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Get funded firms 2023/2024 - Any recommendations or words of warning?
My understanding is that E2T is not actually a funding company at all and does not pretend to be, but instead introduces successful evaluatees (if this is a word?) to one of two different funding companies, I think according to the person's location(?), who undertake to do the funding on E2T's recommendation.
What the financial arrangements, if any, are between those firms and E2T I do not know, and I think this is not disclosed, but as far as I know E2T is not claiming to fund anyone themselves.
Topstep is slightly different, I think, because although there is still the same arrangement with a "funding partner" in reality the funding partner is under the same ownership as Topstep and the funded accounts are still administrated and managed by Topstep anyway (not so with E2T).
It depends whether you are asking before or after lunch, lol.
Basically "as little as possible," though.
At the moment I cannot even pay $149 to be an Elite member and that is, if anything, probably a higher priority for me right now, anyway.
Part of the reason for my planning to start through a funding company, really, is that I would look at it to some extent as others look at "practice on sim" but with some imposed discipline and rules which I think will suit me.
Another part is that I know a couple of people who got started this way and have been successful, and I have quite some things in common with them, mathematical background etc.
I did not know that it was possible to trade a micro MES with so little as $50 but honestly I would not want to do that. At $5 per point, $1.25 per tick, with broad stop losses, and a desire to risk no more than 0.5% of my capital per trade (yes, I know that many or most people risk more than this), I would want more than that.
Earn2Trade is good, but problem with them is they only offer Rithmic accounts. Whereas Apex is the best because their Tradovate accounts can be traded from TradingView and connected to NinjaTrader at the same time for trade copying (unlike TopStep)
E2T has now been saying for years - not exaggerating! - that Tradovate will soon be available, but it still isn't.
Tradovate, with or without TradingView and/or Ninja, is the default platform at Trade Day (who also have Jigsaw, Motivewave and SierraChart, etc.).
I find the Performance Reports at TradeDay particularly interesting, as a way of looking in detail at the trading patterns of people (all anonymized) who have passed their evaluations. And from my limited experience of dealing with them, their customer support has been absolutely stellar: super-helpful, fast, friendly and even sometimes quite witty and entertaining. I've done a couple of evaluations with them (failed badly, having traded like a complete idiot, probably partly through having been fairly ill and in/out of the hospital while trying, or at least that's my story and I'm sticking to it!) and I have no complaints at all about them.
Well, it could simply be that they stopped being site sponsors for whatever reason? Maybe they realized they weren't getting enough referrals from this site. What do I know. From what I recall, they weren't too active on the responses here, though.
Beyond the cheesy marketing and cheesy graphic, their program in many ways seemed like the best choice for futures for me. But like I said, it's only my impression and I don't have a strong view here. I still think that like most of these firms they don't have real interest in funding traders. In some ways they seem more honest than others, though. Particularly since at the bottom of their page there's a disclaimer showing the high failure rate for their programs.
Honestly, the whole idea of being introducers for a funding partner always struck me as a load of BS. Pardon my french. OneUpTrader have the same thing where "MES Capital" is the funding partner. I always figured it's one and the same. I could be wrong.
To be clear, I didn't suggest you should trade 1 MES with $50. I'm just saying it's possible. $750 to $1000 per MES contract seems reasonable. My point is you need to take a closer look at what it would cost you to trade with a "get-funded" firm and see how that stacks up to actually funding a small account yourself. It might not be as big difference as you think.
0.5 % risk per capital is extremely conservative for futures trading in my view. Of course, if you have a huge account it's easy, but for us small timers that's very difficult to achieve.
My own view of these firms seems similar to yours, i.e., a middle ground between simulator trading and live trading with your own funds - with the added benefit that if you do well it can lead to a larger payout.
Personally, I think I'll stick with trading my own account, but always curious to ask and see if there's any news on the subject.
If there was a firm that would seriously be interested to stake traders I'd be very, very interested, though. But all these firms will basically only supply you the initial shoestring which is your drawdown, i.e., typically $4-5K. As soon as you're in profit, you're risking your own money (profits).
Thank you, I will keep it in mind. Yes, 0.5 % risk is extremely conservative, but if I can get a funded account (big IF!) might be possible, and without a funded account not much is possible for me anyway, right now. There is always the future, though.
I think there are still traditional "prop firms" (like "Bright," maybe? These funding companies are not really prop firms at all, they just stole the name to try to smarten their image and now they are so popular it has caught on well? But the real ones require a whole lot more than passing a quick evaluation, and I think most require you to put up at least a few thousand, too, for "first risk"??
For what it's worth, E2T is now running a 50 % discount on all their programs.
Yes, I got an email with some cheesy graphics showing an Easter egg. Personally, it's a bit off-putting to me. I may consider it, but I don't think I'll take it.
Cheese does not go well with Easter eggs. But these days, even with dietary stuff, you have to try to be "woke" which means no mentions of red meat anywhere, for sure. On the other hand, cheese and eggs are no good for Vegans, so it's not easy to promote anything with food analogies.
