This is what he said in the other thread: To answer the first part about commissions. We are not a discounted brokerage house. We can not compete with those commissions. This is what Patak Trading Partner has worked out with our clearing. It is fair. If we have high volume traders(which we do not) then we can go back to the clearing firm and work something out as we will work to retain any talent that we find. That is not in the cards at this time. To add to this, there are no platform fees cost for squawk, or any other tools as a funded trader (excluding the advanced charting option that the platform provider debits the trading account of the funded trader if they request that they want it). hopefully we can lay commissions to rest. Now to the next part: You mentioned: Yes, Combines are refundable. But, a very small fraction of people doing combines will get refunds. We have a large amount each day become eligible for a refund, I am confused on your speculation by saying a small number do this? If it was something I said earlier please let me know. Those that become eligible for a refund roll this over to start a new Combine after discussing what to work on with the scout who reviews them. We rarely get recruits asking for a refund, most rollover and continue to work on their trading. He does not say the commission rate is rock bottom, and it isn't but it isn't out of the realm of what gets charged. I never said that the rates are the best either, but no one here can know the agreement between them and the clearing firm. I do wish it was worth their time to sue you, as you seem to throw the word liar and ponzi scheme pretty cavalierly.
Oh you have 10k to make on a silly bet like this? Than I guess you must be rich enough to have a good sized account and not need TsT. Problem solved.
I bow to you Sir for writing a very thought-provoking post. I would have really helped making an iota of change in the world had I gone and met Bill Gates and asked him for 100k grant for setting up an organization to fight Child Malnutrition in an Eastern European country rather than spending my time on this thread. My work is done on this and the other thread. My intention is not to respond anymore, and I hope I will keep myself away from these 2 threads. I must publicly admit that I am pretty disappointed with myself that I do not value my time - for otherwise I would have never wasted 3-4 days of my life analyzing, writing, refuting and dealing calmly with false and clearly misleading comments. In my real world life, I don't tolerate BS at all. But I guess I am a different animal in my virtual life - much more calm and forgiving. LOL. It will be interesting for sure if 100 other Patak clones appear in Chicago over the next 3 months all with competing combine objectives after reading this thread. Getting inspired from the analysis of risk-free profits that this business model can generate for its owners. LOL.
Regarding commissions, there are only two legal ways for him to be making money on them. He either is operating as an FCM which I did not see on his NFA registration. Or he is an IB. An IB is an introducing broker. An IB can earn some of the commissions from an FCM if they refer business to that FCM. This is actually very common in the futures industry and my guess would be that Patak Trading, not TST is operating as an IB on some level. I know if I were running Patak I would do it. IB's make very little money though. So if a FCM was charging 1.00 a side, they might kick back .15 to .20 to the IB. The reason for this is because the IB technically is doing some of the work for the FCM. It's not big bucks but if one is running a very large IB business, it can make some change. However, most of us agree here that they probably have very few live traders so the money Patak would be making on kickbacks is probably the smallest of the revenue streams. As a disclaimer, I do not know that Patak is an IB or a GIB (Guaranteed Introducing Broker), I am simply speculating that he might be. If he is, he is not making dick on it unless he has a highly successful operation with live traders.
Is there a difference in the remuneration of a GIB? The reason I ask is DDT is guaranteed by Crossland but I don't see too many IBs guaranteed so I have always wondered about this.
I didn't want to respond but to set the record straight, I will honor you with one last post. I never labelled them as ponzi scheme in the first place. You said something like I think they are ponzi scheme, I said I don't really know the exact definition, but from what I have heard what a ponzi scheme is, they sound somewhat similar. I have already said a lot of things - if someone wants to sue me, please go ahead and use what I have written as evidence. But, please don't put words in my mouth. Cheers!
Yes, a GIB does not have to put up capital as he cannot hold the accounts, the FCM does and guarantees the accounts to the exchanges. A regular IB has to put up a lot of money and can accept orders to execute trades while the accounts are held at the FCM. There is far more licensing and cost with being an IB. A GIB is the cheaper alternative but less lucrative obviously. The GIB passes the risk on to the FCM.
You have been successful in enticing me to respond. You said you have met Patak and you found him a nice guy. I responded that just because a guys comes across as nice in a meeting doesn't mean his business dealings are fair and I used example of Madoff to illustrate this point. You sure are not this dumb to not understand that I used Madoff as an example, or am I really talking to a person with an IQ of 70. LOL.
maybe someone from tst can comment on this... i can understand mav not wanting to comment. 500 in the combine and 17 live?