is PRACTICE to prepare you for the Emini's which are 10x as big.
3) If you want to take your live micro-account and grow it to $2,000 over the course of a couple months, I do recommend this path. Once you get to $2,000 then you can skip OneUp, TST, LeeLoo, Earn2Trade and many others and just build your account naturally. NOW you can trade the Emini's ONE contract at a time. Once you build it to $4,000 you can try TWO contracts at time. You are now trading the equivalent of the OneUp/MES $25,000 account! They only let you trade two contracts to start!
But if you want to blaze ahead and go for glory though, you can do OneUp Wednesday through Friday and succeed easily. Just give yourself 2 months to reach the evaluation goal for whatever sized account you opt to trade. Speaking of which, I recommend at least $100k, if not $150k. These give you a bigger max drawdown to play with in case you have a few bad days. Stay at just 1 or 2 contracts for a LONG time until your confidence is way up.
Leeloo is a great new alternative. Check them out. They have fewer rules, and some traders like that. I kind of like the rules on MES that keep me safe (must be flat on some news releases, no holding into the close, must scale number of contracts). LeeLoo has max loss rules, but that is about it. Wed through Fri should be okay with them too.
We now have 30 members of our chat room. If you have at least a year of trading experience, we'd love to have you. PM me for the link.
Wow Steve, I really appreciate your advice! I paper traded ES for about 8 months and when the MES became available I funded a 3k account and thought I could trade it the same (I used to paper trade after lunch with mostly two contracts). I have found that scalping MES with one contract after fees was not working at all like the ES. (Then I was advised to trade mornings and leave wider stops of 20 or so ticks with wider profit targets). That just dug my hole deeper and faster. Maybe shooting for a more reasonable target will help.
I also noticed you and another trader talking about getting out as soon as you start seeing the trade going against you. I was not doing that either, so back to paper with some new ideas. But I think taking the free trials may be helpful. I'm tempted to defund my account and use that money to pay for One Up or Leeloo month by month to see if I can even make it to a paid account. It gets a little scary seeing so many people after trading for years not being profitable. Once I get more experience behind me, I'll try the chat room. For now I'm afraid I would be of little help to others lol.
The micros indeed have more slippage and significantly more transaction costs (about 50% higher). But they are good vehicles to get some practice under LIVE conditions. But the goal is strictly to get to the regular Emini's asap.
You must find a system that works for you to be profitable. The fact that you are on FIO suggests that you have had SOME success in the past. I really think you should save your money and get on SIM until you feel you have an edge and can add 50% to the account balance of the sim account. There is no point in spending any more money on anything until you can see a path before you. Once you increase the balance on the sim to 50% higher, then you will be ready. (As long as you do it through consistent growth and don't take too much risk.) Try to add 2% to the balance each day.
Alternatively, I think you could try to do this (which would approximate what I am doing), which is scalping... Get back on the micros and use only 1 contract, and try to safely make $20 per day. If you lose $40, then STOP for the day. Shoot for $5 targets. Use $10 emergency stops but try to get out even faster if you sense things starting to fall apart on the trade.
If instead you prefer to really let things run in a trend, then use two time frames and only short if the larger timeframe is down, and only go long if the larger timeframe is up. A simple MA cross system can get you in trouble if you are not careful, but you can experiment with this and Support and Resitance lines.
Finally, start watching lots of videos on YouTube and here on FIO. There are hundreds of great traders willing to share their knowledge without trying to sell you something. Find that edge.
The 50% rule is as follows: One a live MES account, you will need to make at least 50% of the number of trades per week as your average number of trades per week in your OneUp evaluation.
For example. If you made 4 trades per day on your evaluation, that would be 20 trades per week. After you pass the evaluation, then you would need to make at least 10 trades per week to stay in compliance. It would not have to be 2 trades per day, but could be just 10 on one day.
And I got clarification from MES, that it is the NUMBER of trades, not the volume of contracts traded that they are watching.
The reference is how many trades you did in the evaluation phase.
In their eval. logic one trade counts as one trade as long as you have at least 1 contract open.
Even if you add and close 100 contracts in the meantime, it is still one trade.
As soon as you are funded the logic changes. MES counts trades in the same way like Ninja trader.
I do not have Ninja trader but think Multicharts works the same way.
E.g. you open the position with one contract. Then scale in with a second contract - the systems counts that as two trades. Even if I am wrong regading same counting of trades in Ninja/MC, it is still true, that you have to do much less trades as a funded trader than in the Eval.
What a timely poll. Only on FIO can futures traders openly discuss the disparity between the REALITY of their trading (mis)adventures compared the the EXPECTATIONS without having to be anonymous! I love this site.
I have been trying for over a decade …
Here is a repost of my response to the FIO survey about trading timeline expectations vs reality:
What a timely poll. Only on FIO can futures traders openly discuss the disparity between the REALITY of their trading (mis)adventures compared the the EXPECTATIONS without having to be anonymous! I love this site.
I have been trying for over a decade to trade one (just 1) contract of YM or NQ on a $1,500 or $2,000 account. And the market seems to know exactly when I enter every trade, as if to say "Steve is back! Let's show him AGAIN what an idiot he is!" And "When will he learn that 4 losses in a row of $150 wipes out half his account?" And "Major Loser!!"
For the past 3 years I have been dealing with this "Undercapitalized!!!" issue by trying out TST, OneUp, and LeeLoo. And I succeeded. I have been funded by MES capital after passing the OneUp trial 4 times now, and I am FINALLY being profitable. I have an account now that will allow me to trade multiple Emini contracts with a large enough draw down to make it through some bad trades. It has made ALL THE DIFFERENCE in my stress level and ability to be profitable.
Because of my success, I have been recommending the "Funded Trader" route to my friends, with the caveat that they better be able to win on a sim account 5 days in a row FIRST. These evaluations are NOT a practice field, but a money sink if you are not prepared to follow all the rules and do it right the first time. (You can review my FIO OneUp/MES journal here.)
Now something amazing happened last month. I have been hoping for micro indicies for a long time, and they finally arrived! I have since been toying around with the MES, MNQ and MYM. They are 1/10 the size of the Emini's. This doesn't mean that I don't make bad trades, it just means I don't die as fast. Because the commission is twice as costly as the Emini's per unit of gain ($.80 micro vs $4.00 Emini) I readily admit these are only to get someone started. But it is still exciting.
And now I tell people to avoid the combines all together and just open a $2,000 account and trade one (just 1) micro position at a time to start. That is like a $20k Emini account! According to a 2015 survey the average trader spent $1,145 on TopStep Trader. I now say FORGET TST, OneUP, LeeLoo, Earn2Trade, and all the rest. So put the combine money into your own account! And away we go.
Now trade the Micros. And watch in amazement as you patiently grow your war chest. Try to make just $20 per day to start on your $2000 account. That is 1% per day. Add one micro contract with each $300 you make. At 1% per day, you will have $24,000 at the end of 250 trading days. Once your account reaches $5,000, then switch over to the Emini's. Keep going at 1% per day using one Emini contract. This is just a $50 gain. Then add another contract with each $5,000 to $10,000 in your account. At the end of one year you will be trading with 1 to 4 contracts and conservatively making $238 per day. You will have $24,000.
You can keep scaling to your comfort level during the second year. At 1% per day, at the end of 500 trading days, you would be making over $2,500 per day and have over $250,000 in your account.
I think the Eminis are awesome and should help a lot of people bring their Realities closer to their Expectations.
Check out my second journal. This one begins my 1% per day journey using the Micro E-minis.
For beginning traders, I propose trading with "the micros" is a better way to go versus OneUp/MES, TopStep Trader, LeeLoo, Earn2Trade, and all the other "Funded Trader" sites that suck in uprepared traders in with elusive promises of untold wealth.
As posted in this thread previously, the evaluation expectations are unrealistic at 9% growth per day for 20 trading days in the first month (4.5%/day for 40 trading days or 2 months).
And one of the biggest stressors is trying to achieve the profit target before you have to pay another monthly fee.
However, for experienced traders, I am truly in favor of OneUp/MES or LeeLoo. They can get access to a lot of extra firepower quickly.
I really wish I had had the micros 10 years ago. I would have saved $1,000's of dollars both in live futures account losses and then later in the "combine mill" monthly fees and resets.
I will continue to update this journal as well with my progress on both OneUp/MES and LeeLoo.
I asked Multicharts about multi-broker execution for discretionary trading, and they said that is not a standard feature, but could probably be programmed by someone. I did add it as a feature request on their site. For autotrading they said it can be done simply by having the algorithm running on two different charts.
If you have been following along in my OneUp/MES journey, then you know I have reached the conclusion that most traders should start out with the new CME Micro E-mini contracts instead of dropping hard-earned cash into the coffers of the Combine companies. I have started a new journal, putting my money where my mouth is.
And my timing could not have been better! As part of the FIO 10 year anniversary, Big Mike is promoting journaling. And just started a challenge with prizes.
He says, "My goal with these contests is to encourage the journaling process, as I firmly believe the more you participate in the journal process, the better trader you will become."
I have started a second journal now called "Micro E-mini Madness (1% per day)" and it can be found at this link.
Thanks for asking. And I hope I don't let you down too much...
As you may know I upgraded the live MES Capital account from $50k to $150k by going through a new evaluation. Unfortunately, the upgraded account was short lived. However, I am very close to passing what should be my final OneUp evaluation and so I should have a new $150k MES Capital account next week.
Why was the live account short-lived? I will be very candid with my 4 contributing factors: (1) The market is super-bullish because of Fed comments on rates, and I keep trying to short an "overbought" situation. This has been going on for 6 months, and we just made a new high today even. I maintain it is unsustainable, but I must be humble enough to admit that I am wrong. Just wrong. (2) I still take more risks than I should, and the larger account allowed me to get away with it - until it didn't. (3) I am in a chat room with some really great traders who have new and profitable ways of looking at the market, and I have been a bit distracted from my regular plan. They look at TPO charts and Volume Profile, and I am finding it fascinating. They take fewer trades and make more cash. (4) I also got distracted by trying the evaluation from a new company called LeeLoo. LeeLoo has fewer rules than MES has on its live accounts, so I have been trying that. But I am coming to realize that any time you are working on Plan B, even a backup plan, then Plan A will suffer.
All four reasons may be significant, but they don't excuse my failure to hold on to that account. I should have been more careful.
Good for you for being forthright about the issues. Any of them could certainly affect anyone.
Of the four, I think #3 may be especially dangerous. It would be for me, anyway: when I get into some new way to look at the market or at trading, it complicates things and makes them worse, at least for a while. The more fascinating the new stuff seems, the more it sucks me in. It's a real problem, because we do want to grow, but more things to look at can mean more confusion, and can throw off something that is working.
I hope you can work it all out. Good luck with your new efforts.
Bob.
The following 3 users say Thank You to bobwest for this post:
LeeLoo is a respectable company. But the TEMPORARILY stopped accepting new applicants so they could better take care of the current evaluees and live traders.
It looks like the "we are full" message has now been removed.
Still on paper with your suggestions.
1. Just wondering if my $20 daily target should have fees factored in? (my all in r/t fees are 2.04 for micro es). I have been keeping a separate data sheet as if I am trading the full /ES and when scalping the fees there are so much less impactful (4.90). Adding 50% to my MES sim account seems like it would take forever if fees are factored in.
2. "Use $10 emergency stops but try to get out even faster if you sense things starting to fall apart on the trade." This is such a double-edged sword as it can stop me out of a winning trade. I really struggle with how soon do I bail? 4 ticks, 5? Sooner? Why not then just set a 5 tick emergency stop instead of 8? On the larger contract it makes so much sense but on the MES all I can think about is that dang fee compounding two more ticks to my loss.
1. At $2.04 your costs are more than double what Amp and Ninja are charging, which is around $.80 RT. Change brokerages and try again.
2. Stops are a challenge for sure. The market conditions are changing hourly. Only you know your risk tolerance, but whipsaw is real, and if stops are too tight you will get crushed. I recommend using an ATR indicator or a Parbolic SAR and making sure your stop is outside boundary of the trend indication. Here is a "SuperTrend" indicator that could work as a "stop and reverse." Here is another:
Version 2.3*) November 16, 2017
The SuperTrend indicator is an application of the concept of MAE (maximum adverse excursion), which was introduced by John Sweeney in the mid-nineties. It is a Stop-And-Reverse (SAR) indicator based on breakouts from …
Please follow my new Micro journal if you are not already. I am more likely to comment on the micros there than in this journal. See my signature line below for the link.
Reading your journal now and reaching out to AMP. I feel like if I stay at IF, I will be tempted to move to full es before I'm ready (in order to "save" on fees) and take a beating! Thank you again for all of your help!!!
The following user says Thank You to techa for this post:
I wish I had known about the differences between the Combine Rules and the Funded Rules. Honestly, I would have gone with TST. I will probably finish my $50k tomorrow. need $290 is all.
Account Analytics still isn't updating
The following user says Thank You to Aragorn for this post:
From the First post of this thread:
Here are the funded rules I now have to follow on top of the evaluation rules regarding instrument selection and trading times and max daily loss ($1,250) and overall account draw down ($2,500):
1. Volume. Because MES doesn't want people just sitting there doing nothing, I now have to trade at least 50% of the volume during the evaluation. So I have to trade at least 6 trades per day, but this is easy, because I am using the same style and am currently at 10 trades/day.
2. News Releases. During the evaluation there was no restriction here, but now I have to be flat 1 min before, during, and after major news releases.
3. Scaling. During the evaluation, I could trade a full 6 contracts, but now I am limited as follows: 2 under $1500, 4 under $4000, 6 over $4000 profit. This is actually very helpful for me to keep my risk in check.
4. Overall profitability. I must have a positive PnL greater than $0 at the end of the first 15 calendar days and each 15 days, but only for the first 90 days.
TST is not better. From risk perspective its even worse, daily loss limit = weekly loss limit.
2 normal loosing days and you need to stop trading and wait next trading.
Point 1 is normal, ONEUP will cover data feed cost
Point 2 is same. Point 3 basicly same. You can add contracts as you make profit.
Point 3 - if you can't be positive day trading after trading 15 days its bad.
@lemons I think you are missing something about the purpose of an evaluation and changing the rules after the evaluation. That tells me that someone doesn't trust their own evaluation process.
It's a real problem, because we do want to grow, but more things to look at can mean more confusion, and can throw off something that is working.
