Tymbeline 

Am I the only person who finds that, in itself, rather suspicious? And what's this "non-disparagement clause"? Does it mean that they reserve the right not to pay you, if you criticise them in a forum, for example? I understand that it may be "just a deterrent" - but still pretty alarming?

No I think pretty much everyone in here thinks its suspicious and not a position that a company that wants to really "partner" with you would really have.

The non-disparagement says that if you say something negative or false about them online, they can either deny payouts, and/or put you on probabtion, and/or close your accounts and/or sue you. Whether thats a legal statement that will hold up in court and if they will win is a different conversation, but for now if definitely acts as a deterrent for bad talking them

jlabtrades 

No I think pretty much everyone in here thinks its suspicious and not a position that a company that wants to really "partner" with you would really have. The non-disparagement says that if you say something negative or false about them online, they can either deny payouts, and/or put you on probabtion, and/or close your accounts and/or sue you. Whether thats a legal statement that will hold up in court and if they will win is a different conversation, but for now if definitely acts as a deterrent for bad talking them

Yeah they even have it as part of their "probation" now, so if you blow through tons of accounts and they deny you a payout, they'll give you a second chance to trade how they like. But if you dare to post publicly about your denial, or write a negative review, guess what your money is gone. It's really bad. I even saw a reply from them on Trustpilot the other day, saying to someone they'd broken the terms of their agreement and would now lose a payout.

They have had the practice for a long while to ban anyone who speaks out against them, so really this is nothing new.

What I find most disturbing about their new PA agreement is the requirement to have Zoom sessions where they watch you trade, and the clause that any money you make while under supervision doesn't even go to your account. You basically have to work for free, and if you don't make the same money you usually do then you forfeit your balance.

planetkill 

At least Apex is being honest and more transparent with their business model now

A bit. I mean, that form is filled with loaded questions, and only one box has the opportunity to give your own opinion. Some of the questions are absurd. Such as this gem:

Quoting 

11. I understand there is no way for Apex to losen up rules and make payouts quicker without opening up more possibilities of scams and schemes and windfall traders! There must be safeguards in place and this will cause whining and complaining as well Yes, I understand and agree to help combat that No, Apex should not worry and should everyone to whatever they want, whenever they want

Or this, claiming that people who contact support to rightfully ask where the hell their money is are "clogging up the system" lol!

Quoting 

13. If a payout approval and review schedule is clearly posted, and stated not to send tickets or inquiries until after a certain date, should that be honored and followed? Or should traders be allowed to blow up customer support and social media with questions and inquires and tying up staff from processing your request? Those that do this, and clog the system for everyone, should they automatically moved to the last day of the period for Review outcome of Approved or Denied? Should there be a penalty for clogging the system and not following procedure and the penalty be, they wont find out the outcome of the request until the last day? Yes, I agree, those that clog up the system should be penalized and not be approved or denied until the final day of the cycle It is not fair that some people are approved earlier than other, so EVERYONE should always wait tilll the last date and EVERYONE be updated at the same time no matter what. We should ALL wait until ALL requests have a status, then all get updated at once. No early payouts There should be no penalty for inquiring before the date and distracting staff from progress on payout requests. Staff should stop and answer each one, all throughout the day, delaying the process for everyone

And this question, there is no good answer they all suck. Choose your punishment:

Quoting 

28. To make this a reality of quicker payouts and quicker path to 100% withdrawal with no min. days required and no Consistency rule after that, the protective measure I like the most is: No longer offering 20 accounts, making a max of 10 Lowering the Trailing Threshold amounts giving less room Requiring safety net to always remain Cap profit limit in PA the first 4 payouts to $25k each PA Eliminating One Day To Pass

And a couple of their questions even encourage us to speak out and support Apex against any criticism. They're literally asking people to step up and fight against any online negativity. A good company shouldn't feel the need to do this, and anyone with a valid complaint might face online abuse or harassment as a result of this.

Quoting 

I agree with this and would support Apex when this is complained against

Quoting 

I understand that if a Probation Status is used, this will create complaints, issues, drama, and people being upset and spreading negativity. I agree to not fall prey to this and agree to help and support Apex to battle this online or in house in order to allow for an ease in rules for the rest of us! We should not all suffer due to bad apples.

To me, they could have just written this and it'd be the same:

Quoting 

A I understand that Apex knows everything and I am a lowly peasant, so agree that these new rules are a good idea and will shout at anyone who disagrees with Apex. B I want a free lunch and want to abuse the system and know that scammers will ruin everything for me.

If there are so many "scammers", perhaps they should just ban them from creating accounts? Fix their system? From what I've read of the reviews, they are still happy to take money from these people, and then just deny them payouts.

These extended 90% discounts, and reduced fees on their $250k account, which is one of the hardest to pass, do make me wonder if they're just trying to get as much money from fees as possible due to them facing financial or regulatory issues.

The trailing drawdown is bad enough, but now with everything else that's happened(literally 100 bad reviews in the past few days, are they really all scammers?), their firm is less attractive to me than ever. Most of those reviews will disappear in the next week or so, as Apex fight each and every one, asking for personal details and trying to get it taken down. If you hand over your details, you lose your account and any balance in there.

The trailing drawdown encourages a scalping mentality, as runners don't really fit in with this, as you could be up $3000 in a trade, exit at a profit of $400 and blow the account while in profit. So you are forced to scalp, taking a poor risk/reward ratio again and again, then they add in a rule that you can't have more than 3:1 risk to reward!? It seems designed to go against you no matter what you do. The only way I can see to trade properly, is to trade micros on all of their plans. The largest only has $7500 of drawdown, and with the 2% rule you should be risking a maximum of $150 on each trade. The problem is that if the trade goes into profit, that your $150 evaporates instantly. I.e the trade goes up to $300 profit, but comes back and hits your stop loss, you just lost that $300 drawdown plus whatever your stop is. And it's even worse on the smaller plans, the "50k" account, which in reality is a $2500k account, would only allow a stop of $50 if you wanted to follow the 2% time tested rule. There is just no way to trade responsibly with a good RR if you want to pass these accounts in a reasonable timeframe, so scalping is essential. Or just rely on a lucky series of trades, but then is your strategy good for the long term? How many evaluations and funded accounts have you had and lost?

I'm always very interested to hear how people are successfully trading these accounts, not just getting to the first payout and blowing it, because that proves nothing more than a lucky series of trades. I mean having a funded account for months, profiting and keeping it going. Because getting past the drawdown stage of these often means trading a very specific way that may be different from a long term strategy.

josh 

Agree with you 100%. To be fair though, retail traders with small accounts can not trade like hedge funds, who have much bigger resources, often have longer term strategies (beyond intraday), have more tools to manage their risk (like options and swaps), and almost have to work the market this way to get their size on. The spirit behind the rule is solid. More traders blow up from fighting a directional move by adding to it than probably any other mistake. So, adding to losers is objectively a bad idea. But legitimately scaling in, working around a position, with a plan to do so, is absolutely what good traders like to do. My problem is with how the rule is defined. I can buy 3 contracts at price X, but can't buy 1 at X, 1 at X-1, and 1 at X-2. That's stupid. What's the solution? Well, it's called a loss limit, and they already have one (it's the account size). If people want to blow themselves up, let them. If they don't, let them set a smaller loss limit. But don't dictate how I trade. That's my issue.

It's worse than stupid, I think it's intentional and calculated. On their largest account, you can buy 35 emini contracts at price X. But you can't buy 1 micro and then scale in twice with 1 micro each time, because of "risk". Because to Apex, 3 micros with scaling is way too risky, even though its less than 1/100th the risk of their largest 35 mini account. It is beyond stupid, although I think they're being smart and using it as an excuse to keep people's money. It's the stupid people that fall for it, and believe it's there to stop scammers and protect their hard earned money.

I think the writing is on the wall - they don't really want good traders. Nothing points to them wanting a "partnership". You could have been trading your system successfully for years, managing risk and consistently making money by scaling 1-3 contracts. But that's no longer an option, and you are now bundled into the "scammers and whiners" category when your payout is denied.

VirtualMark 

And this question, there is no good answer they all suck. Choose your punishment: Quoting 28. To make this a reality of quicker payouts and quicker path to 100% withdrawal with no min. days required and no Consistency rule after that, the protective measure I like the most is: No longer offering 20 accounts, making a max of 10 Lowering the Trailing Threshold amounts giving less room Requiring safety net to always remain Cap profit limit in PA the first 4 payouts to $25k each PA Eliminating One Day To Pass

The only right answer is eliminating one day to pass, it's the cause of the new rules

planetkill 

The only right answer is eliminating one day to pass, it's the cause of the new rules

100%

planetkill 

The only right answer is eliminating one day to pass, it's the cause of the new rules

I'm not so sure. They have a stupid system anyhow, 7 days to pass but you can hit your target day one, and then flip contracts for the remaining six days, no consistency or trading ability required. Yes the seven days to pass would slow the scammers down, but it wouldn't stop them.

The real answer isn't listed there, that's the problem. Apex needs to invest in their system to detect these scammers and ban them. Ban their MAC and IP addresses, stop them creating accounts, ban their emails, ban their credit or debit cards etc. If they're really that bad, then Apex should find every way in their power to stop doing business with them.

I have a friend doing the course. So far, he is enjoying it, but he hasn't traded their money yet. With all the complaints and restrictions involved with Apex, Topstep is another. Here's the solution: Save your money and trade your accounts. Its that simple. Thats my advice to him.

GlobalTrader 

I have a friend doing the course. So far, he is enjoying it, but he hasn't traded their money yet. With all the complaints and restrictions involved with Apex, Topstep is another. Here's the solution: Save your money and trade your accounts. Its that simple. Thats my advice to him.

If your friend uses NinjaTrader and would like to experience trailing drawdowns before investing further in a funded platform experience, he can actually enable this setting under 'Risk Settings' at the NinjaTrader 'Accounts' page.

https://support.ninjatrader.com/s/article/How-Do-I-Set-a-Trailing-Max-Drawdown-on-My-Account?language=en_US

VirtualMark 

Yeah they even have it as part of their "probation" now, so if you blow through tons of accounts and they deny you a payout, they'll give you a second chance to trade how they like. But if you dare to post publicly about your denial, or write a negative review, guess what your money is gone. It's really bad. I even saw a reply from them on Trustpilot the other day, saying to someone they'd broken the terms of their agreement and would now lose a payout. They have had the practice for a long while to ban anyone who speaks out against them, so really this is nothing new. What I find most disturbing about their new PA agreement is the requirement to have Zoom sessions where they watch you trade, and the clause that any money you make while under supervision doesn't even go to your account. You basically have to work for free, and if you don't make the same money you usually do then you forfeit your balance.

I interrupted that section to say that if you are denied a payout and they want a trading session review, then you have to record your trading for a few days to show how you have a real strategy - not that you have to record all your trades and present them when asked, and that if you can’t replicate that strategy (not necessarily the money) then you lose the payout. Which sorta makes sense to me, but still a bad deal. If its gamblers they are trying to catch that dont have a real strategy then thats one way to root them out