Earn 2 Trade the gauntlet

[trade2020]

My opinion = In general a trailing drawdown is complete BS and a trader should only look for fixed drawdowns.

That being said no one is forcing anyone to trade with firms that only offer trailing drawdowns as a required part of their funded accounts.

One more thing----
Earn2Trade at least offers a choice of taking the regular gauntlet and having a fixed drawdown or taking the mini gauntlets and having a trailing drawdown--most companies do not offer fixed drawdowns. But unfortunately the max fixed drawdown under the regular gauntlet at Earn2Trade is only $2,500 They should offer regular gauntlets that give you the ability to qualify to earn at least equal what other companies offer as max fixed drawdowns at the start of a funded account which is a max of $10,000 to start. Perhaps it could be called "Gauntlet Plus" or "Gauntlet Max" But again no one is forcing you or anyone to use Earn2Trade or any of these companies to try to get funded with - traders just simply need to take a day or 2 or 3 to do research and homework as to who offers what and for gods sake please ask all questions in advance and read all fine print before giving them your money.

And also its a prudent idea to ask for a copy of their current funded trader agreement to review before paying to do any challenge, shouldn't you know what the terms are if you pass before paying them to start the test. Would you really want to pay to take a test with any company who is unwilling to disclose upfront the terms of their general funded trader agreement beforehand so you know what you might be getting yourself into if you pass?

Nobody's asking for you guys to get rid of the trailing drawdown. We all understand as a prop firm, Helios needs to reduce their risk from traders whose only track record is a 15-day evaluation. It's the fact that Earn2Trade/Helios' trailing DD trails based on unrealized profit that's the issue here. If you need me to explain why this rule is bullshit to anyone that's not a scalper, then you clearly haven't traded for long enough or you're ignoring the probabilistic characteristics inherent in trading.



No, you did not "only" post what was written on their site. You specifically posted that in response to the previous poster's mention of TST as an alternative to Earn2Trade's trailing DD, effectively trying to insinuate that TST's trailing DD is no different from your's in the live account. You were effectively spreading misinformation, albeit unintentionally. You're just trying to backtrack after I caught you with your pants down.



Translation: Implementing a trailing DD based on only realized PnL (which benefits traders and gives them proper odds of succeeding) is clearly possible with Rithmic as evidenced by TST, but fuck that, we have no intention of changing the trailing drawdown calculation.



Yes, though it might seem like I have some kind of beef with Earn2Trade and am advertising for TST, the fact is TST has drawbacks that don't exist with E2T. They each have their pluses and negatives. The only reason why I'm vocal about this specific aspect of trading evaluations (trailing DD based on unrealized PnL) is that it's the #1 cause of failure for those attempting these trading evaluations, without contest.

It's not due to trading during economic events. It's not due to mistakenly putting on more contracts than one's allowed to. It's not due to lacking consistency or what not. No, it's overwhelmingly due to the trailing DD based on unrealized PnL.

Your chances of successfully passing a trading evaluation goes up exponentially with a trailing DD based on realized PnL, or a fixed DD like in the original Gauntlet. Hence the only evaluations I could conscientiously recommend is TST and the orginal Gauntlet (NOT the Gauntlet Mini).

 

[PromisingTrader]

It was repeated many times here that after passing The Gauntlet you join Helios as a limited partner.

Can someone say if I have any liabilities related to this? What if at some point the company goes into debt? Do I share the responsibility then? Or, I just make no financial contribution to the company, but can benefit from the profits from my trading.

What if I am not able to get out of my position before hitting max drawdown? Is the company covering the excess loss? I would assume that is the risk that prop trading firms are taking.

 

[Earn2Trade]

It was repeated many times here that after passing The Gauntlet you join Helios as a limited partner.

Can someone say if I have any liabilities related to this? What if at some point the company goes into debt? Do I share the responsibility then? Or, I just make no financial contribution to the company, but can benefit from the profits from my trading.

What if I am not able to get out of my position before hitting max drawdown? Is the company covering the excess loss? I would assume that is the risk that prop trading firms are taking.

You have no liability to the company or its losses. The details are covered in the agreement between the trader and the company.

 

[StockTrader100k]

Yes - in my opinion trailing max drawdowns that trail unrealized profit are moronic
Topstep uses them Earn2Trade (mini gauntlet) uses them and also most everyone else in this industry uses them EXCEPT FOR

SMB Capital - (unfortunately no longer does tryouts)
ApterosTrading.com - run by Merritt Black who used to be SMB Capital's head futures trader
and
FTMO.com

Those 3 use fixed drawdowns - a fixed drawdown acts just like having that amount of money in a normal brokerage account--it means you can go that amount under $0 before running out of money. If you opened a futures account with $5,000 cash - that $5,000 is essentially is your "fixed" max drawdown

Now lets look at the difference between a fixed max drawdown and everyone elses "magical" trailing max drawdown that trails even your unrealized profits!

For simplicity sake we will just use the $5,000 as the drawdown in each example

Example 1 - The "magical" trailing max drawdown: Its your 1st day trading the new account - You have a $5,000 trailing max drawdown that trails even your unrealized profits - you open a position and low and behold its actually going your way and your green with profit and all of the sudden you're actually up $2,500 on the day but its early and you just feel like letting it run more and besides you need to go to the bathroom or do something else because you cant stare at the screen every GD second of every day. Low and behold while you were in the bathroom at one point you were technically actually up $4,950 (unrealized P&L) but now youve returned to your computer and wouldnt you know it! Due to a trump tweet the market has a very fast liquidation break and now you are only up $500 and you close out the trade. Guess what boys and girls....even though you ended up with a $500 profit for the day---unfortunately you were at one time up $4,950 (unrealized P&L) and you closed out with only $500 so now you only have $550 left of drawdown to trade with going forward because you were up $4,950 and the trailing max drawdown uses that high unrealized figure to now determine how far you are away from failing (which is now $550 minus commissions)

Example 2 - The "fixed" max drawdown: Its your 1st day trading the new account - You have a $5,000 fixed max drawdown. You open a position and low and behold its actually going your way and your green with profit and all of the sudden you're actually up $2,500 on the day but its early and you just feel like letting it run more and at one point you were technically actually up $4,950 (unrealized P&L) but now due to a trump tweet the market has a very fast liquidation break and now you are only up $500 and you close out the trade.
You end the day with a $500 profit and becuase its a fixed drawdown - your $5,000 drawdown is still completely intact and you actually have the $5,000 plus your $500 to trade against so now your actual max drawdown before failing is $5,500

Now can you see how moronic a trailing max drawdown that uses unrealized high watermark is---especially when there are firms that offer something much better---

You have a choice - do the smart thing and use a firm that offers a fixed max drawdown

Nobody's asking for you guys to get rid of the trailing drawdown. We all understand as a prop firm, Helios needs to reduce their risk from traders whose only track record is a 15-day evaluation. It's the fact that Earn2Trade/Helios' trailing DD trails based on unrealized profit that's the issue here. If you need me to explain why this rule is bullshit to anyone that's not a scalper, then you clearly haven't traded for long enough or you're ignoring the probabilistic characteristics inherent in trading.



No, you did not "only" post what was written on their site. You specifically posted that in response to the previous poster's mention of TST as an alternative to Earn2Trade's trailing DD, effectively trying to insinuate that TST's trailing DD is no different from your's in the live account. You were effectively spreading misinformation, albeit unintentionally. You're just trying to backtrack after I caught you with your pants down.



Translation: Implementing a trailing DD based on only realized PnL (which benefits traders and gives them proper odds of succeeding) is clearly possible with Rithmic as evidenced by TST, but fuck that, we have no intention of changing the trailing drawdown calculation.



Yes, though it might seem like I have some kind of beef with Earn2Trade and am advertising for TST, the fact is TST has drawbacks that don't exist with E2T. They each have their pluses and negatives. The only reason why I'm vocal about this specific aspect of trading evaluations (trailing DD based on unrealized PnL) is that it's the #1 cause of failure for those attempting these trading evaluations, without contest.

It's not due to trading during economic events. It's not due to mistakenly putting on more contracts than one's allowed to. It's not due to lacking consistency or what not. No, it's overwhelmingly due to the trailing DD based on unrealized PnL.

Your chances of successfully passing a trading evaluation goes up exponentially with a trailing DD based on realized PnL, or a fixed DD like in the original Gauntlet. Hence the only evaluations I could conscientiously recommend is TST and the orginal Gauntlet (NOT the Gauntlet Mini).

 

[world]

Gauntlet Mini = NO NO (because of trailing max drawdown)
Gauntlet = NO NO NO simply because even though it offers fixed drawdown (there is a trick here which is explained in previous posts) and allows overnight holding, one of the rules says that a trader needs to open a new trade (position) on 30 trading days (out of 42/43 trading day duration of the Gauntlet). This rule forces traders to overtrade and make wrong decisions. I do not think swing traders trade so frequently. E2T's reasoning is lame as they say they need to see enough data on how the trader trades. Shouldn't they be concerned about end results only? Why force traders to open new trades on 30 unique trading days?
Also even if you pass Gauntlet E2T allows only those instruments which you traded successfully in the evaluation. I think both rules are created to increase the unwanted baggage (pressure) on the candidate.

 

[StockTrader100k]

Yeah the Regular Gauntlet sucks in my opinion as well. It’s a great math formula for tryout company but in my opinion an absolutely abysmal math formula for the trader.

there are much better deals out there than the regular gauntlet the problem is people make impulse buys and don’t research other available options enough beforehand

Gauntlet Mini = NO NO (because of trailing max drawdown)
Gauntlet = NO NO NO simply because even though it offers fixed drawdown (there is a trick here which is explained in previous posts) and allows overnight holding, one of the rules says that a trader needs to open a new trade (position) on 30 trading days (out of 42/43 trading day duration of the Gauntlet). This rule forces traders to overtrade and make wrong decisions. I do not think swing traders trade so frequently. E2T's reasoning is lame as they say they need to see enough data on how the trader trades. Shouldn't they be concerned about end results only? Why force traders to open new trades on 30 unique trading days?
Also even if you pass Gauntlet E2T allows only those instruments which you traded successfully in the evaluation. I think both rules are created to increase the unwanted baggage (pressure) on the candidate.

 

[caacapital]

Yes - in my opinion trailing max drawdowns that trail unrealized profit are moronic
Topstep uses them Earn2Trade (mini gauntlet) uses them and also most everyone else in this industry uses them EXCEPT FOR

SMB Capital - (unfortunately no longer does tryouts)
ApterosTrading.com - run by Merritt Black who used to be SMB Capital's head futures trader
and
FTMO.com

ApterosTrading the iffy thing is the trade for 30 days where they want you to trade the same everyday otherwise you can meet the target and wont be funded. 630 for a 4000 drawdown isnt bad. during the tryout you have 1.5k daily dd then when pass it changes based on how your tryout went to many variables here that can suddenly change when they feel they dont want to fund you.

 

[StockTrader100k]

Yeah probably the better choice is FTMO rather than Apteros as it is more clear cut and if you pass you get the same funding deal no matter what your metrics were to pass

Unfortunately it’s Slim Pickings in the tryout/funding world and its overly littered with gotchas

ApterosTrading the iffy thing is the trade for 30 days where they want you to trade the same everyday otherwise you can meet the target and wont be funded. 630 for a 4000 drawdown isnt bad. during the tryout you have 1.5k daily dd then when pass it changes based on how your tryout went to many variables here that can suddenly change when they feel they dont want to fund you.

 

[PromisingTrader]

When passing The Gauntlet, is it obligatory to trade on a sim until you reach 5k profit? Even though it is treated as live account I wouldn't feel comfortable getting "paid" for trading the sim. Also, in this scenario I am trading against the company, and my profit is your loss.

 

[Earn2Trade]

When passing The Gauntlet, is it obligatory to trade on a sim until you reach 5k profit? Even though it is treated as live account I wouldn't feel comfortable getting "paid" for trading the sim. Also, in this scenario I am trading against the company, and my profit is your loss.

It depends on the performance of the trader. The prop firm takes into consideration that the individual may be trading overnight, and in order to mitigate its risk it wants to view performance on the LiveSim before funding the live account. In some cases the prop firm would like the trader to trade directly on a live account to begin and offers the live account from the beginning.