I have gone through three moths of this combine at topsteptrader and thought I would share my experiences.
A little background:
I am new to trading and this was literally my first experience. At the same time, I am good with math, charts, etc and have a finance degree. I also put in a lot of time reading materials and talking to other traders.
My performance:
First month: had no idea what I was doing, lost big
Second month: started to get it a little bit, ended up a very small amount, but not near the 6,000's they say will get you hired
Third month: passed the one week trial, so got the next 3 free. My small tutoring business got crazy, and had little time, so just traded the open (not my normal tactic). Roughly broke even.
Is it a scam:
My gut says no. First of all, they are only charging you $100 per month. They pay for a guy to run a sqwauk box all day just for topstep members. They also pay for a tech support chick. They also have a secretary chick.
Considering there are only about 30 people in the sqwuak room (and you are basically told you have to be in the sqwuak), they simply cannot be making enough cash to pay them all.
On the other hand, my first month there were only like 12 people in the sqwuak, so maybe they are taking a loss while building the business. But it seems unlikely to me.
Pros and Cons:
Pros:
1. The obvious: they promise access to a prop company for no $$ if you make 6,000 (max loss 1,000; max position 10) AND show consistent profits (not objective, which scares me a bit).
2. You also can start from a clean slate if you had a bad month.
3. Also, the dude on the sqwuak is a cool guy, and he legitamitely tries to help you out. I've spent a couple hundred on this thing so far, but I can't be mad cause I learned quite a bit.
Cons:
1. Am I going to get to that goal, and then are they going to screw me scomehow? I think not, but maybe. If they do, I will glady plunk down $30 for a week trial and raise some hell in the chat room.
2. If you don't hit that 6k, you lose. Then the dude gets mad at me for holding a position overnight. Umm, bro, I'm only up 1,300 with one day to go in my combine. I need a 4700 day. WTF you want me to do.
Also, they are super steadfast about that goal; I get the feeling you could end the combine with 5,000 in profit and they wouldn't blink an eye at telling you to start at square one.
3. No individualized support / training. Part of me just wants to take an offer from a respectable prop firm (even if I gotta plunk down a few g's for training / skin in game $) that will set me on a good course. This is obviously not an issue for pros.
Whew that was longer than I thought. I just signed up for one more month. If it doesnt happen again, I'll prob be done with topstep unless I hear some legit success stories.
