1) Most of all, you have to abide by TST's risk guidelines. 2) They impose no profit objective on you. 3) The trader is receiving a relatively "large" payout on a relatively "small" account. 4) The firm absorbs losses to the downside "shutdown" limit on the account, not you, ever. :eek: 5) You WILL have to be a daytrader, with even some additional time constraints in certain markets. 6) If you have your own account already, you probably wouldn't feel comfortable with the guidelines.
I have traded futures for just 2 years and while I have the funding like Maverick said I dont want to risk it in futures. . So I am giving TST a try. I failed the first combine-hit the daily loss limit. Now I am on my second combine and doing well. I think personally the combine rules are fair-no overnight holds, risk limits etc. When I am trading good none of that matters but I have had couple of days where had it not been for the DLL i probably would have lost more. I am doing the 50k combine with 3500 profit target. Worst case right now is I get refunded or I can try another one for free. The earlier combine that I failed, was entirely my fault and mistakes that I make with my trading. They have a max loss limit of 2k to make 3.5k which is fair I think. Enough room to hang yourself. Some might say its just same as a practice account but practice account you dont really have the pressure that you have with a combine account. It may not be for everyone, but if you think you are a good trader and its a good opportunity for someone without funding or without risking any of your own money to make it in the trading world.
Has anyone ever wondered if this is such a good business model, why others are not copying it? I know only one other similar company, and that is an obvious scam... Hell, if I wanted to run a similar ship, I could just use TST's Combine (so I don't need to run a sim with datafeed and such) and back Combiners with less strict criterias and different hurdles to overcome... Let's say you missed the profit target by 200 bucks or you have 2 red stats? I would still back you...
Any news with this operation? Haven't been active in the trading world or the forums for a while now.
They seem to be very active in Chicago. Doing happy hours and more "in person" stuff then over the internet. I think that's a smart move. Web forums are really not very productive. A lot of noise and distraction here.
I accidentally clicked on the link instead of the little arrow which brings me to the last page. On the first 2 pages there was full of bickering about the good and bad of the program is. It seems to me that most traders lose in the beginning. So I do not understand why you would fund an account with 5 or 10 thousand, and most likely blow it up after X amount of months. Pay 190 for the 20 day 50k combine, if you are a scratch trader you get it refunded. If you are doing well, perhaps u get a chance to be funded. If you blow up...you lose 190, not 5 or 10k. If you do pass the combine, perhaps you want to consider making a 5k deposit and trading your own money at a futures broker...but this gives a chance to blow up 2 or 3 times and only lose 600$, people do not realize how fast you can be -$600. Its far better to lose 600 over the course of 2-3 months then ending up like this guy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIMwMsY0ndo
I did check the Combine parameters lately, as I have a system that I thought would have a chance ... ... but, really, those Combine parameters are just engineered to fail 99% of the candidates. Take the $190 combine for example: $3500 target, $2000 max DD, say over 20 days. Aside from making it by luck, that translates into the ability to make $35,000 per year (20 days * 10) while staying inside a $2,000 drawdown max. Sure.
If you ran a prop firm that fully funded the traders, would you be looking for anything less than the top 1%? I believe TopStep allows you to design a custom combine.