Would you give someone 150K to trade without imposing any rules on their behavior?
Can you imagine how it would be running an operation like this if everyone could enter the Combine without paying a fee?
TopstepTrader and Patak Trading Partners- Any and all questions answered here
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Would you give someone 150K to trade without imposing any rules on their behavior?
Can you imagine how it would be running an operation like this if everyone could enter the Combine without paying a fee?
We have a winner...! You got it Mav...!
If your business is trading, your revenue should come from trading and trading alone!
If your business is something else but "trading" is used as a lure then well... You're a scam.
Here's how it should work in reality...
I'm a top trader... I have money to manage and I want to teach my business to future managers who will manage my money. I "hire" some individuals after seeing their resumes. They don't put in any money, they don't pay software fees. They get paid a commission on what they win. I keep the winners; the losers go home to find another job. Nobody does it this way because there aren't any really big traders left out there who are good enough to handle it.
Most floor traders got wiped out a long time ago and the ones still trying to make it in screen trading don't have anything to teach. So they had to turn to other business models that focused around trading.
Could you picture Jesse Livermore handing out terms to a newbie the way these guys are handing out today? Hell... In legitimate bucket shops back in the 1930's you had a fighting chance if you could figure out when they were going to steamroll you.
Let's say you sell clothes and get paid commission (if there are any out there who still do it that way)... Could you imagine how ridiculous it would be to ask the salesperson to pay you $150
a month to come to work!?
Same thing but for a car salesperson...
"Hey... You can work our used lot but you have to put in $20000 risk capital and $150 a month rental fee!... You're a "partner" but our rules are not negotiable!"...
How about a $20 fee, not $300+. I promise you $20 will keep the spammers and idiots out. Come to think of it, why not a $20 fee to sign up on elite trader?
Wanted to bring this back to the front...
TST_Hoag
Thanks for the reply. Your answer was NOT showing up there earlier. Unfortunately, your answer to question #1 is extremely troubling.
I want to bring to your attention the following:
http://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/pr6155-11
And, I especially encourage you to look at the document below and note the extent that the traders were losing:
http://www.cftc.gov/ucm/groups/publ...laint120711.pdf
---
Thank you for taking a look at that. I want to explain why question #1 is so important. TST/PTK (I understand they are different businesses but we'll call them TST/PTK for ease) have made 3 claims:
1. You claim you back traders. We've established that you give traders a limited amount of capital to trade but that doesn't establish whether or not that you've truly backed traders at a level where they are able to produce tangible profits. You see this is the critical question. The most important question.
2. Your program is aimed to get traders consistently profitable. To move them from the 95% losing to the 5% winning. If your program works then you should be eager to showcase your successful traders.
3. The combines don't pay the light bills. TST/PTK presented this in the form of a question, "Do you think the combines pay the light bills?". Yes. Mr. Patak many of us believe that. So why don't come out and tell us opposite?
If PTK really has traders making profits and sustaining a business then it should be trivial for you to confirm that at least some of your traders have made a tangible amount of money. We're not looking for millionaires here.
Some of us feel that is unlikely that single TST/PTK traders has even cleared 100k. Some of us even doubt whether you have any traders who cleared 50k (high water marks). We would like to be proven wrong. We are not interested in whether they managed to keep those profits but whether they hit them as a high water mark.
I am not going to rush to judgement. You have an excellent opportunity here to make clear what PTK is about and show that your training, program, loss limits, etc actually do work. But, I'm not hearing that and that's concering.
You essentially fund a trader with $1,000 at the lowest level which is definitely not the 30k that is claimed -- of which the trader risked $175 or 18% just to have the opportunity.
It reallly looks to me that the combine is going to be a negative sum game for many good traders and is primarily designed to keep traders revolving back to the combine. The months the trader wins, he just wins his own money back but any month he loses then he loses his deposit. The trader must hit a home run in order to get funded. That doesn't sound like a fun game at all to me.
Instead of producing successful traders, we're concerned that you may be trapping even good traders in a perptual losing cycle of combines.
What is clear is that whether or not TST/PTK is designed to generate revenue from the combines that it is setup in a way to do so especially if previous successful traders are sent back to a combine.
Assume that 50% of traders will be profitable and 50% will be negative. TST/PTK gets to keep the 50% from the negative. The profitable traders get money back which means no risk for TST/PTK. Only traders who pass the combine are funded. At the lowest level, they are only funded at $1000. It only takes 4 losing traders to pay for 1 winning trader. It almost makes me think that M. Patak was looking at distribution graphs when designing this game. Funding traders on a sliding scale reduce those concerns, as well as funding traders at more sufficient funding levels such as funding them at the monthly profit they achieved in the objective.
If, in any event, too many winning traders pass a combine, there are plenty of additional rules and stipulations that will nearly always allow them to disqualify some traders.
Even if it is ran as a scheme to generate combine fees, this doesn't automatically disqualify it my mind. What matters is whether or not the funding levels have been sufficient to produce any tangible trading profits.. if not then it is a scam in my mind.
TST_Hoag
Thanks for the reply. Your answer was NOT showing up there earlier. Unfortunately, your answer to question #1 is extremely troubling.
I want to bring to your attention the following:
http://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/pr6155-11
And, I especially encourage you to look at the document below and note the extent that the traders were losing:
http://www.cftc.gov/ucm/groups/publ...laint120711.pdf
---
Thank you for taking a look at that. I want to explain why question #1 is so important. TST/PTK (I understand they are different businesses but we'll call them TST/PTK for ease) have made 3 claims:
1. You claim you back traders. We've established that you give traders a limited amount of capital to trade but that doesn't establish whether or not that you've truly backed traders at a level where they are able to produce tangible profits. You see this is the critical question. The most important question.
2. Your program is aimed to get traders consistently profitable. To move them from the 95% losing to the 5% winning. If your program works then you should be eager to showcase your successful traders.
3. The combines don't pay the light bills. TST/PTK presented this in the form of a question, "Do you think the combines pay the light bills?". Yes. Mr. Patak many of us believe that. So why don't come out and tell us opposite?
If PTK really has traders making profits and sustaining a business then it should be trivial for you to confirm that at least some of your traders have made a tangible amount of money. We're not looking for millionaires here.
Some of us feel that is unlikely that single TST/PTK traders has even cleared 100k. Some of us even doubt whether you have any traders who cleared 50k (high water marks). We would like to be proven wrong. We are not interested in whether they managed to keep those profits but whether they hit them as a high water mark.
I am not going to rush to judgement. You have an excellent opportunity here to make clear what PTK is about and show that your training, program, loss limits, etc actually do work. But, I'm not hearing that and that's concering.
You essentially fund a trader with $1,000 at the lowest level which is definitely not the 30k that is claimed -- of which the trader risked $175 or 18% just to have the opportunity.
It reallly looks to me that the combine is going to be a negative sum game for many good traders and is primarily designed to keep traders revolving back to the combine. The months the trader wins, he just wins his own money back but any month he loses then he loses his deposit. The trader must hit a home run in order to get funded. That doesn't sound like a fun game at all to me.
Instead of producing successful traders, we're concerned that you may be trapping even good traders in a perptual losing cycle of combines.
What is clear is that whether or not TST/PTK is designed to generate revenue from the combines that it is setup in a way to do so especially if previous successful traders are sent back to a combine.
Assume that 50% of traders will be profitable and 50% will be negative. TST/PTK gets to keep the 50% from the negative. The profitable traders get money back which means no risk for TST/PTK. Only traders who pass the combine are funded. At the lowest level, they are only funded at $1000. It only takes 4 losing traders to pay for 1 winning trader. It almost makes me think that M. Patak was looking at distribution graphs when designing this game. Funding traders on a sliding scale reduce those concerns, as well as funding traders at more sufficient funding levels such as funding them at the monthly profit they achieved in the objective.
If, in any event, too many winning traders pass a combine, there are plenty of additional rules and stipulations that will nearly always allow them to disqualify some traders.
Even if it is ran as a scheme to generate combine fees, this doesn't automatically disqualify it my mind. What matters is whether or not the funding levels have been sufficient to produce any tangible trading profits.. if not then it is a scam in my mind.
Imposing rules on how they trade is different from charging them money to get into the program... By all means have a contest to see who is really good but don't charge them money to do it!
AND once they get hired...
Picture this... 5 guys on computer screens, me standing behind them going... "Hey... you'd better not buy that now unless you want to be unemployed!"...
In theory that would be what legit looks like... But you won't see that around today.
Patak does not cater to individual needs, unless you create a custom Combine.
Maybe they can connect you with an equity partner if you really have a good track record, but that would be OUTSIDE this business model and you would have to contact them directly and give them your proposal, not here on Elitetrader.
Please, this should be a no-brainer.
So, if at the beginning 2010 David Harding came to them, they would not back him?
Quote from CoolTraderDude:
Imposing rules on how they trade is different from charging them money to get into the program... By all means have a contest to see who is really good but don't charge them money to do it!
AND once they get hired...
Picture this... 5 guys on computer screens, me standing behind them going... "Hey... you'd better not buy that now unless you want to be unemployed!"...
In theory that would be what legit looks like... But you won't see that around today.
I don`t know your background, but you don`t sound very smart.
Could you imagine that there is expenses involved with running such an operation?
And could you imagine the headache having to supervise thousands of traders who joins just for fun and want to waste everyones time?
Or does it make more sense to charge for the entry to make sure that they only get serious applicants who at least will give it their best shot and also secure some revenue to run this operation?
Please use your brain if you have one...
No...! Come on now... A legit quant who wants to manage money...!?? Backed by a prop firm...!!!??? ARE YOU INSANE!!!???
And my response is that this response is a false alternative. First of all, he would never need to go to TsT for backing. Second of all, I'm sure he has people going to him and not the other way around. Try again. Also, he would have no problem hitting the requirements in my opinion anyway, so what's the problem?
Edit- Just found this. As of February 2012, Harding had launched two more Winton funds and his firm held a total of $28.5 billion in assets. YEA HE REALLY NEEDS TO GO TO TST. Please use a legitimate example next time.
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