LIVE Q&A with TopstepTrader Executives

[Topstep]

Have a question for TopstepTrader CEO, Jay Rudman, or Founder and CVO, Michael Patak? This Friday at 1:00 PM CT you have the opportunity to ask them anything on YouTube Live! Tune in for company updates and this exclusive Q&A! All questions will be taken live through the video comments https://www.youtube.com/c/topsteptraderllc

 

[Pavel Koryakin]

The link is broken.

 

[Topstep]

Thanks for letting us know! The link has been updated and is working.

 

[fan27]

Your service looks interesting. The max drawdown for $150,000 is $4500 which is 3%. That is a very small drawdown! That seems nearly impossible to maintain for an extended period of time.

fan27

 

[Xela]

That seems nearly impossible to maintain for an extended period of time.

Apart from for a large number of professional traders, worldwide, who trade other people's money and are required to maintain that (or often something stricter), as part of the risk-management conditions imposed on them by their employers, you must mean?

But perhaps, since people applying to trade a TST account are aiming and planning to trade other people's money, that makes it a pretty appropriate selection-criterion?

 

[fan27]

Apart from for a large number of professional traders, worldwide, who trade other people's money and are required to maintain that (or often something stricter), as part of the risk-management conditions imposed on them by their employers, you must mean?

But perhaps, since people applying to trade a TST account are aiming and planning to trade other people's money, that makes it a pretty appropriate selection-criterion?

Perhaps it is ignorance on my part, but not being able to have more than a 3% drawdown seems extremely challenging. You may be right but I would be interested in seeing evidence backing up your assertion.

fan27

 

[Xela]

Perhaps it is ignorance on my part, but not being able to have more than a 3% drawdown seems extremely challenging.

No question about that, at all: it's certainly challenging.

If you were funding traders with your capital, and selecting them by using a set-up with absolutely no entry-barrier at all to the screening process, apart from the ability to pay the Combine-fee, you'd want a pretty "challenging" way of deciding which ones to allow to trade your account, I hope and trust? I certainly would ...

People often express the view, in forums, that the Combine pass-rate is remarkably low, at around 20% (that figure's out-of-date: it's almost certainly a little higher, now), but I look at it differently: it seems to me, given the circumstances of the process being open for absolutely anyone to try, completely regardless of their abilities, skills and experience-level, that that's actually a pretty high pass-rate.

Here are nearly 600 people who have passed the Combine ...

 

[Pekelo]

Are you guys gonna explain the difference between the unenforcibility of browsewrap vs. clickwrap?

Nevermind, I am just having fun with insider jokes...

 

[fan27]

No question about that, at all: it's certainly challenging.

If you were funding traders with your capital, and selecting them by using a set-up with absolutely no entry-barrier at all to the screening process, apart from the ability to pay the Combine-fee, you'd want a pretty "challenging" way of deciding which ones to allow to trade your account, I hope and trust? I certainly would ...

People often express the view, in forums, that the Combine pass-rate is remarkably low, at around 20% (that figure's out-of-date: it's almost certainly a little higher, now), but I look at it differently: it seems to me, given the circumstances of the process being open for absolutely anyone to try, completely regardless of their abilities, skills and experience-level, that that's actually a pretty high pass-rate.

Here are nearly 600 people who have passed the Combine ...

Of those people who pass the combine and become funded, what is the average duration of remaining funded? I assume once you get the funded you have to maintain the drawdown requirement or you lose funding, correct?

thanks
fan27

 

[Xela]

Of those people who pass the combine and become funded, what is the average duration of remaining funded?

I don't know.

I think TST doesn't publish this information.

The last time I heard, they were offering (or "expecting") only a one-year agreement from funded traders anyway (nobody successful for a year would still need their service anyway, understandably enough?).

I assume once you get the funded you have to maintain the drawdown requirement or you lose funding, correct?

You have to maintain a drawdown requirement, naturally, when trading someone else's money, but not necessarily the Combine one: they increase the permitted position sizes and allowable drawdowns as funded traders gain experience.

You'd be better off attending their webinar and asking these questions than relying on me: all my information is second-hand. I've never done a Combine, myself (but I have two friends, both now successful independent traders, who got started through TST's service.)