TopstepTrader and Patak Trading Partners- Any and all questions answered here

[Maverick74]

Quote from Lucias:


The 100k combine is a better bet because the fee increases at a linear ratio while the total risk increase is geometric. Even the 100k account is only equivalent to coming up with 2.2k risk capital.

Ok Lucias, you and I are finally getting somewhere. This part you wrote is where we disagree. There is no way on earth you can say your risk on CL is only 2200 on a 100k account. Assuming we are trading 4 lots of crude, you can lose 2200 in 10 minutes. How much do you think you can lose in a month trading crude with 4 lots? Only 2200? I say you can drop 25k easily in a month if you are a newbie to the contract. Don't believe me?

Go over to the CL Redux journal and post the question there. Those are all really solid traders there who are not trying to sell anything. They have been posting on that journal for 4 years. Just ask them. How much do you think one could lose trading CL in one month trading 4 contracts at a time. I wager you could easily and I mean without even trying, drop 5k to 6k per contract in a month which is 25k to 30k. Not 2200. I have no idea where you are getting 2200 as your risk. This is where I am losing you. And please don't tell me your margin is your risk. I've seen guys blow through 100k in capital with 1k margins. They would laugh at you if you told them their risk was only 1k.

 

[CoolTraderDude]

Quote from Maverick74:

Ok Lucias, you and I are finally getting somewhere. This part you wrote is where we disagree. There is no way on earth you can say your risk on CL is only 2200 on a 100k account. Assuming we are trading 4 lots of crude, you can lose 2200 in 10 minutes. How much do you think you can lose in a month trading crude with 4 lots? Only 2200? I say you can drop 25k easily in a month if you are a newbie to the contract. Don't believe me?

Go over to the CL Redux journal and post the question there. Those are all really solid traders there who are not trying to sell anything. They have been posting on that journal for 4 years. Just ask them. How much do you think one could lose trading CL in one month trading 4 contracts at a time. I wager you could easily and I mean without even trying, drop 5k to 6k per contract in a month which is 25k to 30k. Not 2200. I have no idea where you are getting 2200 as your risk. This is where I am losing you. And please don't tell me your margin is your risk. I've seen guys blow through 100k in capital with 1k margins. They would laugh at you if you told them their risk was only 1k.

Your daily risk is 2k your overall risk is whatever the rule is before they boot you back to Combine... So what's the rule...?

 

[MichaelPatak]

Quote from Lucias:

Thanks Michael for answering my questions. I think it is a good thing that you don't charge previous traders who pass the combine a fee.

However, its not really true that at the lowest level that you fund traders with $1,000. The trader risks almost $200 for the opportunity. He can't guarantee that he'll be profitable at the end of the month. As such, he could lose that money and it is at risk. He only needs to come up with $800 more for same as if he passed the combine.

Maverick, I have monitored many systems/traders and results at anything less then 3 months appears mostly random to me. But, if the rules are designed properly then a couple months could be useful. Also, you've seen they only give you 2x the daily risk limit and you've been adament in the past that a trader should only risk 2% of his capital on a day trade. I've tried to show you that the 2% risk rule isn't really true. For my day trades, I just use a max risk limit -- like TST/PTK and I find that works well. I like to keep this max risk below 7%. When I started, I had to have my max risk at like 10%/day but because my account has increased.. I'm only running a bit over 4% now. This is very reasonable level. 50% is not reasonable.

The reality is that good traders aren't going to spend 6 months trading on a simulator unless they have the chance to be funded at a significant level. The opportunity cost is too high. Also, when one understands the math then one will see that as the combine is designed today that it is simply easier to make money by taking own capital to the market.

Let's imagine it takes 4x to pass a combine (not unrealistic), that's $200*4 = $800. So you are paying in the risk cap you get back. Its not a good deal as it is designed. If a trader makes 4k in combine, he should be funded with 4k.

The reality is also that TST/PTK is not funding traders at a level where they can make a living. Michael has confirmed already that he doens't have even 12 traders who cleared 30k. I believe this is because the program doesnt give one enough capital/risk to be successful.

I don't see this as being very worthwhile. I will continue to monitor the program though, and if the situation changes then will consider the combine. But, as as structured today it is too much risk for too little gain.

Lucias.. The trader receives the TopstepTrader Combine deposit back when they get selected for funding at Patak Trading Partners. Also we need to understand that the Combine is a learning and developing tool for traders rather then being in the live market, while also serving as a recruiting tool for those who can meet the objective.

Lastly we don't use % risk. We use flat numbers that make sense. As there were time I traded and other traders around me traded where we never talk about how much we can lose in a day as a percentage of what we had in our accounts. I knew that when I first start I was taught don't lose over $300 a day if you can't average $300 a day.. Then as I grew my daily loss limit grew as my daily average grew. It is a different way of looking at things but there was times when my trading account would have $10k in it and times I had $260k in it (i would bring it back to $20k at the end of each month on withdraws).. I would and other trades did the same.. would not deviate away from what made them money each day and that was adhering to a loss limit that told them to shut it down your done, having strong discipline. This was never tied to a percentage of the account.. Just how we view it here.

mp

 

[CoolTraderDude]

@ Patak...

What's your job at Patak Trading Partners....?

 

[Maverick74]

Quote from CoolTraderDude:

Your daily risk is 2k your overall risk is whatever the rule is before they boot you back to Combine... So what's the rule...?

On the combine yes 2k a day. But if you funded yourself, there is no combine. That's my point. I'm not talking about TST. I'm saying if Lucias were to do the alternative, which is open say a 25k account with Velocity Futures. He is NOT going to stop himself when his account is down 4k. He probably won't stop trading till he hits zero. But he most certainly has a very good chance of blowing out at least half his account. Hell, he already confessed as much to me before.

What I'm trying to say here is we need to be realistic here. TST is imposing rules in newbies that they would NEVER impose on themselves. That's the whole point. Listen to what he is actually saying. He is saying the rules are too strict, that he would never impose such rules on himself therefore he would not stop at being down 2k or 4k. In fact he e-mailed me once where he lost half his account in a single day!!!!! This is why whole point.

 

[CoolTraderDude]

Quote from Maverick74:

On the combine yes 2k a day. But if you funded yourself, there is no combine. That's my point. I'm not talking about TST. I'm saying if Lucias were to do the alternative, which is open say a 25k account with Velocity Futures. He is NOT going to stop himself when his account is down 4k. He probably won't stop trading till he hits zero. But he most certainly has a very good chance of blowing out at least half his account. Hell, he already confessed as much to me before.

What I'm trying to say here is we need to be realistic here. TST is imposing rules in newbies that they would NEVER impose on themselves. That's the whole point. Listen to what he is actually saying. He is saying the rules are too strict, that he would never impose such rules on himself therefore he would not stop at being down 2k or 4k. In fact he e-mailed me once where he lost half his account in a single day!!!!! This is why whole point.

Wait... Are you saying that they send you back to Combine after you lose 2k...? That is... Just one day of being stopped out...? :eek:

 

[MichaelPatak]

Quote from CoolTraderDude:

Well it's good to see that you're not advertising for them...!

Here's a question to Patak... Is Maverick one of your owners or affiliated with you in any way...?

CooTraderDude- NO not in anyway. The guy knows our business model and does his due diligence to review and dig into us (not speculate). I would say that he is making our job a bit easier though.. so for that I would buy him a beer.

mp

 

[CoolTraderDude]

Quote from MichaelPatak:

CooTraderDude- NO not in anyway. The guy knows our business model and does his due diligence to review and dig into us (not speculate). I would say that he is making our job a bit easier though.. so for that I would buy him a beer.

mp

But I'd be a lot happier if you just answered my other question... What's your job at Patak Trading Partners...?

 

[MichaelPatak]

Quote from Maverick74:

Michael,

When you go live with Ninja, will there be any additional costs using that platform? Will there be any other material differences with traders who choose to use Ninja?

Maverick74- There will be no cost with TST or PTP.. buy you will need to have your own license key whether that is a lease or an own is on the trader. They can get that with Ninja.

I will be talking to our contact at Ninja/Zenfire soon to confirm all this. We look to add this platform in about a month.

mp

 

[Maverick74]

Quote from CoolTraderDude:

Wait... Are you saying that they send you back to Combine after you lose 2k...? That is... Just one day of being stopped out...? :eek:

No, we are talking about daily risk and total risk. I live in the real world and in the real world, traders have little to no discipline. They don't stop trading when they should and they keep racking up losses until their account says zero balance. That is the reality. We have seen study after study on this. So when Lucias says he will just fund his own trading which is great. I think he should. But his risk on his own account is not fixed. It's open ended. I would wager that if he actually funded a 25k account at Velocity and traded 4 CL at a time, he would drop 12k inside two weeks. Again, don't believe me, go over to the CL journal where you can get a neutral person to answer.

The fact of the matter is, newbies needed to be treated like newbies. Nothing wrong with that. They are not going to self discipline themselves. They will after they blow out 2 or 3 accounts. They won't have any choice. But if they have not done that yet, they will drop 2k to 3k a day every day until their balance is 46.28. Won't even cover the outgoing wire fee at most FCM's.

This is my whole argument. He keeps saying he could open an account with as little as 2k and trade using the same parameters, not on this planet he can. Hell, you can lose 2k in CL in 30 minutes on a one lot. How the hell is that suppose to work out for him.

Last spring I saw CL drop 9 pts in one session. That's 9k on a one lot!!!! His risk is not 2200 like he says. That maybe his risk on the combine because they FORCE that on him. And as you can see, he doesn't like it. That's my whole point.