Welcome to NexusFi: the best trading community on the planet, with over 150,000 members Sign Up Now for Free
Genuine reviews from real traders, not fake reviews from stealth vendors
Quality education from leading professional traders
We are a friendly, helpful, and positive community
We do not tolerate rude behavior, trolling, or vendors advertising in posts
We are here to help, just let us know what you need
You'll need to register in order to view the content of the threads and start contributing to our community. It's free for basic access, or support us by becoming an Elite Member -- see if you qualify for a discount below.
-- Big Mike, Site Administrator
(If you already have an account, login at the top of the page)
That's totally wrong. It IS your money. The business model of all these firms is the same: Become a profitable trader. If you trade their accounts, whether it's sim or real, the profits are YOURS after the split.
If a firm is withholding profits that you earned, then it's a red flag that they're doing something else with the money.
Yes, you agree to their terms and conditions and to their payout policy. But there's no logical reason why a firm should withhold funds unless they're using those funds for something else. That's why I say it's a ponzi scheme. It's the classic definition:
"A Ponzi scheme (/ˈpɒnzi/, Italian: [ˈpontsi]) is a form of fraud that lures investors and pays profits to earlier investors with funds from more recent investors.[1] Named after Italian businessman Charles Ponzi, the scheme leads victims to believe that profits are coming from legitimate business activity (e.g., product sales or successful investments), and they remain unaware that other investors are the source of funds. A Ponzi scheme can maintain the illusion of a sustainable business as long as new investors contribute new funds, and as long as most of the investors do not demand full repayment and still believe in the non-existent assets they are purported to own."
All the money Madoff's investors made during the first couple of decades was real enough, too - but obviously that didn't make the business lawful, so it's no criterion at all by which to judge.
If there are people paying money to the company on the basis of misleading or dishonest information (whether or not they're "investors" per se), a court might declare that illegal.
sure! and it would still be a bargain. If they had opened an account with futures, the minimum to open an account would have been 5000 USD and 90% of them would have lost 90% of the accounts (according to the usual 90-90-90 refrain). So they would have lost 4500 USD.
It's a silly situation, everyone knows there is some illegal (or a-legal) with it, yet it's a win win situation for everyone.
I think the only people who lose are the exchanges.... because they don't get any commission.
It isn't you're money though. You haven't deposited money into an account for trading. You subscribed to a service, which gave you access to an account that had a balance.
If these were like a bank or custody account, I would agree. But I don't see these at all similar to a bank account, again because you didn't enter the initial deposit. Its not your money you are trading with, but the profits (or losses) only happened because of the trades you entered. What about an analogy to a racecar team. The driver doesn't own the car, but they are the sole reason the car/team wins. When they win, they are rewarded with money, but they don't demand the car, because it wasn't theirs in the first place.
It would be a ponzi if they payouts given to people making money came the majority from new signups/resets/fees. I find it extremely hard to believe that places like Apex are pulling more than 2M in fees a month. Instead I think they actually are either selling trade signals, or copy trading themselves
That not the legal term of an investor though.
You need to deposit you money into an account, and then use that money in the account to speculate on the market by buying and selling commodities.
According to APEX you are subscribing to their service, which grants you access to trade in an account in a simulation environment.
Disagree, that's still not a ponzi the same way daily fantasy football isn't a ponzi.
And I find it hard to believe Apex isn't pulling in at least 2M in fees per month. This thread started about MyForexFunds, which pulled in 300 million in fees over 2 years.
Apex does also sell a bunch of additional stuff through apexinvesting.net like their trade copier, indicators, education boot camps, etc., but I'd bet the eval account fees pull in over 2 mil per month alone.