MES margin is at $300 right now for day trade. And earlier this week it was 100% maintenance at all times at $1300 and still is for overnight trading.
You're not trading with $2000 account anymore /end of story.
Passed the SMB Futures tryout in 15 days
- Thread starter trade2020
- Start date
MES margin is at $300 right now for day trade. And earlier this week it was 100% maintenance at all times at $1300 and still is for overnight trading.
You're not trading with $2000 account anymore /end of story.
A few more weeks and margins will be back as low as they used to be.
We dont know that. It may go up back to full margin. And all these "weeks/months" are the best times to trade as a day trader. If you're under capitalized you're missing all the action.
It is unclear how long it will take, but it will go back to normal margins and it wont take many months.
Eventually sure. But for now I think having a prop firm to trade with has more positives than it had a few weeks ago. Unless of course they completely shut down trading during high volatility times. I think Topstep stopped for a week and then resumed with only 1 contract allowed to trade.
The reason I bring this up because I was around when pattern day trader rule passed under Bush. And how it completely shut down all the under capitalized traders overnight. Margins change, rules and regulations change (especially in times of crisis). If they decide to implement same kind of regulation to futures markets it'd be over for majority of the traders here.
So I really think these prop firms have a place and can be very useful. And I was singing a very different tune just couple week ago if you go back and read my posts.
I’m new here so with me. If a firm is willing to back you, on the condition that you buy their initial training package, I think that’s fair. For instance if I wanted someone to fund me to start a business, wouldn’t they want me to 1: know the material as they would expect their partner to know it and also 2: have financial skin in the game. but more importantly if you are going to be forced to trade profitably within a set of rules that are based on risk management, that’s 100% worth the price of admission. If you don’t need training in setups and risk management then take the 2500 on your own and go to think or swim. IMO the best thing about this is what you are instilling in yourself.
-It can create conflict of interest...in such a case questions that gets raised is "is the "firm" more interested in selling that "training package" or finding trading talent?
Sure it is a great model for the "firm" ...
- To avoid this question and criticism true large self funded PROP firms "Hunt" talent with their own money and efforts, Once they find talent they train them at their own cost
Same way say manufacturing company will find an engineering student, ask them to appear for a Entry test ( free) and then train the selected ones until they perform]
If they don't perform thy get fired..
fair
I don't understand why anybody on here is calling the E2T and TST business models a scam!
I passed the TST combine in 3 months - it cost me $450 plus $200 for 2 resets but I made $5000 in one week in live trading.
Now going forward I am trading their funds and happily keeping 80% of the profits I make.
I didn't have a large enough equity to trade the ES which I always wanted to do. But TST gave me an opportunity to do it.
I think it's a great business model that in fact favors the very good trader without a large bankroll.
I passed the TST combine in 3 months - it cost me $450 plus $200 for 2 resets but I made $5000 in one week in live trading.
Now going forward I am trading their funds and happily keeping 80% of the profits I make.
I didn't have a large enough equity to trade the ES which I always wanted to do. But TST gave me an opportunity to do it.
I think it's a great business model that in fact favors the very good trader without a large bankroll.
Congrats on passing their test. Question - what is your draw down and how much profit do you have to leave in the account to cover it? Have you reached the initial balance? This draw down question seems to come up frequently so I'm just wondering how a real funded trader handles it. If you take that $5,000 out, will they close your account? Thanks.
You’re not really using their capital is the thing. It’s a paper equity position. There is no rule that you can point to forcing anyone to have cash reserved for intraday trading. But that’s fine because you wouldn’t have that opportunity otherwise. If you’re holding overnight they are really putting up their capital. But either way I don’t think it’s a total scam.