Here is my experience with them . I tried them out for several months . I did the 4 week combine 3 or 4 times . I was unsuccessful in making money with those regular combines . OK , no surprise there . It's not easy .
In the chat room you see about 120 users logged in and 4 or 5 of those are Live traders . Unfortunately I wasn't paying attention if those Live traders were constantly the same ones or were they different every time . As you may know , many Live traders don't last long and are sent back to the combine . Anyway , as you can see , the percentage of traders who make it live is very small . The odds are not good . And probably even those that are live , the percentage of them that stay live is low . During the 4-5 months i was there , the number of Live traders did not change much, if at all , so you can conclude that either no new Live traders were coming on board or the ones there were being swapped out . Either way odds don't look good . Another thing is unknown what are the criteria for staying Live . If they are require that you meet the profit objective every month , then no way , can't be done .
The chat room itself is completely useless . There is no market opinion or advice coming from the moderators at all . It is just a lot of chit chat about the weather and stuff . The traders in the room try to make predictions etc. and to show off but if you have been watching the market for a long time like me , you would know that is best not to listen to anyones opinion ; it just ruins your own system and judgment and they are only right 50%. But you are required to log into the chat when trading . The way they explain it , it is because they need their equity partners to see how many people are there . I found the chat room annoying because it was of no use to me whatsoever . They were constantly trying to sell stuff in the chat room like psychology of trading classes etc.
OK , so the 4 week combines have a daily $1000 loss limit . For me , I felt this was the obstacle to profit . If you buy 5 contacts , all it takes is 3 points move to knock you out . And I was looking to catch some good moves when I am sure of the trade ; i am not a scalper by any means . I can't find a trade i like every day . They happen 2 times in 2 weeks if I am lucky .
Then after I failed 3 or 4 times , they introduced custom combines with $3000 daily loss limit and 15 contract limit . On my second attempt on this combine , I was able to achieve the profit objective on just one trade . Their website says they WILL give you a live account if you achieve the objective . However , at the end of my combine , they said that even though I met all the requirements and objective , they need to see more consistency and that meeting the objective only gets you reviewed . The next combine , I wasn't able to find a trade .
In conclusion , I would say that it is impossible to make the profits they are talking about every single month . Not with my trading style for sure ; I am looking to catch a few good moves a year . If you look at the number of traders they have every month , they are making around $200,000 a month . They don't need you to trade live for them ; they make 99.9% of their money from the combines . This is fact for sure .
So sorry if I sound like a sore loser but this is the way I see it . Of course you are going to try it out no matter what I think anyway . I did learn a few things about the market by practicing with them and I think I can bring something from that to my trading ; so that part was worth it . But I didn't learn anything from them directly .
If you are already experienced and can make $18,000 every month with 15 contracts limit and $3000 daily loss limit in your practice account , then by all means join topsteptrader , pass the combine and start trading their $150,000 live account !
