Earn 2 Trade the gauntlet

[Earn2Trade-Ryan]

the drawdown offered should be based not on absolute drawdown % but based on profit:drawdown ratio that you guys had implemented previously.

the reason is this:

E2T likes to set itself apart by giving traders more flexibility with less rules. but if you're not a daytrader or you're a daytrader that holds positions much longer than just a few minutes, you're most likely going to have a larger stop-loss with a larger profit-take. with the new gauntlet, if you're aiming for the $2500 or $2000 drawdown, a swing or overnight trader has no room for error.

if the first 5 swing trades results in 3 consecutive losses and then 2 subsequent profits, those 3 losses would already put the trader out of the running for a $2000-2500 drawdown since those swing trades are likely to come with wider stops.

if the drawdown offered was based not on absolute drawdown % but based on profit:drawdown ratio like before, a swing trader could simply make up those losses with their much wider profit-targets.

but in the new Gauntlet, in order to avoid the 2-3% drawdown, they will be forced to adopt a scalping/daytrading style (which is not their trading method) in the beginning to build a buffer, after which they might resume trading in their usual swing style. or they might just hope they're lucky with their first few swing trades and continuously reset and reset, pouring more money into your pockets.

i agree you guys have improved the Gauntlet in some ways but the aforementioned downgrade actually kills what set the Gauntlet apart in the first place. to get a $2000+ drawdown in the funded account now means you can never go beyond a 3% absolute drawdown. so this excludes swing and overnight traders, not to mention this is also a very difficult task even for shorter-term traders.

even for shorter-term traders, this 2-3% drawdown limit (for $2000-2500 drawdown offer) is going to hamper their trading in a similar way to how the trailing drawdowns that TST and OUT affect their combine traders: by forcing them to take profits quickly to build a buffer.

so you've essentially created a new Gauntlet that is more similar to TST or OUT (when aiming for the $2000+ drawdown, since in TST and OUT, you're always given a $2000-$2500 DD as long as you pass so that's the comparison i'm focusing on).

except your's is 60 days instead of their 15 days so there's even less of an incentive to attempt the Gauntlet than before.

unless you change the Gauntlet drawdown from an absolute-based DD to a profit:drawdown ratio-based DD like you guys had before, this actually is a downgrade believe it or not.

the only reason to attempt these funded trader evaluations is to get access to capital that we otherwise wouldn't have. that's why despite w/e improvement you made to the Gauntlet, most people think it's actually worse than before b/c it's all about the DD in the funded account that truly matters at the end of the day.

Thank you for taking the time to engage in the conversation. We appreciate it, regardless of what points we might disagree on.

I’d like to add to the discussion the fact that we don’t believe DD is the only thing that matters when considering the merits or shortcomings of the offers.

Consider the buying power that 25k gives you. Depending on the current margin, it is possible to trade 4-6 contracts on that account size. Even with a dd of $500, it is entirely possible to slowly build up a cushion and have quicker access to more contracts.

Helios holds monthly reviews of each trader’s performance. Traders who perform well have the possibility to walk away from these reviews with a bigger offer.

We do not utilize a trailing drawdown.

Taxation of your profits is as beneficial as it can be for most US customers.

As to the aforementioned drawdown calculation, I’m not sure how many different ways we can talk about this. I think you are making some solid points, however, as easy it is to imagine scenarios where a trader is unsuccessful in a set of rules it is just as easy to imagine successful ones. The overwhelming majority of voices and feedback that we received pointed in this direction and we tried to be of service for these people. So far, the reception of the “change” is more than favorable.
I hope that the type of trader you are will find their place among our ranks, if not through this particular product, one of the other ones we’re working on for the future.

Again, thank you guys for the opinions and the civility - believe it or not, we grow as a company from this and the voices in communities like this don’t ever go unheard.

 

[canoe]

Thank you for taking the time to engage in the conversation. We appreciate it, regardless of what points we might disagree on. Again, thank you guys for the opinions and the civility - believe it or not, we grow as a company from this and the voices in communities like this don’t ever go unheard.

thanks, the only reason i spent the time to write a long post about this was b/c i knew you were the type of person who listens to his customers and responds to feedback.

to address your points:

I’d like to add to the discussion the fact that we don’t believe DD is the only thing that matters when considering the merits or shortcomings of the offers.

Consider the buying power that 25k gives you. Depending on the current margin, it is possible to trade 4-6 contracts on that account size. Even with a dd of $500, it is entirely possible to slowly build up a cushion and have quicker access to more contracts.

buying power is important but as trading is more about managing risk and you can still make a ton of money just trading 1-2 contracts, I'd argue its importance pales in comparison to the DD that's offered by the funding company. after all, trading is all about letting the probabilities (edge) play out over a series of events, made possible via DD. and the type of traders thinking about attempting evaluations aren't losing money due to a lack of buying power - it's due to being undercapitalized and not having that margin cushion.

with a $2000 or less DD, no one should be starting out with more than 1 or 2 contracts until they've built some kind of cushion so a 25k immediate buying power after being funded is of little importance compared to what DD you receive.

As to the aforementioned drawdown calculation, I’m not sure how many different ways we can talk about this. I think you are making some solid points, however, as easy it is to imagine scenarios where a trader is unsuccessful in a set of rules it is just as easy to imagine successful ones.

My point is that the "successful ones" based on this new set of rules would have benefited from some amount of luck on their side in the beginning. $500 is literally just ten ES points. In a probabilistic game, you have no control over any particular outcome, no matter how good the probabilities are.

If you're "unlucky" at the start of the Gauntlet, it's perfectly normal for a good trader to have a $500+ drawdown due to 2 bad trades or some stupid tweet spike, and then eventually reach a profit of $5k+ by the end of the 60 days. Yet he would get a worse offer than a trader who got lucky on his first 2 trades and built some DD cushion, and then whose profit swung wildly between $500 and $2.5k until he just barely passed $2.5k by the end of the 60 days.

Perhaps Helios faced the harsh truth that they were losing more money than they were making off of their funded traders and are trying to protect their downside even more with this change. After all, giving more buying power (25k) doesn't really affect their bottom line since they can just auto-liquidate traders once they reach their DD but a larger DD absolutely does affect their bottom line so it would make sense that Helios is being more conservative with the DD now.

And that's fine, I understand you guys are just a business and you do what you have to do to make a profit. I just think it's important to make it clear to the uninformed who are shopping for funded trader evaluations that these new changes aren't all improvements and the devil is in the details.

I do like that the offers are less of a black-box now though so kudos to you on that.

 

[caacapital]

If you're "unlucky" at the start of the Gauntlet, it's perfectly normal for a good trader to have a $500+ drawdown due to 2 bad trades or some stupid tweet spike, and then eventually reach a profit of $5k+ by the end of the 60 days. Yet he would get a worse offer than a trader who got lucky on his first 2 trades and built some DD cushion, and then whose profit swung wildly between $500 and $2.5k until he just barely passed $2.5k by the end of the 60 days.

Exactly if your going to depend purely on luck to get funded why would somone not just do a 10-15 day challenge? As you said $500 can be 2-5 losses for some people. the real issue is the 1k-1.5k awards for 60 days and 350??

 

[xavik]

People is constantly focusing on the wrong thing. The problem is not the DD (which is not entirely bad since it's not trailing), but the way Helios takes its profits.

Consider the buying power that 25k gives you. Depending on the current margin, it is possible to trade 4-6 contracts on that account size. Even with a dd of $500, it is entirely possible to slowly build up a cushion and have quicker access to more contracts.

But how are you going to build a cushion if profits are withdrawn by Helios monthly? This forces you to also take profits, since otherwise the following months they would take more than the agreed share of profits.

Say I make 1000$ the first month and they take 200$ (now 800$). Second month I go to 1500 and they take 300$ (now 1200$). Third month to 1800$ and they take 360$ (now 1440$). Imagine now that I lose 200$ on the fourth month, and they take 248$ (now 992$).

So after 4 months (3 big winners and 1 small loser), I've made in profits 1000+700+600-200=2100$, and yet I'm still back at month one with 992$, three lost months of time. And the worst part is that Helios took 53% of the money even though the share was supposed to be 80%, and you didn't even took 1$.

This is a forum, so I made it short, but the calculation grows worse the longer one trades and at bigger numbers. Even if I agree to work for free with Helios, It's super hard to increase size (I lost 3 months in the example, and that with only a 9% drawdown from the high)

And do you charge for taxes directly? If so it's even worse. does it work the same for foreigners?

 

[marsku]

Hello.
You must have confused something. How can Helios participate in profit as you have a lossy month?

 

[caacapital]

this is a good point ideally you would want to build up the account to trade more since they are not using day trading margin.

People is constantly focusing on the wrong thing. The problem is not the DD (which is not entirely bad since it's not trailing), but the way Helios takes its profits.



But how are you going to build a cushion if profits are withdrawn by Helios monthly? This forces you to also take profits, since otherwise the following months they would take more than the agreed share of profits.

Say I make 1000$ the first month and they take 200$ (now 800$). Second month I go to 1500 and they take 300$ (now 1200$). Third month to 1800$ and they take 360$ (now 1440$). Imagine now that I lose 200$ on the fourth month, and they take 248$ (now 992$).

So after 4 months (3 big winners and 1 small loser), I've made in profits 1000+700+600-200=2100$, and yet I'm still back at month one with 992$, three lost months of time. And the worst part is that Helios took 53% of the money even though the share was supposed to be 80%, and you didn't even took 1$.

This is a forum, so I made it short, but the calculation grows worse the longer one trades and at bigger numbers. Even if I agree to work for free with Helios, It's super hard to increase size (I lost 3 months in the example, and that with only a 9% drawdown from the high)

And do you charge for taxes directly? If so it's even worse. does it work the same for foreigners?

I didnt even think

People is constantly focusing on the wrong thing. The problem is not the DD (which is not entirely bad since it's not trailing), but the way Helios takes its profits.



But how are you going to build a cushion if profits are withdrawn by Helios monthly? This forces you to also take profits, since otherwise the following months they would take more than the agreed share of profits.

Say I make 1000$ the first month and they take 200$ (now 800$). Second month I go to 1500 and they take 300$ (now 1200$). Third month to 1800$ and they take 360$ (now 1440$). Imagine now that I lose 200$ on the fourth month, and they take 248$ (now 992$).

So after 4 months (3 big winners and 1 small loser), I've made in profits 1000+700+600-200=2100$, and yet I'm still back at month one with 992$, three lost months of time. And the worst part is that Helios took 53% of the money even though the share was supposed to be 80%, and you didn't even took 1$.

This is a forum, so I made it short, but the calculation grows worse the longer one trades and at bigger numbers. Even if I agree to work for free with Helios, It's super hard to increase size (I lost 3 months in the example, and that with only a 9% drawdown from the high)

And do you charge for taxes directly? If so it's even worse. does it work the same for foreigners?

 

[xavik]

Hello.
You must have confused something. How can Helios participate in profit as you have a lossy month?

Unless Earn2trade corrects me, because they take 20% of whatever amount exceeds the initial balance. In my example, even though for that month we lost 200$, we were still up 1240$ from the initial balance of 25000$ for example. So they take the 20% of 1240$ assuming its a profit.

 

[Earn2Trade-Ryan]

thanks, the only reason i spent the time to write a long post about this was b/c i knew you were the type of person who listens to his customers and responds to feedback.

to address your points:



buying power is important but as trading is more about managing risk and you can still make a ton of money just trading 1-2 contracts, I'd argue its importance pales in comparison to the DD that's offered by the funding company. after all, trading is all about letting the probabilities (edge) play out over a series of events, made possible via DD. and the type of traders thinking about attempting evaluations aren't losing money due to a lack of buying power - it's due to being undercapitalized and not having that margin cushion.

with a $2000 or less DD, no one should be starting out with more than 1 or 2 contracts until they've built some kind of cushion so a 25k immediate buying power after being funded is of little importance compared to what DD you receive.




My point is that the "successful ones" based on this new set of rules would have benefited from some amount of luck on their side in the beginning. $500 is literally just ten ES points. In a probabilistic game, you have no control over any particular outcome, no matter how good the probabilities are.

If you're "unlucky" at the start of the Gauntlet, it's perfectly normal for a good trader to have a $500+ drawdown due to 2 bad trades or some stupid tweet spike, and then eventually reach a profit of $5k+ by the end of the 60 days. Yet he would get a worse offer than a trader who got lucky on his first 2 trades and built some DD cushion, and then whose profit swung wildly between $500 and $2.5k until he just barely passed $2.5k by the end of the 60 days.

Perhaps Helios faced the harsh truth that they were losing more money than they were making off of their funded traders and are trying to protect their downside even more with this change. After all, giving more buying power (25k) doesn't really affect their bottom line since they can just auto-liquidate traders once they reach their DD but a larger DD absolutely does affect their bottom line so it would make sense that Helios is being more conservative with the DD now.

And that's fine, I understand you guys are just a business and you do what you have to do to make a profit. I just think it's important to make it clear to the uninformed who are shopping for funded trader evaluations that these new changes aren't all improvements and the devil is in the details.

I do like that the offers are less of a black-box now though so kudos to you on that.

We responded to our customers based on their most frequent complaint, which was the buying power. The offers previously given by Helios ranged from $10,000.00 with 10% drawdown to $25,000.00 with 10% drawdown. I want to emphasize that our customers overwhelmingly asked for clear funding parameters that rejected the lower denominations of funding capital. We understand your opinion that drawdown is more important, but we will have to agree to disagree on that. Our system does not implement a trailing drawdown and thus there is no enforced risk management for the funding firm unless the trader is truly profitable. That is a real risk the firm puts on the line for the trader which is not something you can say about any other offer in the market. I have to add that you can see even by the responses from other forum members that some of their foremost concerns are on the taxation methodology, or even on the way Helios takes its profits. We tried to balance the demands of everyone as best as possible and we believe our service does so.

Regarding the amount of drawdown given previously, you may be under the impression that almost all of the customers had a $2,500 drawdown because that was the highest amount they could get, but that is not the case. The average drawdown given to traders was $1,700 on account of the four previous measurements used to calculate their funding criteria which included, profit, drawdown, adherence to trading plan and trading consistency. Now we have simplified the funding parameters and made it transparent for everyone to see. I’m happy this is a development you agree with. If Helios needed stricter criteria for funding then it would be enforced in our program with a myriad rule set such as our competitor offers. We still offer the maximum flexibility to traders to trade how they want and not to penalize them on every step of their journey. As far as how much Helios will profit or lose in this new model, I don’t believe that for them it’s a very distinct change and we’ll have to say the jury is out until there are enough candidates who have gone through and received funding.

The last thing I want to say is that you mentioned the situation where a good trader had a string of bad luck, then ended up making a good return, and got a bad offer. However, the more frequent situation is a trader who ends up hitting a large drawdown, making a 4:1+ return, getting the full $2500 offer, and then unfortunately wiping the funded account within the first few days. We made our decision with these recent changes based on the stats we have regarding the traders that pass and stay funded. In general, the traders who pass and stay funded generally have less than a 1% initial drawdown.

 

[Earn2Trade-Ryan]

People is constantly focusing on the wrong thing. The problem is not the DD (which is not entirely bad since it's not trailing), but the way Helios takes its profits.



But how are you going to build a cushion if profits are withdrawn by Helios monthly? This forces you to also take profits, since otherwise the following months they would take more than the agreed share of profits.

Say I make 1000$ the first month and they take 200$ (now 800$). Second month I go to 1500 and they take 300$ (now 1200$). Third month to 1800$ and they take 360$ (now 1440$). Imagine now that I lose 200$ on the fourth month, and they take 248$ (now 992$).

So after 4 months (3 big winners and 1 small loser), I've made in profits 1000+700+600-200=2100$, and yet I'm still back at month one with 992$, three lost months of time. And the worst part is that Helios took 53% of the money even though the share was supposed to be 80%, and you didn't even took 1$.

This is a forum, so I made it short, but the calculation grows worse the longer one trades and at bigger numbers. Even if I agree to work for free with Helios, It's super hard to increase size (I lost 3 months in the example, and that with only a 9% drawdown from the high)

And do you charge for taxes directly? If so it's even worse. does it work the same for foreigners?

There is a very serious misunderstanding here about how Helios takes profits.

Helios only takes its percentage of profit once. It doesn’t take profit twice from the same capital gained. If your account has profited $1,000 by the end of the month then Helios will take its cut. In the second month if you only profit $100 more bringing your account to $1,100, Helios would take its cut of the $100. If the profit margin in your account dropped from $1,100 to $600 in the third month, then Helios would not take any profit.

Please let me know if that’s unclear, as it’s a pretty serious misunderstanding that we would like to dispel. I also want to make it clear as to why Helios takes profit monthly. Helios does not have a trailing drawdown, which is how other firms begin to lower their risk. Helios can only start to cover their risk by the trader profiting and staying in profit.

Regarding taxation, generally Helios DOES NOT take taxes directly (although you must pay them anyway so I don’t know how that would make it worse). If you are a non-US citizen then you must eventually register for an ITIN number since you would become a part owner of Helios and have to file a US tax return, even if no tax may be due to the US. Those questions on how to handle your taxes are best directed to Helios and your CPA.

 

[Earn2Trade-Ryan]

Unless Earn2trade corrects me, because they take 20% of whatever amount exceeds the initial balance. In my example, even though for that month we lost 200$, we were still up 1240$ from the initial balance of 25000$ for example. So they take the 20% of 1240$ assuming its a profit.

It's based on the high watermark as explained in my prior response. High watermark is based on new profit generated above the last highest profit line.