The only risk for TST (additionally to a little overhead in backend) is max drawdown and when you have profits what exceeds that value (for example in $30k plan the max drawdown is $1.5k) they will go riskless BUT you continue to pay them 20% from all of your profits
It is no-brainer why succesfull traders will leave soon...
@Scalpguy good point. Not going off too far from the subject, how many times we read so many people (members here) failed FTP. Here's my reasoning for not going thru FTP: I believe the company make enough money already from combine trader, and they can make the risk more tight (drawdown). You can say they want to make sure to weed out not so good trader, but how many times you actually see combine takers passing the 1st stage anyway? It's really really big confidence killer!
Oneup trader for sure giving a new hope, mentioned before that MES giving it all for free, so not surprise that they can offer something new like this, their main purpose definetly is trying to steal new tst customers, not neccessarily the already funded ones.
I'm really looking forward to read other people experience when they make this program running...very exciting what the other competitors going to do, or can 1up trader make it work? Remember before people cant tell why they are denied the funding after passing the objective, but now it's black or white...interesting to see how the whole thing develops.
As someone who has been working on trading within combine limits for a while to give it a shot, I found oneup's proposition to obviously be more attractive than TST. However, the sketchy vibes that MES have given off in the past (the thread title!), and the fact that they had a big "Coming soon" banner counting down to 28th Feb, that turned into "Coming in March", then followed by the combine plans with the "Get notified" sticker we see now, give me the impression that the guys behind this are not running within their own planned schedules. Considering that we only have the site contents to look to for any due diligence (i don't see any of the people behind one-up being active on any forums lately) i found the content to be pretty much a copy-paste work from TST.
These purported "TST copycats" start up three or four times a year, often (like this one) copying TST's structure identically or almost identically, and often (like this one) copying many whole paragraphs or even whole pages from TST's website, word for word. (Except without the lists of hundreds of successfully funded traders, of course.)
I've never yet heard of one going on to become established and paying out earnings to a single trader.
You have to feel sorry for TST, really: it's because they've thought up and so professionally executed this business model for so long that their success in getting traders funded and earning has now gradually spawned a never-ending succession of scammy imitators, all of which - so far - sink without trace (but often having swallowed a lot of "trial fees" in the process). And because of that, the whole "industry" they more or less started themselves, in their format anyway, is acquiring something of a scammy reputation, and some of the misinformation and ill-informed prejudice about TST itself, arising indirectly from that reality, is pretty disappointing.
Maybe this one will prove to be the first ever exception, but so far the signs certainly look absolutely awful.
If I ran TST, I really don't know whether I'd be ignoring them completely, watching them with bemusement, or serving DMCA copyright notices against their hosting companies for all the duplicate sites.
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The OneUpTrader terms look significantly better than anything TST has offered. Although, not all of the plans make equal sense. If they actually deliver and the terms are similar or better to what they've recently had up on their website then I will most definitely take the try out. I am on the list and ready to do the trial/try out as soon as they offer it. I am fine with sharing my results here once they go live.
As an aside, I doubt the TST model is sustainable because the terms are really bad. The result is most-likely that the good traders won't have an incentive to stay with them (1) they leave or never join and (2) competitors who want to make money off combines can easily come in and offer better terms (undercutting). I think the only reason they haven't had decent competition is that you need a minimum non-trivial amount of capital to offer such a model or else it wouldn't have lasted even this long.
If a realistic funding option for small traders is offered via OneUp then that will eventually impact the brokers, I might add as well. If OneUp is able to realistically fund futures traders, eventually futures brokers will have to start to innovate in similar ways to compete. So, it bodes well if OneUp is able to make it work. The big firms that support larger traders will be fine but the smaller day trading focused brokers will have significant competition.
They have been around for at least five years so they can't be doing that badly. MES didn't appear to last much more than a year. But then TST charge people to take their tests/Combines which provides capital to support the business. Unlike MES where it was all free.
Not directed at you, and also digressing, but I happen to be rereading Atlas Shrugged.
TST the nasty capitalist model that charges people to take a test with clear rules, probably partly because the test has costs involved with it, but also because they know that the vast majprity of people who take the test will not go further and generate trading profits. But the incentive is that the successful are allowed to keep 80% of their profits.
Or the nice Socialist model which seemed to have nondefined rules but was free for all and covered the expenses involved itself, but then supposedly took 50% of the profits of the few that were able.
"From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs".
Anybody trying the second model would certainly require good capital to run it.
(Still not directed at you). the TST AMA and review threads are full of people complaining that TST charges and even people complaining it will be making a profit, that Combine costs are too expensive, it isn't fair that: people have to pay those fees, they have loss limits, they have limits on the number of contracts they are allowed to trade, having to pay 20% of your profits is too much (but somehow 50% is okay if it isn't TST), etc etc.
I find it fascinating how polarising the TST/competitors debates are. I am all for competition and would welcome an alternative offering to TST, but as yet I haven't seen anything being offered that is in anyway comparable.
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My problem with TST has always been all the rules or extra hurdles/etc. It has always felt more adversarial to me. Something worth pointing out is that with any of these types of operations, there is a presumption of good faith. If I funded traders, I would always reserve an element of discretion because first you can't realistically cover everything and unless you restrict sign ups then you can't control how many people will pass. But, then it goes back to trust and intention. The advantage that I see with OneUp is that you pass and you go live.
With traditional prop firms, the advantages have been a combination of vertical advantages and scaling too nearly unlimited use of firm capital. The % split is not the most important. What's important is your daily loss limit and buying power (# contracts)...
Trivial example.. say you're okay with risking $500 per day. A firm comes to you and says we'll give you a 50% split and $2,000 per day risk capital. That means you get to keep the profits off $1,000 per day of that risk. So you make 2x as much with zero risk. Even if they said we'll give you $1,000 per day and 50% split, you still make just as much as you would trading own account except you have zero risk.
I agree with you,specially with your last sentence ,I have read many complaints about TST but NEVER heard anybody complaining they passed the combine,traded Live,made money and didn't get paid
The rules at TST may seem difficult to understand and may require several readings to do so,but once you do understand them,they are crystal clear,and shelling $ to participate in a combine surely feels worse than getting it for free,but their business model is what it is...They get paid from the nonperformers and pay the performers,getting a cut from the whole process.
I believe they may make more money from the combines than from the Live traders,but it may be their model...So what?99% of traders lose,so this is where TST may capitalize(or I may be wrong)...As long as they provide a fair option for the other 1% and pay on time,it is just a matter of RR...How much do you pay for a combine,how many combines do you need to take to pass,and how many contracts you can trade once you pass
Don't believe that you are getting a Live 150k account for 375$
If you pass the 150k you get to start with 3 contracts(if my memory doesn't fail me)..So,let's say they are financing you with 3k $in CL(less in ES) plus the 4.5k$ of max DD,pls some slippage on a fast market,etc,etc...I would say their real initial risk is around 10k$,and,of course,once you make money they try to reduce it to a point where they have zero risk,but still have 20% of your profits,similar model as most VC firms employ
Now,and I do not want to offend anybody...How many "375$" you need to cover a 10k risk?OK...Let's approximate it to 27...So,as long as they get a 1/27 of winning vs failing traders,as long as 96.3% or more traders fail the combines,TST cover their risk with "traders money",not their own...
And,to be fair,TST does not seem to trick the trader,nor go against him,etc-I feel that they do not need it,99% of aspiring traders shoot themselves in the foot and lose with no external help-and TST supports the successful traders,obviously,there is more business to be done there,specially once they have covered their risk....Which is good for everybody involved
So,TST may not be the best possible desirable option,but it looks as a good one to me.If you do not have enough risk capital to trade and you are confident in your numbers,of course
It would be extremely interesting if some serious competition established themselves and provided different choices of funding/risk to aspiring prop traders,besides the actual ones...But to do so they will have to be creative and devise a different business model,just copying and pasting is not enough...And they will have to establish believability in regards to paying the traders
Additionally,it would be interesting to see a list of "Funded traders at TST" and be able to analyze for how long they survived,if they made money or not and how much and for how long,on average,of course ,how many left TST with profits either to start their own account or other ventures,how many didn't,etc,etc...Of course,this is sensible information not to be given for free to potential competitors,and,I suspect,not something to be proud of...But again,in case these numbers didn't look good,it won't be TST fault,the market is extremely tough with aspiring traders...So,some sort of "Guidance" while not necessary,would be interesting
S
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As an update, I'm currently taking the TST combine. I took advantage of a free coupon. So far no real issues. I trade all the trades live in my Tradestation account. The TST fill engine is definitely slightly optimistic (easier then real-life) but on several days my actual profits are higher in the TS account due to reduced fees and/or because I always give priority to my real-money trades.
I do think the combine is a much more realistic goal now that they reduced a lot of the silly rules and the time limit. Not really sure about the FTP and that's one reason I still think that if OneUp launches they could be the better deal. You pass you go live. That's simple and makes sense. If you want to limit the risk during the live stage then implement a contract scaling for the first couple weeks. The trailing loss limit could still present a lot of difficulty. Also, the weekly loss limit is equal to the daily loss limit which is again probably not something you'd do in a real account. So, you have to figure in that your real daily max risk should be at most 50% of the stated.
I think the combine might be worthwhile for (1) someone who has a vision of scaling up and trading a lot of contracts or who has a sub 10k account or (2) doesn't have enough to trade and wants to pay for the combine and get the data (the combine is not as expensive if you are subtract the cost for a data feed from the equation) (3) for vendors who want to demonstrate an ability to trade with very tight risk limits. I did see the data lagged between either TS and TST at one point but not sure which stream was lagged.
On the other hand, it is much more difficult to trade with super tight risk limits and the fragility is probably higher. Even if one can be pretty sure they can predict the market with larger risk limits, there is an uncertainty factor once you apply the really tight risk limits. I guess the issue with TST, OneUp, SMB CAP, or any prop would be: (1) How aligned are their interests with the traders interest? (2) How viable is the concept? and (3) How much money can you make?
I guess you didn't notice the new condition one up put in. You have to trade in a consistent way to get funded, whatever that means, or they will refund you the combine fee. So it's no longer pass the combine and get funded, it's now pass the combine and hope they like how you trade to get funded.
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Yep, that's the crux of working for another: always at whim of policy and why it's always better to have your own capital to trade. Frankly, though I can't blame them for that but that's why it would be useful for these firms to show what their best traders are doing and that they have some support mechanism. My sense is that stock props have more six figure traders but many trading floors are now mostly empty. So, hard to say what's possible in today's markets.
1) wtf does consistent mean in this context. Could mean anything - good one oneuptrader. I have a feeling it will quickly turn into a MES capital sort of nonsensical selection.
2) this is like the fourth time they've delayed entry into the market. Hoping they're not going to crash and burn but it sure seems that way, especially if traders hit the parameters and still are not funded.
1) Consistent probably means that they wont accept traders who make 100% of the target in 2-3 day's and then only open and close a trade within seconds for the remaining day's. I have seen a few combines at TST where this happened, if this is allowed then why even have the minimum 10 day rule anyway.
2) They told me they will launch next week, the reason they couldn't launch at the end of May is because they had to wait for Ninjatrader to finish their integration.
To make it clear, i do not work for OneUp!
Just happy to finally see some competition for TST and for now the OneUp rules seems to be "easier".
When I see those Combines I always find it a bit strange. People aim to get funded to make money, not hit a target then stop. If you are in effect admitting that you can't risk trading 'properly' for ten days in a row without messing up and risking not passing then what is the point of in effect fluking your way through.
Funded Trader Prep at least means somebody has to repeat their performance and prove a degree of consistency and help with confidence in your methodology before going live; and for TST weeds out those who just got lucky.
People used to say that MES were better because they didn't have the rules that TST have. In reality the difference seemed to be that where as the TST rules were objectively set out for all to see, The MES ones were subjective and passing or failing seemed more discretionary, as @Raider had said (and also based on a the few reports I read of people trying out with them). I hope OneUp learn from that and have more clearly defined rules.
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Thanks RDK91 yeah that makes a lot of sense. For what it's worth I genuinely hope they do follow through this time because who knows what could happen with more competition.
Got this on attempt to sign up for trial.. updated
"Sorry for the inconvenience, We are expericencing heavy traffic, we will be back online shortly"
"
First,thank you for making the launch a success, however, due to the overwhelming demand for sign-ups, it has hindered the performance of our servers and we have suspended new sign-ups till we fix these errors.
We're working diligently to get it up and running over the next few hours and we'll update you shortly. If you have alrady signed up for a TRIAL account, it will be activated by 9 AM CST tomm morning and if you were already able to login to your Rithmic account, then you're good to go!
Again, we apologize for the inconvenice and we'll notify you shortly
Best Regards,"
Been trying to sign since yesterday but still get the heavy traffic page. Maybe doing on purpose to slow down sign ups? I want to take advantage of the offer!
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I called oneuptrader today and they said that theyre going to try to get their system up in the next few days - so much for that 50% discount. TAKE NOTE: i asked them what consistency means and the lady said it means not hitting your goal one day and then opening and closing a one contract trade the rest of the days. However, she also pointed out that its completely up to the funding partners discretion. So much for transparent evaluation. It was made clear that any combine win can be overturned by the funding partners.
@Raider, that's exactly how MES Capital did it so Oneup seems to be no different. You could meet the profit requirements but still get turned down for funding with no reasons provided.
Provided they do provide a clear and rational explanation and state it upfront, it seems fair to me and better then having to pass the goals a second time like in the TST FTP. And, of course given that doing that will hurt their reputation, I suspect they will be rather judicious in this regards-- and keep in mind that MES did not charge anything. Either the beginner or the professional account with 80% split looks like the best options for me.
I will most-likely sign up if I can get it. But won't be able to trade 3 accounts concurrently, so will probably only take the best trades in my live and switch focus to the Oneup/TST accounts.
@tpredictor fair enough fair enough. I'm just a bitch sketched out by them. One thing I can't understand that threw me off a bit is that they made commissions $5 a round turn? In every single major instrument the commission is much less than that, and I think it's pretty unfair to bond traders where it's not unreasonable to get a commission rate of $2.50. Effectively what this does is make very short term scalping the 5 year very hard $5 commission & a 7.8125 ticker and it makes trading ZN much harder. Essentially that commission is 1/3 of a tick in ZN, so for example with my expectancy of around 1.1 tick per contract per trade, this instantly becomes about 0.7 or 0.8 per contract per trade. Which makes it much harder to trade these products. I'm not a fan of tst's flat commission of $3.68 but it's looking a whole lot better in comparison to oneuptrader's $5 commission rate which is pretty much double live commissions. I'm not saying it makes it impossible, just harder. Idk has anyone else realized the commission rate is high? Maybe it's just me
Yes, it does state $2.50/side for all products for the evaluation. The live fees are here: Knowledge base | OneUp Trader Help Desk
These are all-in which do not seem that bad in the live. If I calculated Tradestation's fees properly, I get around $4.75/round for ES all-in versus $4.08 ONEUP live for $5 sim. The ZN/ZB is only $3.22 vs $5 all in. So as long as you can profit more then $2-3/trade you should be okay. Absolutely agree that in general though fees/commission make it very difficult to do the style of trading required to pass these things with any confidence. Granted the real risk with this style of trading is that if your precision exceeds your accuracy, you are guaranteed losers. Given that to pass with any confidence, you need to keep your risk below say $70 per trade and even better at around $25/per trade.. Now keep in mind it's almost impossible to build any sort of trading system that can profit consistently with less then say a $500 stop loss and you can see what your up against. I'm trying to get my risk down to 2-3 ticks per trade. Of course, you can take more risk per trade but then it only takes a few couple losers and you'll have hit either the trailing loss or the initial loss.
I'd, also, like to see them release a calendar and specific time before and after like TST does for the reports that one needs to be flat for.
@tpredictor well apparently u can trade anything on the live account 15 seconds after the release. 15 seconds before and after u have to be flat. In general the commission just makes it harder to pass in a single month which may just be them making it hard + more profitable. Btw out of curiosity... how r u paying $4.75 a rt for ES? Have u ever thought about a seat + tradeovate or stage 5? That'd pretty much cut your cost in half or less
First they say: "As a funded trader, use of a trading platform fees are the sole responsibility of the trader. It is the duty of the trader to make sure and cover all costs relating to use of trading platforms."
And then later: "Commissions
Total commission include: commission, regulatory fee, platform fee, and exchange fee"
I first contacted FuturesProfile around 2015. The reply came came with information about MES Capital even though the address was FuturesProfile. The owner behind all operations appears to be the same gentleman. I suspect that they are trying to structure things like Topsteptrader. MES is probably the capital arm, like Patak Trading, while Oneuptrader is the scout/technology company. I do not know if they will continue to use MES Capital or if they will be known as Oneuptrader going forward. MES Capital is still an active domain while FuturesProfile appears to be defunct. But, to be fair, the first reply did come back with MES Capital Group. So, I think FuturesProfile was jut a domain to drum up interest. This Oneuptrader looks more serious and different in nature. I have no affiliation with them and no official knowledge. According to the owner, he did state he had found some good traders: so presumably there are still some traders trading for MES Capital even though Oneuptrader is just launching.
Their previous broker was Vankar trading but it looks like the website is now gone and they were banned on Oct 4, 2016 as an introducing broker. They did verify to me that MES Capital had sufficient funds to fund traders: unfortunately not a positive sign that they were banned themselves for not keeping accurate funds. It would be good to know from Ninjatrader or whoever their broker is today they have the funds: based on my previous conversations with the owner, I did believe that they were more then well capitalized for funding traders. I've no reason to believe differently. It seems Ninjatrader or whoever holds the sub-accounts today should be able to verify.
a think his modele was good a have talk some time suppory he say was founds many good found some good traders with mescapital have made this oneup To evolve and make change He says He says that the business model and very profitable much more than he plan I will monitor this closely
Isn't that amazing!? Everyone wants to give the poor struggling and undercapitalized trader money to trade. Isn't that great? Just prove yourself with a paper traded account and get funded...MEAN TIME on the other side of town called Reality City, where successful traders who became licensed Commodity Trading Advisors have to prove themselves for YEARS before anyone would throw them a serious dime.
Matt Z
Optimus Futures
There is s substantial risk of loss in futures trading. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
Trading futures and options involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. You may lose more than your initial investment. All posts are opinions and do not claim to be facts. Please conduct your own due diligence. Use only Risk capital when trading Futures.
1 800 771 6748 local 561 367 8686 email support@OptimusFutures.com
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MattZ, I do not think this is a fair comparison. Most CTA's are not hitting anywhere near this level of performance and they are trading much larger accounts. Beyond that, it is not possible to replicate a very active, floor trader style, day trading strategy through subscription service because of the fees and fill issues. It is true that the odds are stacked against the trader taking these services: but the odds are, also, stacked heavily against the futures trader who tries to open a 2k-5k account and trade it. Also, in the past traders could have traded on the floor or at a real prop firm. I have signed up for Oneuptrader and will be trying out. I am concurrently taking the combine. I do suggest every trader to have an "exit strategy" and loss limits to avoid combine/oneup treadmill.
I would suggest if a futures broker wants to be really innovative: offer a free or low cost monitored combine-style service with opportunity for funding! I think it could be natural evolution or next step but many will prefer to the traditional route which is more sensible if one has the capital and the service you, brokers, offer is valued.
Quick question, I'm assuming both at TST and Oneup that if you break the rules on any given month that the next month your charged you will be "reset" essentially or else there would be no reason to continue to pay versus starting another one? Is my understanding correct and that the $100 is just to reset early? I guess what I'm asking is what happens if you exceeded a loss limit and the rebill comes up?
I had wondered how long Vankar had to live. I dimly recall noticing when my assistant was researching them (she had a very vague idea to create a female focused TST but with mandatory training & exams) that MES initially used the Vankar's office address before relocating to the British Virgin Islands. (maybe in parallel)
Perhaps Sattam of Kuwait's royal family is a..genius... shamelessly BS-ing people and shilling his own company (unnecessarily, why not just propose the idea as a vendor?) was down the toilet behavior before the rise of the Donald but Sattam was ahead of the curve in 2015.
Hello. This is a question for traders that achieved funding through mes. Do you have to pay the 85 dollar professional fee?
Thanks,
Kristi
Hi Kristi,
I contacted their support about this (pro/non-pro status) and I was referred to their 'legal …
If your read through @Fenchurch's post, the Elitetrader link may make you sick in your mouth a little. I don't believe as was mentioned afterwards that those posts were made by some rogue staff member. It was Sattam, why would he stop BS-ing (why did he start?).
Oneuptrader's domain is also anonymously registered in Panama, it may be a common practice however a normal business which does not use it's real office for domain reg? Indicates a continuing shady mindset to me.
Now if things seem disorganised, read through that link and consider this is the same guy. There was an English lady but she probably has her hands full trying to keep Sattam organised (Kelly-Anne style?).
There are plenty of guys with no other option (they believe), poorer countries like Colombia for example. Or some who are are lazy (the Dude?), habitually blind to pitfalls / just want easy cash, either will go to him anyway, no matter what.
Very "the Donald" Sattam.. Hats off for seeing in 2014 that bad or inept behavior has no meaningful consequence in 2017 America, it just gets people talking about you, "flood the zone"
@Rory A bit too complicated for me to follow. It is suspect that a "Serif" made the initial ET post and was an employee only who is no longer with them (according to Sattam in a correspondence with me several years ago). Anyway I've signed up, I guess if I get scammed it won't be the first or last time. But right now looking forward to getting funding. Yes, I think it's pretty smart actually. There are a lot of great traders who can not get funding or at least one, I know of. While I'm not really sure about TST, I think Sattam's goal is truly to fund traders and make money off the trading division.
What would be useful though is for whoever their broker is today to come on and say they are funded with 1 million dollars or whatever, that would at least allay fears that it is a total scam. I don't believe it to be or I wouldn't have payed. I, also, think the fact that they are with Ninjatrader indicates they probably have the means to do this. I think with some of the other TST imitators, i.e they aren't with with a broker like Ninja or charge high fees for traniing then it might be more likely to be a scam. But, this seems straight up. Of course, I will report my experiences: good or bad here.
Quoting: "....There are a lot of great traders who can not get funding or at least one, I know of...."
A great trader can be defined as one who is consistently profitable over a period of time, like our BigMike
for example and also many other great traders around the forum.
Now if a trader is consistently profitable, why does he or she need any subsistence from anyone,
be it Campbell Soup, Trump Tower, TST or others or even his/her own spousal
handout?
Ok, supposed there is really one or two great consistently profitable traders out there, or
as you mentioned that there is at least one that you know of, who couldn't get funding.
The nagging thought is, if a trader is consistently profitable, it would be practically insane
having to enjoy a proprietary entity, legit or not. My humble apology if I overly encroach
someone's eminency here. Just thinking out loud without malice, K?
Sattam (Al Sabah) probably means "Sharif" for "serif" which in Sunni is a descendant of one of the Prophet's grandsons. So basically Sattam replied, oh that was written by a descendant of Hasan ibn Ali, meaning he himself in a different way. Sunni and Shia traditions vary a bit as does royal lineage stuff.
I could be wrong, I could be very wrong, but having dealt with Middle East guys in business I believe I remember this one well. They officially hate lying, the high-born especially should never court a liar's reputation so they "spin" things a bit?
Now I'd accept having dealt with the Middle East enough that though tricks and BS and chaos are thick and heavy, actual intentional stealing? No, I'd be surprised. However you should read your contract, really carefully.
It may be a bumpy and unprofessional ride but until he folds (and still offshore?) it is probably a way forward. I'd say just be wary in your financial planning as weird stuff is much more likely to happen than with TST.
Edit: (just saying for no good reason) maybe he actually meant it was a "serif" in English being a small decorative line added as embellishment. But it is still just a fancy way of saying he still wrote the ET stuff himself. I am very confident he did.
Edit2: "I, also, think the fact that they are with Ninjatrader" going in with Ninja.. we all love Ninja but its well known that NT's vendor relationships called "Ecosystem" are also called "the Swamp". Unless things have changed, they check basically nothing? It is just to get back-links for SEO & marketing, no vetting.
The only eminency around here is Sattam (royal family? ) but I can think of many young Colombians who could trade successfully (brain, talent etc) but they have steep barriers to entry. I've talked to many business students about this helping a lecturer friend out. You don't need a secret method, I know a great Wykoff trader who just applies it well (Options trading).
The biggest barrier is time though, as was said by a wise man finding the time to study and feed yourself is tricky. Young guys spend imaginary money fast and guys jump in to a combine as this will make them "take it seriously".
I would say, just trade sim and when you have six weeks of daily profit with NO excuses (aka Mulligans), reset like a "days since accident" to the beginning of six weeks if you do, guys can then sensibly spend money on this.
Good question but tricky to answer. First, look at it in terms of a matrix of possibilities, and we'll assume that in all cases the trader has a tiny to small account.
Lose a lot or do poorly:
Sim vs TST/Oneup vs Live
Sim: No loss except monthly data feed cost and/or software charges. Fixed monthly data cost from $75-$150 est.
TST/Oneup: Fixed monthly cost from $150-$350 est.
Live: Proportional loss. With only 2k-5k account, possibly won't be able to continue to trade due to margin requirements.
Win a lot within the funding requirements
Sim: No gain. Fixed monthly data cost from $75-$150 est.
Tst/Oneup: Greater probability of being funded 2k-5k, i.e. making 2k-5k.
Live: Proportional gain.
Do good or even really good but do not meet the funding requirements
Sim: No gain. Fixed monthly data cost from $75-$150 est.
Tst/Oneup: No gain. Fixed monthly cost from $150-$350 est.
Live: Proportional gain.
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The big difference that changed my mind on TST was ending the time limit: before it was a gamble. With no time limit, it is for sure possible to pass. But, there's still the the second stage "funded trader prep" which is yet another hurdle. On the other hand, my understanding is at Oneup if you pass you go live and at $350/month funding they offer up to 5k account. All their metrics are slightly better too. You keep first 8k of profits and 80% thereafter taking the 80/20 payout option. The 80/20 is the only one that makes sense. The trailing max DD could also be tricky. The beginner and professional options are the two best bets.
So, let's look at a scenario, a trader trades a 5k account and doubles it. They make 5k. A trader trades a Oneup and doubles it. They get funded 5k. So far pretty similar but if a trader let's say can hit the funding goal only some percentage of months, say 70% but has a risk of ruin of blowing out the other 30% then if they self-fund they could be blown out on the first month due to bad luck. But, at Oneup you get to reset. Now given you get first 8k in profits, I don't see much reason not to do it. I could be wrong as a greenhorn but it looks like Oneup offers a good bet.
Who's it not for: traders who are well-capitalized (trade own account) really good traders who could make money trading their own accounts but can't pass (trade own account) traders who don't have any experience (trade simulator). It seems best for traders who feel like they can pass but are not fully confident but don't want to take the opportunity cost of trading in a simulator or the market risk of trading in the live. Other considerations for favoring Oneup, you get to trade up to 15 contracts which means you can shoot for smaller and more consistent gains and scale up much better then most retail accounts would allow. Also, if there is an advantage of not having one's own money on the line, for discretionary traders, then it makes sense to take advantage of that opportunity.
Other options worth considering for the small trader: commission free broker like Tradovate. Signal services but you need a high profit factor to overcome the broker costs which basically translates a need to hold trades longer which translates to more risk. Trying to build a track record with small account: not really valued in my experience.
Thx for your good and long explanation per vendor view point. There are many good points
for not so confident, not so self-assured traders wannabe to ponder, and perhaps join.
But do you really think nowadays many live-on-the money traders would still conveniently
assign their trading losses to bad luck, as you eluded to? Not meant to start an argument, K?
Just curious about some big city live traders' mindsets on luck, good-fortune, praying for
wealth and perhaps daily ancestry worship before committing their very first live trade?
Trivials, real trivials.
@vont Right, I don't think it is bad luck but normal variance and also the time to adapt. You can look at it from a systems point of view and mathematically, a system that returns 100% with maximum drawdown of 50% over 10 years will surely have many periods, perhaps even years, where you could have traded it for bigger returns at greater leverage. For the discretionary trader which is probably more applicable, just imagine a discretionary trader who can double a 5k account say in 1 to 2 months, some probability of the time, say it's 65%. The other 35% they are adapting to the market, refining methods, etc and will be in a drawdown. If said trader has a bigger account, say 25k or 30k, or if they could reload the 5k easily then sure they should be able to build their own account. On the other hand, if said trader needs to save for a year or two to save the 5k then they are not at all assured to reach success, whereas if they can meet the TST/Oneup goals then they have a very high probability of success. Also, I am not sure whether or not psychology plays a role when trading one's own money, but sure it might, and if it does negatively impact performance then it makes sense to load the odds in your favor or stack the deck in anyway possible.
The key to be able to pass these things is to get your win ratio way up and keep losses as tiny as possible. And, that's the same key to trying to achieve to trade a tiny account. It goes without saying the goal is to get the account up the proper level on a good run and keep the risk down so you can keep trading. The other way, of course, is to take a higher tail risk probability but then you know that a couple losses will end your account. If you keep the risk down, you run the risk of having a string of serially correlated losses but if you use the big stop method, you run the tail risk. I guess there's no free lunch in the markets.
Very good question one becomes not trader like that very can of people survives in the trading market and arrives really takes advantage if there is a psychological work and a good strategy and a good money management possible to win and be profitable and unfortunately not the case for most trading trade also I think that know null to pay to start trading already there is not a lot of quality trader that are Pretty profitable There's a lot of paradox in getting trades and a lot of business
The following user says Thank You to k7ler for this post:
One thing I noticed today and not happy about is that my p&l in Rithmic didn't match the end of day cloud platform. I only used the Rithmic interface for checking my P&L but it looks like they didn't include the fees. With Topstep, the Rithmic shown P&L matches the fees. Oneup also bases the daily loss off the net p&L, makes sense, so they should show the net p&L in Rithmic. There might be something I'm missing or a way to do that manually. So far, other then that, no real issues. I've sent an email to support.
Right, the cloud analytics shows the net and gross but the Rithmic Trader doesn't show the commissions. It makes a big difference when you're scalping. The cloud isn't updated until after the close. I suspected Ninja might show the wrong net p&l but just assumed Rithmic would show the net. I'm not sure if there is some way to get the NET intraday.
Correction: the Rithmic trader does show the account balance but the P&L column is the gross. On TST, the same column reads out the NET P&L. I hope they change this or add a NET P&L because I never look at account balance intraday. I don't have time to look at an account balance to figure out the NET.
@lead If you are scalping, you need to figure up your basis intraday. The way to do this is use Rithmic trader for the account balance. This is not ideal though because I just need a number that says what my net is so I can hit my goal. You can also try to use Ninja but not the best.
Thanks! I'm using Ninja 8 and the process is slightly different but works.
You do the following:
Tools->Commissions->Add->Name it anything, example "OneUp Commission" then you must edit it and here is the part I didn't get at first, you must add the contracts you trade and set the unit to $2.50 per each instrument you trade.
At bottom of Ninja 8-> Accounts->Edit Oneup Account->Commission->Select OneUp.
Just curious if anyone has hit their goal and if so whether OUT honored agreement to fund. I'm interested in signing up but always leery of a scam. I'd appreciate hearing anyone's experiences with them.
I thought to try them out. On 16.06 I signed up for 15 day trail.
I wanted to use Sierracharts for trading.
But "Connect event error. Windows error code 10061: No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it."
I wrote twice to support about it but still no replay.
On 23.06 when only 7 days left they asked "How's Your Trial Going?"
I explained my problem again but still no replay.
28.06 was end of trail
The following user says Thank You to lemons for this post:
Yes solution is simple. OneUp / Broker side must allow SierraCharts to connect via Ritmic.
I understand if my first e-mail gets no replay.
But if second and third e-mail gets no replay its a pattern
The following user says Thank You to lemons for this post:
Never noticed anything from that so called pattern, i always had fast replies (during USA trading session) and also had good contact via phone when i had problems.
Good. As you have good connection with them please ask why they keep ignoring me ?
Why 100 % service to you and 0 % service to me ? Zero replays in 14 days.
My username in tryout account was xxxorxxxxxxxxOUP1396.
They know what is behind of x-es.
I passed today @ 9200/9000 but only traded 9 days so in the next 6 days I'll try to get it up to $12,000+. I traded 15 contracts every single trade in ZN or 7, 8, or 15 in ZB. It's as good as useless trying to hit the goal in a month trading ZF with the commission. I was as consistent as possible and hit the goal. Profit factor was 1.73 avg win 670 avg loss 450 77 trades with 48% winning. I think the win rate is messed because i think it's counting scratches as losses. Anyways I'll be very annoyed if it turns out I just wasted the last week & my money... there are three people I know of who have passed
@Raider You don't have 10K sitting around? Prioritize and make it. The cost of doing business is the cost of doing business. Back to my point, you are not working towards to save 10K for something you believe in, tells me a lot about you. Is it equal that the cost of entry now is broken down and anyone can jump in and lose 150 at a time, 20 times before they realize it? We just redistributed the cost of entry into someone else's pocket.
@lemons An average person remains an average person if one decides so. An average person in trading is going to be wiped out in the market. Why do we want average people in the market? So, we can steal their dumb money? An average person can paper trade, if that is all one can afford. I sense a lack of truth here, and I come from a very deep place of empathy, truth and loyalty.
By the way, I am working here for $900 euros a month and I am saving my 10K as my only priority and I used to be average.
As an 18 year old student looking to foot the massive cost of an elite US college, I can certainly say effort isn't what is preventing me from saving my money for trading.
Idk what point you're trying to get across; you mainly sound like someone trying to convince others after it didn't work out for you. I was just making a simple interjection because you make it seem like funding sources have no place. Pretty rude too, but anyways, good luck with whatever you're doing. \\\ Just a note, it seems to be a trend where people fail TST then think it's rigged or something, so they go make their own accounts then blow them out. I've spoken with multiple people who have done this. TST isn't as great as being consistently profitable on your own, but it is better than blowing out your own account, which is what most I've seen do.
Wow OneUp outdoing themselves again! Thanks. For the record, I am not funded yet. I took on a more challenging tryout because of the discount (the 5k drawdown with 9k profits). I am fine with sharing my eventual success or failure to obtain funding from OneUp Trader. I have taken the last week off from trading but hope to make progress over the next several weeks.
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but NEVER heard anybody complaining they passed the combine,traded Live,made money and didn't get paid
I have heard from TST affiliates who feed the Combine machine with aspiring traders have not got paid after constant efforts to collect what was contractually agreed to.
Curious but one cannot copyright an idea. It also presents at minimum a marketing problem for TST if they want to argue in court that they have engineered their combine to be a profit center because the whole premise of the combine is that they are using it to find profitable traders and generate profits in that way. Not a lawyer but don't see anything coming of this really-- nothing good for TST. This sounds more like a scare lawsuit but OneUp is well backed, if reports are true. So I do not see it having any effect.
My 2 seconds analysis: basically it sounds like OneUp may have copied TST's website and also signed up for TST's program to figure out what they were doing. The website look and feel is much different though. And, the types of information that OneUp could gain from entering into TST's program would be generally public knowledge. It sounds like TST cross-referenced some of their customers and found that they were affiliated with OneUp.
@Big Mike
here's the PDF of the ruling by the judge.
From his Conclusion :
For the reasons stated herein, TopstepTrader’s Motion for a
Temporary Restraining Order [ECF No. 7] is denied. In so doing,
the Court expresses no opinion on the ultimate merits of
TopstepTrader’s case but merely finds that the company has not
met the burden to warrant the grant of the extraordinary remedy
of temporary injunctive relief.
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Good there whole law suit was BS trying to prevent competition!!! We need a lot more competitors in the space so they can actually invest the money back to the traders ... keep removing stupid rules and funding people
Must evolve be more creative, I think some rules its the for Frainer the trader, it takes the important competition to allow the trader to choose the best for them, I made the pub has no company but important I think in future it will have other company
Let's settle this legitimacy debate. Although in order to test whether they will deliver on their promises I'll need to beat the evaluation, cross the withdrawal threshold of $1500 for this account and make another $1000. So $4000 overall.
I shall of course keep you guys updated in due course. Wish me luck!
The following 3 users say Thank You to ticktrooper for this post:
,I have read many complaints about TST but NEVER heard anybody complaining they passed the combine,traded Live,made money and didn't get paid
