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Striker.com is one, Collective2.com is another. I have a good contact at Striker, I don't want to post his e-mail here though. I'll get it to you another way.
Odd about TopStep and scalping. I'm not really up on what the company's saying about itself any more, but I haven't read anything about TopStep not wanting scalpers. In fact, my impression has always been that they don't care how you trade, so long as you trade within their loss control rules, which I'm pretty sure they have said explicitly. I know there's nothing in their rules about it, so I assume you could scalp if you wanted to.
Anyway, I hope things go well for you with OneUp. Keep us advised, and good luck with it.
Bob.
When one door closes, another opens.
-- Cervantes, Don Quixote
They did a rule change about a month or so ago, 50% of your trades have to be 20+ seconds. So depends how you define scalping but basically that's the new rule that has people saying they don't want scalpers.
It's a 20 second rule - it's really ridiculous because as a scalper and an order flow trader, there are days when a 15 tick trade will exit almost the same time as you enter. Have no idea why 20 seconds is the magic number.
I trade an algorithm I developed using order flow as the trigger to enter the trade. If you ever watched the order flow on the NQ, you would see immediately that the 20 second rule is unrealistic.
From their website:
"Winning Trade Duration is a target similar to minimum trading days and the profit target. When the majority of your trades have a hold duration of 20 seconds or more, you improve winning behaviors that will serve you well in a live account with Topstep, or in a personal brokerage account.
The percentage calculates the number of winning trades that were held for 20 seconds or more divided by the total number of winning trades. As long as the majority of these trades meet this target (50% or higher) you are reaching the expectation and demonstrating long-term winning behavior. This does not factor in losing trades, and remember you can always exit a losing trade at any time.
This target is required in all simulated trading accounts. This includes Step 1 & Step 2 of the Trading Combine as well as the Pro Account. The target is not required in the live Funded Account. You can monitor your status and progress directly on your trade report.
Why is this important? Traders who had average trade durations under 20 seconds rarely saw success in the live markets and were almost never profitable. In fact, 96% of live funded traders holding positions under 20 seconds had an overall negative P/L.
Trading simulators approximate live market conditions; however, generally speaking, you will get better fills in SIM, especially when using short-duration, high volume strategies. It may work in SIM, but as you can see from the data above, these strategies simply do not work when trading live futures."
I don't know how many samples were in their statistical study, but unless it was in the thousands, it's meaningless. I'm a physicist and scientist by training. A sample size has to be large enough to cover a significant number of traders who represent a large percentage of all traders. Then you might have something. I have no idea how many traders were in their samples, but I seriously doubt it was up in the 5 figures or more. I doubt they could perform a chi-squared test for variance in a normal population.
One other thing to keep in mind with regards to OneUp is that you actually have to build a profit cushion before you can withdraw.
I missed this when I first registered. It depends on the account size, but say for the 150K account, if you want to withdraw your initial 8K at a 100 % split, you need to build a cushion of 5K first. So, effectively, 13K of profits to take out 8K.
Of course, once you have that cushion it's only up from there, but it's an obstacle to keep in mind. Most of all the time it takes to get there, IMO.
How utterly, totally strange. I used to be more on top of what they were doing, so this must have been added after my interest drifted away from them. Or maybe I just skipped over it. But what a strange rule this is.
I do get their point about sim trading being different from live, and you can have a lot of unrealistic fills and so look better than you really are.... but not to such a great extent that it lets you pass the Combine due to many 1 or 2 tick inaccuracies in your fills. Even a whole lot of extra 1 and 2 ticks is not going to push you over the top.
I do, by the way, totally agree with the statement that many or most traders who typically hold under 20 seconds lose.... also, many or most traders who hold under 20 minutes lose.... also, under 20 hours.... or, 20 days. Etc. Most traders lose, some quickly, some more slowly. The seconds don't matter, except if you trade poorly you can lose more quickly. But I don't think that slightly better sim fills will boost a trader up into apparent profitability, not consistently. And I don't think that x number of seconds matters, except that a bad trader who is doing a lot of bad trades will lose faster.
Anyway, I agree with you that this is a ridiculous rule. But you're right, they don't want very short-term trading, even if the trader can pass the test in sim. Oh well....
Bob.
When one door closes, another opens.
-- Cervantes, Don Quixote
It looks to me like another rule designed to help them eliminate traders.
Like the silly rule OneUp have for funded traders who need to generate 50 % of the volume they did in the evaluation on a weekly basis. By contract, OneUp (MES) can actually cancel an account if a trader have a profitable week, but doesn't meet his weekly volume requirements. I know there are funded traders who actually trade micros just to meet their volume quota. Just silly.
All these rules and restrictions and a whole lot of other stuff have me convinced that they have no real interest in actually funding traders. That's not to say they are scams or that they won't pay out. I certainly believe they do. And have talked to people who have withdrawn. However, I'm pretty much convinced it's not something they really have any interest in. They're just selling the dream of a $150K account which really is at best a $5K of margin.
That's the good thing about LeeLoo. They virtually have zero rules. You can trade through the Close, too. And hold overnight. The drawback is that they have a trailing drawdown which trails from unrealized profits and which never drops. So, effectively you're always one bad day from a blow-up. Of course, if you trade very small or simply are very good you can survive. But that kind of defeats the purpose of such a deal.
If there exist a company that have serious interest in funding a trader and letting him trade some size. Even if further down the line. Please let me know.