Yes those RT fees are rather large and they appear to enforce a very specific style of trading.... I was just asking out of curiosity not out of interest in pursuing this - there are lot of firms mentioned on here that turn out to be scams. While this isn't - it probably is only suitable for a certain subset of individuals - someone who can't afford to fund their own trading account, for example.
I guess if you're a recent grad with nothing else in the pipeline and little spare cash then this maybe worth considering, its not like they're asking for excessive amounts of cash up front from people like some other firms out there seem to do.
One thing that does seem to differ with their model and that of the backed deals that used to be fairly prevalent trading arcades in London is that with these guys you seemingly have to grow your account in order to trade larger size.... if you were to grow significantly they're then taking a split from trades made with what is essentially mostly your capital being put up as margin. Anyone experiencing a decent level of success from this place would be wise to either negotiate something or move elsewhere, keep 100% and pay lower RT fees...In fact for just about any wannabe trader who has more than a few hundred spare... they might well be better off just opening their own retail account - if you're able to hit the targets required for the 'combine' with these people you'd have enough to trade the same size they're offering by the end of the month anyway... and you'd keep 100%...
Hi everyone, sorry to reply on such an old post, but I found it just now and I couldnt resist.
( the administrators will decide whether to make of it a new topic or not).
I am a professional trader. The market I trade is exotic and quite positional, this means I have time to waste.
As an "hobby" I started to look at those type of business models, which I call " fake prop house".
Specifically I tried Pulsar ( only once) and Topstep. The model is quite similar, but I reckon , Topstep has a much better marketing and actually provides you with a lot more services (the radio, the chat, etc.)
With topsep even if you are a japanese housewife trading in your pigiamas from home, you feel like you are in the pit with the real traders.
The truth about them I reckon lies in the middle.
If you are a new comer , you are a junior etc, Topstep is a very good way to start. They oblige you to respect rules and risk limits and that is very healthy.
If you lose, if you need to practice and keep hitting the stoploss limit, at least you are not making it with your real account. Dont say it's better to open a free simulated account, that implies no psychological pressure: you dont pay to trade and you have no one monitoring you, it will quickly became a joke.
In that sense , Topstep is saving people a lot of money.
Combine objectives are not very simple, so only a minority succeed. That happens also in real trading. I reckon they are quite honest on that part.
Where I dont think they are honest is somewhere else.
First of all, they make you believe that if you pass the Combine you will be funded and that you will be trading the same amount of money ( and risk parameters) you worked with in the Combine: that is not true.
If you pass the Combine , you will have to go for another sort of " Combine", which is called live preparation period, where they use even tighter limits. The limits I reckon could be appropriate for minidow, snp or euro, but surely not for gold an crude. Also the had number of consecutive negative trade per day , etc, etc. Technically it doesnt make sense, but it is a long discussion , which I m not gonna take here.
The other limit which is meaningful, is that your max drawdown is 2000 USD. From that you can understand that you wont be trading a 150k USD acccount , no matter what. You wont be trading even a 30k USD account. You will be trading a leveraged 10k account probably, with a 2k usd total stoploss.
Another point lies in education. You can take ( paying) their ITD course, which honestly it is more a psychology class than everything, or again pay for private coaching or pay to attend some webinars.
They are obviously not that much interested in educating their traders for one simple reason: because to them they are customers not traders.
The numbers.
I want to precise I had to go thru the Combine a few times to pass it. I managed to pass it twice ( last time I finished ydy). For me it's a game, to be clear, I am a former futures broker and I trade for living since sept 2007.
Topstep I reckon collects roughly 200ish combine subscribers per month, at 190 usd each ( lets say 200 USD per subscriber) .
To this you had , classes, courses, webinars, etc, etc.
I wud say one trader per month goes live, this means their risk per month is probably 5% of the income : 2000 USD risk vs roughly 40000 income. It's a good trade.
Out of the live trades, which in total could be around 30ish considering when they started, probably some go back and forth from the simulator, some actually make little gain and a few others ( 3-4?) actually make money for them and for Topstep on regular basis. I presume they get commission rebates on all executed trades.
it is a very good business model i think
So to recap: Topstep is a good gym to learn, but it's little more than that.
If you are not a professional trader, it's a good start to learn: you will save your own money for sure.
If you are a professional trader or if you just came out of University and want to try join a prop house, that is not your best choice, because it is not a prop house!
( the administrators will decide whether to make of it a new topic or not).
I am a professional trader. The market I trade is exotic and quite positional, this means I have time to waste.
As an "hobby" I started to look at those type of business models, which I call " fake prop house".
Specifically I tried Pulsar ( only once) and Topstep. The model is quite similar, but I reckon , Topstep has a much better marketing and actually provides you with a lot more services (the radio, the chat, etc.)
With topsep even if you are a japanese housewife trading in your pigiamas from home, you feel like you are in the pit with the real traders.
The truth about them I reckon lies in the middle.
If you are a new comer , you are a junior etc, Topstep is a very good way to start. They oblige you to respect rules and risk limits and that is very healthy.
If you lose, if you need to practice and keep hitting the stoploss limit, at least you are not making it with your real account. Dont say it's better to open a free simulated account, that implies no psychological pressure: you dont pay to trade and you have no one monitoring you, it will quickly became a joke.
In that sense , Topstep is saving people a lot of money.
Combine objectives are not very simple, so only a minority succeed. That happens also in real trading. I reckon they are quite honest on that part.
Where I dont think they are honest is somewhere else.
First of all, they make you believe that if you pass the Combine you will be funded and that you will be trading the same amount of money ( and risk parameters) you worked with in the Combine: that is not true.
If you pass the Combine , you will have to go for another sort of " Combine", which is called live preparation period, where they use even tighter limits. The limits I reckon could be appropriate for minidow, snp or euro, but surely not for gold an crude. Also the had number of consecutive negative trade per day , etc, etc. Technically it doesnt make sense, but it is a long discussion , which I m not gonna take here.
The other limit which is meaningful, is that your max drawdown is 2000 USD. From that you can understand that you wont be trading a 150k USD acccount , no matter what. You wont be trading even a 30k USD account. You will be trading a leveraged 10k account probably, with a 2k usd total stoploss.
Another point lies in education. You can take ( paying) their ITD course, which honestly it is more a psychology class than everything, or again pay for private coaching or pay to attend some webinars.
They are obviously not that much interested in educating their traders for one simple reason: because to them they are customers not traders.
The numbers.
I want to precise I had to go thru the Combine a few times to pass it. I managed to pass it twice ( last time I finished ydy). For me it's a game, to be clear, I am a former futures broker and I trade for living since sept 2007.
Topstep I reckon collects roughly 200ish combine subscribers per month, at 190 usd each ( lets say 200 USD per subscriber) .
To this you had , classes, courses, webinars, etc, etc.
I wud say one trader per month goes live, this means their risk per month is probably 5% of the income : 2000 USD risk vs roughly 40000 income. It's a good trade.
Out of the live trades, which in total could be around 30ish considering when they started, probably some go back and forth from the simulator, some actually make little gain and a few others ( 3-4?) actually make money for them and for Topstep on regular basis. I presume they get commission rebates on all executed trades.
it is a very good business model i think
So to recap: Topstep is a good gym to learn, but it's little more than that.
If you are not a professional trader, it's a good start to learn: you will save your own money for sure.
If you are a professional trader or if you just came out of University and want to try join a prop house, that is not your best choice, because it is not a prop house!
Tax
Hi. I live in London and I am interested in TST's Combine.
I wanted to know how would the tax work on that? Would I just have to pay the tax to the country I am working from?
I am aware the Funded Traders are Independent, self-employed and do their own taxes. TST being based in USA, and I live in London, would that be a problem or would I need to pay both country taxes? or just London?
Thanks
Hi. I live in London and I am interested in TST's Combine.
I wanted to know how would the tax work on that? Would I just have to pay the tax to the country I am working from?
I am aware the Funded Traders are Independent, self-employed and do their own taxes. TST being based in USA, and I live in London, would that be a problem or would I need to pay both country taxes? or just London?
Thanks
Vwittgenstein
Junior member
- Messages
- 11
- Likes
- 0
Hi. I live in London and I am interested in TST's Combine.
I wanted to know how would the tax work on that? Would I just have to pay the tax to the country I am working from?
I am aware the Funded Traders are Independent, self-employed and do their own taxes. TST being based in USA, and I live in London, would that be a problem or would I need to pay both country taxes? or just London?
Thanks
You pay taxes in UK. No taxes in US as they will file 1099-div with IRS and as recipient being non-resident, no taxes are owed.
P.S. I am not a tax professional, better check with an accountant in UK.
TST has the best community out of any firm I've seen. Of course their combine is supposed to be hard. It's not designed for anybody to win and trade their capital. There are very good traders there and a lot of nice people. Never had to deal with an arrogant know it all trader trying to ruin the community there like other firms.
Vwittgenstein
Junior member
- Messages
- 11
- Likes
- 0
That's true. TST actually cares about all combine traders.
Vwittgenstein
Junior member
- Messages
- 11
- Likes
- 0
Good luck!
I failed my $30k combine.... exceeded the daily loss limit. Will start another one in January.
Hi all
Can anyone tell me what trading power you have after TST relax their restrictions? ie. If you traded a $50k combine, when do you get to use the $50k instead of $2k? If you have to build your own trading power and pay them 20% while you do it, there is clearly no point unless you want the education, community, squawk, structure etc. After you are funded, there is no trailing max drawdown, I believe, but there is a daily loss limit. Can anyone share their experience of what that loss limit is set to and how it increases over time? I know of another firm that adds $40k per $1k profit you make, sounds amazing, but it is meaningless as they have a $2.25k loss limit.
thanks for replying to an old thread
Can anyone tell me what trading power you have after TST relax their restrictions? ie. If you traded a $50k combine, when do you get to use the $50k instead of $2k? If you have to build your own trading power and pay them 20% while you do it, there is clearly no point unless you want the education, community, squawk, structure etc. After you are funded, there is no trailing max drawdown, I believe, but there is a daily loss limit. Can anyone share their experience of what that loss limit is set to and how it increases over time? I know of another firm that adds $40k per $1k profit you make, sounds amazing, but it is meaningless as they have a $2.25k loss limit.
thanks for replying to an old thread
alexaherself
Established member
- Messages
- 560
- Likes
- 149
Your buying power is determined by the scaling plan shown on this page: https://topsteptrader.desk.com/customer/portal/articles/1950862-funded-trader-scaling-plan
For a $50k account, you start at a maximum of 2 lots, and increase to 3 lots after making $1,500, to 5 lots after making $2,000, and so on. (Exactly as you might do with your own money).
Many of their funded traders, according to their online Journals, YouTube videos, and so on, appear not to agree at all with this perspective.
No - it's not quite as simple as that. There are two different sets of funded trader rules applicable, one covering only the first 10 days. Explained here: https://topsteptrader.desk.com/customer/portal/articles/1950861-funded-trader-rules
All these online prop firms have some continuing limits and restrictions, to protect their capital. At TST (and with others, I believe), there won't ever be a time in which you'll be able to trade the $50k entirely as if it were your own fund, without rules and restrictions being imposed. Even as profit builds up in the account, even if you don't withdraw any profits, there will still always be trading limits and daily/weekly loss limits appropriate to the size of the account and to your own proven trading history (exactly as there should be, effectively, for a disciplined trader trading her/his own account.)
Many thanks for your reply Alexa. I was aware of those pages and I was referring to the secondary funded stage. I think the main benefits to be gained are in the structure/education TST provide, rather than in the funding. If their loss limits allowed you to trade say 1-3% of your account size per trade, it would be worthwhile. Realistically you can only trade about 0.4% and comfortably avoid hitting your loss limit (at least based on the $2k starting LL - I don't know if there is an increase after that).
alexaherself
Established member
- Messages
- 560
- Likes
- 149
This figure must depend on the size of your stop-losses, surely?
There is ... it's all explained on their website. You can use existing profits to increase your loss-limits to some extent, but there will still always be a drawdown limit.
You can't look at it like that. The account sizes are useless. Just pay attention to the lot sizes and daily loss/drawdown limits. I wouldn't suggest doing the $50K. I would do the $10K or $30K as they don't have weekly loss limits once funded. If you are trading /ES or something similar where you can use tight stops, then I would do the $10K. If you're trading something like /CL or /GC, then I would go for the $30K for the extra $200 to work with before hitting a loss limit.
It's very straightforward, you are just thinking about it all wrong. Futures isn't like stocks. Don't look at % or account size, look at lots traded and risk management.
You are right there are some differences between the combines. The $30k has a larger funded starting lot size, relative to the cost of the combine. (There is no increase until $100k).
Risk management has to be based on account size, surely, or in this case loss limit.
There is no account size. There is no "$30K" account you are trading. Ask them yourself. It's just lot limits and max loss/drawdowns you have to work with. You would have to be a greedy arrogant SOB with big balls to use their max lots to begin with. $500 is tight enough with 1 lot in most of the Futures markets.
The loss limit is effectively your account size, as I said. What I am questioning is whether it is worth going with a firm like this, rather than borrowing $2k and setting up your own account. If you work it out, with the extra cost of comissions and exchange fees, compared to those you can get with a company like AMP, it isn't, at least with the $50k and $150k accounts. The $30k and $100k accounts are better, but over time the extra commissions may outweigh this. In any case, in my opinion, it is a bit misleading to sell it as a trial for a $30k or $50k account when it is in fact a $2k account, even if the information is there. As I said before, the lots sizes are also not evenly staggered as you go up accounts in the funded stage. If they jumped the same amount from 30 to 50 as they jump from 10 to 30, it would work out better.
I'm not suggesting trading max lots to begin with (although I don't see how that makes you greedy, arrogant or a SOB), but as it is it doesn't work out in your favour, unless you are happy to pay the extra (both in fees and profit split) for the chat rooms, squawk, education and structure it gives you. That structure has both pros and cons, but I think it is generally worth it if you are learning.
TST is most definitively worth it. You don't need to purchase a combine to join the chat and community though. I would suggest TST over your own personal account to anybody, even if you're already successful. I trade for a living, and I've always performed 100% better psychologically trading a firm's money rather than me, even if there is extra commission, profit split, etc. You can sign a record deal giving most of your profits away but guaranteed to be famous or you can do it on your own, which is extremely difficult.
That's a fair point, although I think it depends a lot on your strategy. I think the lot sizes and corresponding loss limits should be staggered so that they work out the same though, relative to what you pay for the combines. I did the $50k combine and shouldn't really be finding out that the $30k one was better value. The information about the weekly loss limit isn't clearly available when you choose the combine.
Oh of course if you are capitalized to trade 100 lots in /ES or 10-25 in /CL then it's not for you. I'm planning on opening a new NT Brokerage account very soon to trade 10 lots in /CL. I'd love to be one of those /ES guys scalping 100-200 lots for couple points a day or an average year's salary every day.
