Is Topstep Trader legit or a scam?

[humbletrader2016]

From what I'm seeing, the few funded traders that have spoken out spend as much, if not a lot more, on resets/monthly sub fees than what they were initially funded so the risk to TST is almost nil.

Question remains why would a funded trader continue giving TST 20% of profit (+ pay much higher prof data fees) after earning first 5k

Think of it this way. Assuming you trade profitably and that you have a personal account and a TST account to trade by using the same setups each day. For your personal account, you will be much more careful while taking a scalping or day trade. You'll make sure that you go with market direction in order to minimize risks and other factors. For TST account, you are willing to take a little more risks regardless market direction within that day. Any money that you generate from TST account is just extra money into your pocket and therefore, you don't get emotional at all if there is any big drawback from TST account because in worst case scenario, you just reset your TST account and start it over again. Assuming your setups are reliable, it takes you about a month to pass both levels and get back to the game.

It is all about psychological thinking when it comes to play with your own money v.s. some else's money. Besides, if you are trading your account, there are many times that you don't have a gut to trade using 6 to 10 lots per trade, assuming you are using 15-lot TST account. For TST account, you probably won't think of it the same way. Assuming your setups are reliable, you make over 10 Gs easily and very quickly in just few days by using 8 lots before something unexpected happen that will blow up your TST account. So, the bottom line is yes, it worth it. Period.

P.S. if you are a 1 or 2 lots trader and you are still struggling with trading, then you might not understand or feel the same way like I do and so, forget what I write in above.

 

[qubit000]

Think of it this way. Assuming you trade profitably and that you have a personal account and a TST account to trade by using the same setups each day. For your personal account, you will be much more careful while taking a scalping or day trade. You'll make sure that you go with market direction in order to minimize risks and other factors. For TST account, you are willing to take a little more risks regardless market direction within that day. Any money that you generate from TST account is just extra money into your pocket and therefore, you don't get emotional at all if there is any big drawback from TST account because in worst case scenario, you just reset your TST account and start it over again. Assuming your setups are reliable, it takes you about a month to pass both levels and get back to the game.

It is all about psychological thinking when it comes to play with your own money v.s. some else's money. Besides, if you are trading your account, there are many times that you don't have a gut to trade using 6 to 10 lots per trade, assuming you are using 15-lot TST account. For TST account, you probably won't think of it the same way. Assuming your setups are reliable, you make over 10 Gs easily and very quickly in just few days by using 8 lots before something unexpected happen that will blow up your TST account. So, the bottom line is yes, it worth it. Period.

P.S. if you are a 1 or 2 lots trader and you are still struggling with trading, then you might not understand or feel the same way like I do and so, forget what I write in above.

You need to have sufficient equity(ie, trading profits) to trade 15 lots or anything above their scaling plan in TST.

If I'm understanding their rules correctly, once you make a profit, however small, which get's you above zero balance you started off with, your max trailing drawdown will never be below zero for life of acct and can never exceed the profit earned in the acct. Once it does it is automatically closed.

So no, in funded acct, once you make a profit however small that is what you have to work with to trade 1 lot or more as trailing draw down is calculated intra-day vs end of day for non funded.

 

[murray t turtle]

murray t turtle,

There is an old saying I adapted in my life about 10 years ago, and goes like this "If you can't beat them, join them". I will stick to the S&P 500 index auto investing twice a month. Easy, Automated, Good back test results, and makes money long term. Keep it Simple.

%% I sometimes tend to check VOO, but record SPY/bench mark data.WHY?? VOO is so close to SPY in gains or loses , good double check.

Good dividends, liquidity, good benchmark..............................................................
And actually you could beat the benchmark[SPY,VOO] doing that.One new trader said its going up so much-thinking about putting a hunk all @ once.I suggested he dont do that, it was late in season or simple reason follows . If QQQ cash went up 100% one year/bull market + it did better than that one year. BUT oops, QQQ then had an 80%/+ drawdown/bear market also. NOT a prediction.LOL

 

[iccenuol]

Paying the monthly cost puts skin in the game. The $150 monthly charge is peanuts to blowing an account.

$150 monthly aint no skin in the game buddy, it's peanuts, that's why you don't mind losing it. Come on man, wake up and smell the coffee for christs sake!

 

[murray t turtle]

$150 monthly aint no skin in the game buddy, it's peanuts, that's why you don't mind losing it. Come on man, wake up and smell the coffee for christs sake!

%%
Peanuts??I fed an elephant peanuts/plan when i was a kid, @ zoo ; amazing fun to see such a big beast take peanuts . It was actually a trading range of his trunk pattern.LOL

By the way, the hedge fun manager, much, much better than average said '' i don't want to pay up over a $1.00 for a head of lettuce '' He could afford more than $1.00 ;but that does not change my points LOL.

 

[SimpleMeLike]

$150 monthly aint no skin in the game buddy, it's peanuts, that's why you don't mind losing it. Come on man, wake up and smell the coffee for christs sake!

iccenuol,

Please explain what is skin in the game? What do you mean wake up and smell the coffee?

Explain yourself

 

[NeedToLearn]

You need to have sufficient equity(ie, trading profits) to trade 15 lots or anything above their scaling plan in TST.

If I'm understanding their rules correctly, once you make a profit, however small, which get's you above zero balance you started off with, your max trailing drawdown will never be below zero for life of acct and can never exceed the profit earned in the acct. Once it does it is automatically closed.

So no, in funded acct, once you make a profit however small that is what you have to work with to trade 1 lot or more as trailing draw down is calculated intra-day vs end of day for non funded.

It's called a trailing drawdown for a reason. It's once the trailing drawdown is above 0 dollars is when TST has zero risk. Every profitable trade that goes higher than your most profitable acct balance will give TST less risk. Most people probably spend more than the max drawdown limit before passing anyway though.

Also, yeah because of the scaling plan, you practically need to be a 2 lot trader first. Only after hitting over 1500 dollars or so, you can start adding another. By the time you can trade 15 lots (I think this is 150k combine? which by the way is double more expensive than the 150 dollar combine), TST will have zero risk.

It's not a bad place to test your strategy so you don't blow thousands, but if you are using resets and buying more combines....

IMO TST is worth it to test a strategy that (using 2 lots) can pass both steps within a month and getting that first 5k to withdraw. Afterwords, financially doesn't really make whole lot of sense. If you are already consistently profitable in your personal account, makes zero sense.

 

[caacapital]

What gives TSt the edge to me is I have been able to get a funded account and it’s an actual account that puts in real orders(although now they have an option for a fake funded account like the other companies) though I lost it without profiting. They are not shy about publishing funded trader successes something other company’s don’t do. TST at the time was a decent training grounds $150 does give you skin in the game it’s linked to a funded account so it will bring up emotions anyone that doesn’t believe this show me your real account that you didn’t blow up by holding on to a loser or revenge trading your account to $0 or closing status. If you can’t restrain yourself in sim your not likely to do it in a real account. Now you are more likely to trade differently than you would in your real account in attempts to get funded but letting your loser run is an emotional issue that isn’t limited to a TST combine.


I actually passed spending less than what spent initially. The issue was after when I attempted to get another funded account with them I had the thought in the back of my head that it was easy since I had done it before several resets on stupid things like daily loss limits, holding positions past 4:10 trying to make a profit on the day, mistakenly opening more contracts that the combine allowed(although this rule to me is set there purposely to get resets fat figures happen which was my case how is still a real world issue you will be limited by the margin in your account or a administration limit) by my last combine I had spent more than they gave me. Looking at the rules they don’t fit my trading style I’m not a 70% trader. For anyone I would recommend earn2 trade because of the tax benefits And no trailing stop.

 

[chris500]

What gives TSt the edge to me is I have been able to get a funded account and it’s an actual account that puts in real orders(although now they have an option for a fake funded account like the other companies) though I lost it without profiting. They are not shy about publishing funded trader successes something other company’s don’t do. TST at the time was a decent training grounds $150 does give you skin in the game it’s linked to a funded account so it will bring up emotions anyone that doesn’t believe this show me your real account that you didn’t blow up by holding on to a loser or revenge trading your account to $0 or closing status. If you can’t restrain yourself in sim your not likely to do it in a real account. Now you are more likely to trade differently than you would in your real account in attempts to get funded but letting your loser run is an emotional issue that isn’t limited to a TST combine.


I actually passed spending less than what spent initially. The issue was after when I attempted to get another funded account with them I had the thought in the back of my head that it was easy since I had done it before several resets on stupid things like daily loss limits, holding positions past 4:10 trying to make a profit on the day, mistakenly opening more contracts that the combine allowed(although this rule to me is set there purposely to get resets fat figures happen which was my case how is still a real world issue you will be limited by the margin in your account or a administration limit) by my last combine I had spent more than they gave me. Looking at the rules they don’t fit my trading style I’m not a 70% trader. For anyone I would recommend earn2 trade because of the tax benefits And no trailing stop.

There's only 2 reasons why one would sign up with one of these funding firms (there's many: topsteptrader, oneuptrader, earn2trade, speeduptrader, traderdock, trader2b, savius llc, smb futures).

Reason 1: You can't scrape together $1000 or $2000 to open an actual futures account with ES/NQ/YM $500 margins.

Reason 2: An easy way to create legitimate IRS audit-proof earned income so that you can contribute to your IRA (This excludes earn2trade because they're K-1. But topsteptrader is W2 and oneuptrader is 1099 ordinary income that you then pay self-employment tax on, which makes it earned income).

Let me explain Reason 1: These companies do a genius job at marketing. They advertise a huge number like "$100,000 account" or for oneuptrader even a "$250,000 account". Problem is these numbers are completely meaningless if the maximum drawdown allowable is for example say $2,000. That effectively makes it just a $2,000 account because realistically you can only trade 1 or 2 contracts with maximum allowable drawdown like that. You're going to blow up real quick if you trade 5, 10 or 15 contracts - unless you get lucky.

I think I'm going to start a new firm called MillionDollar Trader.

Get a $5 million dollar account!
Only $500 per month!
Trade up to 500 contracts!
umm, maximum drawdown: $2,500

 

[canoe]

yeah it's like traderdock advertising "you can trade up to 35 lots!!!" but when you look at the terms, they have a $1000 daily loss limit.

even trading with just 5 lots, you can go below -$1000 due to a random bad wick. with 35 lots? it's pretty much impossible.

if you HAVE to sign up with a funding firm, honestly earn2trade is the only one that has somewhat realistic trading rules.