Hi all,
Thank you for the interest shown towards our product.
To clarify: the Gauntlet, our evaluation tool, has two hard requirements: you need to be able to post a 10% profit by the end of the 60th day and you also need to place at least 1 trade per week. If you pass these requirements, you will get an offer, no further metrics apply and receiving the offer is guaranteed.
We do ask Gauntlet customers to do one more thing, in order to get a better funding offer: describe their trading strategy as clearly and detailed a manner as possible. This includes setting their own drawdown limit, daily targets, etc… This is to be done before the Gauntlet starts. Throughout the challenge, our proprietary trading partner, Helios is monitoring whether or not customers are able to stay within the limits of their own strategy - which is considered to be a hallmark of an experienced and conscious trader. Failing to do so will not end the challenge, but will probably result in a more “careful” funding offer. But again, as long as the two requirements above are fulfilled, customers WILL get a funding offer.
Regarding the location: Being that our founders and team are all around the US and telecommute, we only need a mailing address. We do have a physical office for our international team. Helios is in a similar situation. All traders work from their own location. The “traditional” prop firm has a physical office sure, but they do not typically accept traders with a small performance record and many require traders to put up some of their own money. In fact, some require tax returns demonstrating $500k/yr in trading income before they’ll consider you. Helios is building a virtual team of traders with the belief that there is still great talent untapped in new as well as experienced yet under funded traders.
Funding is generally between 10-25k. All of that is available for the traders from day one of their trading with Helios and is not “unlocked” gradually or anything like that. This is available margin. Helios generally allows a 20% drawdown from these funds, but if your Gauntlet performance shows that you regularly dip below 50% even and still are profitable, Helios will be able to allow you that. The amount above is the initial funding, Helios traders can request reviews and an increase in funds, based on their performance.
Helios indeed is a new company, as well as Earn2Trade, which was founded in 2016. We haven’t had a lot of people passing the 60-day mark and the 10% profit target, but that doesn’t change the experience of the team and the fact that they guarantee the funding offer to those who pass. You can reacd about our team more here:
https://www.earn2trade.com/who-we-are
One final thing.... Earn2Trade is focused heavily on educating traders and using our flexible testing methodology to help grow our partner trading firms. While we do generate revenue from traders who fail the gauntlet, it’s not our primary revenue model. We hope that through our Gauntlet flexibility and education for those who choose to participate, we can lower the percentage of failed attempts.
A couple of questions:
1. What futures commission rate (including fees) is figured into the Guantlet test and is that rate typical of what would be paid in a funded trading account?
2. In a funded account say 25K -- Would a trader be expected to apply proper money management to that trading amount or has the firm already done that by the amount they allocated. In other words, would they consider it prudent for the entire entrusted amount to be used for margin in futures trading?
3. Approximately what percentage of Gauntlet takers pass the test? I know you said most fail it but I am really curious on this.