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*Topstep traders account for nearly 1% of NQ's daily volume
What does the * mean? I usually see that when there's more to the story. I checked the e-mail I also received and could not find exactly what.
Not trying to be a party pooper, but those statistics doesn't really impress me or even say much at all.
That's if they're even true. For example, the founder of Apex funding claims to have pulled $300K out of a funding company. Seems like an outrageous claim.
It seems like it's very easy to claim this and that without any proof at all.
Does anybody else believe this to be true? I most certainly don't. Maybe I'm wrong.
Sorry if this was off-topic, but it relates to how easy it is to claim this and that without any proof.
As for other companies, I have not seen it, but if you scroll to the bottom of E2T's web page, they do give the statistics on how many passed their programs:
I have been trading futures professionaly since 2004 day in n out. Dont ask me why but I enrolled for the 50k combine of Topstep and I passed it on my second try after 6 months in total. To be honest most of the rules they got are fair and pretty straight forward but I concluded it is not on the side of the trader cause of the following reasons.
1) Lets say a begginer trader passes the combine after 12 months and he goes live right? Now that trader does a silly mistake like trades 50 seconds after NFP and not 1 minute later (which is the rule) he is out and back to step 1? Come on. So you are telling me that this trader devoted 12 months of his life to get funded and he is back trading from scratch in the sim? Ridiculous. I would suggest apart from the stop loss rule all other rule breaches should bring that trader back to Step 2 and not step 1.
2) The trailing stop just leave it at the initial balance for the funded or Pro version programme. I will give you an example. Trader Pete gets funded and goes for the Pro version that is 2k stop loss and 5k profit target. On his first week of trading his pnl goes up 1k but his stop loss is also up to -1k from -2k. Lets assume now that all hell breaks loose in the markets like nowadays and he goes back negative to -400. Now what, he is got with 600 $ left to play with? So in other words this programme is good for you only if you are on a good trading run for that current period. Thought those guys were all about trader development. What no?
3) How many traders in the Pro version continue trading after they reach succesfully the 5k mark? I would assume the majority takes the money and sets up his own trading account with a broker. Show us that statistic if u wanna be honest.
Some people might find the idea of paying Combine fees 12 times when they could have been trading their own account (either sim or small-stakes on micros) a bit "ridiculous" to start with, perhaps?
I certainly wouldn't be willing to pay the Combine fee 12 times over.
If it took me 12 months to pass the Combine, when I eventually got through it, I'd guess that I'd just been pretty lucky on that occasion, and wouldn't feel competent to be trading other people's money at all.
Please appreciate that there's absolutely no implication of "I'm better than that" intended in my comment above. I have no idea whether I could pass a Combine and have never tried. But I'm sure I wouldn't try for 12 months and then feel somehow "qualified" for anything, if I eventually got through one.
Maybe my perspective is different from most people's? I honestly don't know. It just feels to me that paying Combine fees for a whole year would be pretty ridiculous in itself. Maybe Topstep wouldn't be so unreasonable in wanting to send someone fitting your description above back to sim, on the grounds that they'd probably just "got lucky once" and were probably not a competent trader in the first place, or at least not demonstrably so?
Isn't that the same position he'd have been in without the initial, profitable week?
Isn't this true of all "try-out programs", though? And indeed all trading in general: you need to be able to have "a good trading run", to make profits, don't you? (Maybe I misunderstood your point, here?).
I don't think they claim be "all" about trader development, do they? Isn't that just a minor side-benefit, to some people, of the service they offer? There've certainly been plenty of forum members here saying that they've found those aspects (what one might call the "imposed discipline") to be one of the benefits of participating in Combines.
I think it isn't permitted to do that, under the current withdrawal rules? They can only take out half of their accumulated profit at any point, and even that only after 5 profitable ($100+) days?
It may be, though, that Topstep has introduced this rule effectively to try to prevent people from doing a "$5,000 hit-and-run"? I wouldn't know.
Please don't imagine that I'm trying to hold some torch for Topstep, here: I've certainly made enough critical comments about them, myself, over my last 10 or so posts here!
But it does seem to me that people sometimes criticise them for not being something they never claimed to be anyway, and/or for not being suitable for everyone in all circumstances (which they're very clearly not).