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

[ExchangeBonds]

The thing that seems to bug most the people here is the short amount of time given if you do bad at the start. Again, IT IS THERE MONEY, not yours. They are also very up front about it, so I do not see it as a problem. That question has been asked before to Mike in the chat, and he has never dodged that question.

Also, if you are a good trader as you all seem to claim, go for the 150k combine for a higher risk limit. The rules for getting a refund are not that onerous and when you go live. Lower the risk down some to make that 6k go a little farther. Am I in love with the tight risk limit? No I'm not, but it is their money. They do want people to succeed, but as they never formally meet people, I would never expect them to allow people to lose 10-40k on an account.

I will also say that I have met Patak before, and he is a good guy. The combines don't pay the bills as I believe a large enough amount of people are able to get refunds and the amount of services offered. What they are trying to do is build a group of loyal traders that will stay with them for years. This normally happens by getting a trader that is young and giving him that chance to thrive. Traders that have been in the business for 5-10 years are much less likely to have loyalty to a prop firm. That is my opinion.

For those bashing Mav, he seems like the most professional person here. If I lived in Chicago, I'd definitely want to meet him and ask for any advice etc for what to do as he seems to know his shit. Mav has never said this is the ultimate route to go on, but it is legitimate and may be the best chance people can get without using your own money. I'd like to ask how many traders on here would even back other traders? Answer is probably few to none.

Is TsT for everyone, no it isn't, but the squawk does give some good information on breaking news that most retail traders would not get in a timely manner and you get a good charting program. Getting all that for $100-200/month is in itself a good deal. Add on the chance to get a live account as a main or supplemental account, and I think it is a winning proposition.

 

[justrading]

Quote from gmst:

I partially agree with this. My first post in which I wrote about Maverick - probably was not warranted. However, it was also important to 'some extent' - simply because so many people at ET think so highly of Mav that if I felt Mav is hand in glove with Patak, that needed to be exposed.

But, yes as I said I partially agree with you.

Also, it was partially proved in the other thread that in fact Mav is hand in glove with Patak. I hope no one missed it.

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=3612178#post3612178

I didn't miss that. Have any of you heard of the concept of natural curiosity? When a subject is being discussed, you google something that is mentioned in passing and discover stuff you otherwise would have been oblivious to?

I do that all the time and find it very rewarding. Then again I may just be a dinosaur.

 

[Maverick74]

Gmst, I explained in detail how I came about TST and what my interest is in this. If you don't want to accept that, fine, let's move on.

I think I see where our communication breakdown is. See, I don't have an issue with TST because the rules are given before hand. Every one knows what they are. If you read the rules and don't like them, you can either change them or pass on the combine. Very simple.

When I first told Lucias about TST my original concern was not the rules, but rather what if you followed the rules and they did not abide by the agreement. That IS a big deal to me. Now we're on to something here. I have a problem with ANYBODY that does not follow through on their word.

From what I can tell seeing all the guys they back week after week, it appears that they are following through on their word. I have no real interest in debating the rules or how hard something is because it's your choice, you don't have to do it. Nobody is making you. If I don't like IB's software, I don't have to open an account with them. If I don't want to use REDI, I don't have to join Bright Trading. If I think E-signal's charts are too expensive, I don't don't have to use them. I honestly don't understand the controversy here.

Now, if I find out that they are not backing traders who do follow ALL the rules as listed, then I will say something. I've looked at the rules and I don't like them or dislike them. They are what they are. The whole trailing stop rule does NOT apply on the combine and only applys on live accounts the first 5k. After that, it's gone.

Gmst, here is what one should offer Michael. Take off the trailing stop rule but if the trader's account goes negative, they have to pay with their own money to do the combine again. It's called compromise. I'm sure they would take that. I understand why they do it. At one of the prop firms I use to trade at where we did back guys, we implemented a similar rule. We would tell guys to stop trading when they were up a certain amount of money for the first month or two. We were looking out for their best interest as we wanted them to build a little bit of equity. There is nothing more depressing for a new trader then going profitable at the beginning and then giving it all back.

Anyway, enough on that. Please people, be civil to each other. Don't accuse anybody of anything until you have the facts. If you think the rules are too strict, move on. We are never going to come to an agreement here on what the rules should be so it's pointless debating them.

 

[Shanb]

Quote from Lucias:

I wanted to add that until you can demonstrate that your program works by answering question #1 that I have serious concerns that your program, instead of helping to create successful traders, is more likely to trap many good to great traders in a losing revolving door scheme. A scheme where the trader is rewarded by getting his own money back when he wins but loses his entire deposit when he comes up short.

I don't think ive every found myself agreeing with you Lucias lol, but yea the answer is troubling so far. Maybe after the holiday weekend, Patak could at least give some insight into the issue. Nobody is asking for private info on traders, just a little insight into whether the program is actually working lol!

 

[Maverick74]

Quote from Shanb:

I don't think ive every found myself agreeing with you Lucias lol, but yea the answer is troubling so far. Maybe after the holiday weekend, Patak could at least give some insight into the issue. Nobody is asking for private info on traders, just a little insight into whether the program is actually working lol!

Shan, I can tell you right now that there program is not anymore successful then anywhere else's. Come on dude, we both know this game. You worked at Avatar. How many guys made money over there? At VTrader, we had over 120 traders, I would guess less then 10 of those accounts were profitable and most of them were market makers. Hell, we had to shut down our entire market making program because we were getting killed on over head. And Mark Fisher? Remember him Shan? Yeah, he shut down his entire prop desk and shut down his 100 million dollar fund. Why? Because guys weren't making money. We both know the deal. Very few of these guys will ever see long term success. It doesn't matter if they work for Avatar, Fisher or TST.

TST probably has even less success because they are attracting guys who probably should not be trading. They don't have the background or the knowledge or the ability. But I'm a free market guy and I'm never going to tell anyone that they can't do something. Let them try, let them fail. That's life. Some people want a chance. This business is tough for long term discretionary traders. Not impossible, just tough. And it tends to attract all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons.

Jesse Livermore said it best, over the years, the markets never change, only the players.

 

[volente_00]

Quote from Maverick74:

I

I suspect 12 months from now their combines will be even much more different then they are today.

I suspect 12 months from now you will see even more options to extract money from the applicants.

 

[Shanb]

Quote from Maverick74:

Shan, I can tell you right now that there program is not anymore successful then anywhere else's. Come on dude, we both know this game. You worked at Avatar. How many guys made money over there? At VTrader, we had over 120 traders, I would guess less then 10 of those accounts were profitable and most of them were market makers. Hell, we had to shut down our entire market making program because we were getting killed on over head. And Mark Fisher? Remember him Shan? Yeah, he shut down his entire prop desk and shut down his 100 million dollar fund. Why? Because guys weren't making money. We both know the deal. Very few of these guys will ever see long term success. It doesn't matter if they work for Avatar, Fisher or TST.

TST probably has even less success because they are attracting guys who probably should not be trading. They don't have the background or the knowledge or the ability. But I'm a free market guy and I'm never going to tell anyone that they can't do something. Let them try, let them fail. That's life. Some people want a chance. This business is tough for long term discretionary traders. Not impossible, just tough. And it tends to attract all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons.

Jesse Livermore said it best, over the years, the markets never change, only the players.

Look its simple, he asked a question that I thought was appropriate. The answer still hasn't been given.

I don't have all the problems with the rules that many of the guys have in here. It's their program and PTK's money and they make the rules! Its upto the consumer to decide if they want to partake in the program.

Considering how many people have gone through the combine and have been backed I would expect at least a small number to be making a decent sum of money here. 3%, 5%, 10%? IDK the exact number, but to me this is a very important insight into their operation as it would be for any firm backing traders.

 

[volente_00]

Quote from Lucias:

We've already established that TST/PTK has posted some misleading figures. They show on their website that they fund one with 30k account when in reality they provide 1k risk. We are trying to establish the basic nature of the TST/PTK business. Is the TST designed to keep traders in a never ending revolving door of combines that too difficult to pass? A game that appears to be designed as a negative expectancy game where a player is only able to win back his own money when he wins in the market but loses his deposit when he loses and even when he wins huge: he only wins a small amount.

Michael skipped my question even though it was the second one asked but preceded to answer subsequent questions. Then later an answer appeared out-of-sequence where TST_HOAG stated that whether or not that they have traders who've produced tangible profits doesn't matter. It does matter because it gets to the heart of the type of business they are running and it mattered to the CFTC when they found that Richard Regan under rather similar circumstancs. I'm not a regulator and can't say how they look on this but as a layman, I do see similarity. If no TST/PTK traders have produced tangible profits, which was the case under Regan (another floor trader running a similar not exactly same type of operation) then I think that's extremely relevant.

I've taken the time to go step-by-step through the math to show how poor it is. At the 1k level, you risked $175 to get that funding, so in reality a trader only has to come up $825 of risk capital (+$500 margin non risk capital) to get the same level of funding.

Now, let's show how the daily risk limit is a misrepresentation. Does anyone believe that risking 50% of your capital per day makes any sense? At the lowest funding level, you get 1k total risk. Let's figure out something more realistic working backwards, take the 1k and divide by 6 and that gives you a realistic risk max per day of only $166 and you'll get 60% of that or about $99/day. Even at this level you are risking nearly 17% of your account per day. From experience in running monte carlo simulations, I know that risking much beyond 8% puts one at a higher jeopardy of account loss. At the 8% level, your realistic risk cap is going to be $80 per day. Good luck trading the ES with $80 risk per day!

Michael did something else that's peculiar. He replied with a question "Do you think the combines pay the light bills?". I've seen this same phrase used before. I find this peculiar because by posing it as question, he's not stating that the combines don't pay the light bills. He's dodging.

And, yes it does get some of us real traders "hot under the collar" when we see a scheme that claims to try to produce successful traders but which may, in reality, be trapping them in a perptual losing cycle.

Yes, what Maverick claims about me and him are true. I have asked him several times for funding. And I believe him. Maverick, I thank you for trying to help me even though we don't always agree. Indeed, I've an interest in whether this is a scheme or a real oppportunity because I would be inclined to try it if I knew it wasn't a scheme.

Yes, successful traders do seek funding. I'll give my own case as an example. I went live 6 months with a small account. The first few months I was trading lightly, testing the water. Even so, I've been closing in on the 100% net return. Not quite but closing in. I don't believe I ever went negative equity -- good luck. I know many investors would kill for even a partial to such returns. I only have a small amount of capital, and so I have been genuinely considering to try the TST program. I would be extremely happy to find a legitament TST/PTK style program. There is virtually no opportunity for a trader who does extremely well with a small account to scale up. So, I am very interested in any opportunities.

I have had interviews with real prop firms and even had the opportunity to take them up. I want to explain the difference between TST/PTK and real props. Real props are tight on the risk when starting but they scale traders up to significant risk levels when they do well. This enables those traders to make a real living. The downside is that it is very hard to past the first 6 months to 1 year.

Understand that I am not attacking TST/PTK but giving them an excellent opportunity to demonstrate the nature of their business and if they have a legit business then I may become one of their traders. However, if they struggle to provide this information then it does tend to strongly indicate they are running a scheme.

Why don't you just try the combine if you are so sure of your trading talent ?




Your other choice is to fund yourself.

Not sure of your circumstances but it takes very little to trade index futures intraday which is exactly what tst requires you to do in the combine. Surely you can find a way to scrape up enough to back yourself. Get a second job, borrow against an asset you already own, tap a credit card, sell something you own. Real traders find solutions to make things happen. If you want it bad enough you will find one.

 

[Shanb]

Quote from Maverick74:

Shan, I can tell you right now that there program is not anymore successful then anywhere else's. Come on dude, we both know this game. You worked at Avatar. How many guys made money over there? At VTrader, we had over 120 traders, I would guess less then 10 of those accounts were profitable and most of them were market makers. Hell, we had to shut down our entire market making program because we were getting killed on over head. And Mark Fisher? Remember him Shan? Yeah, he shut down his entire prop desk and shut down his 100 million dollar fund. Why? Because guys weren't making money. We both know the deal. Very few of these guys will ever see long term success. It doesn't matter if they work for Avatar, Fisher or TST.

TST probably has even less success because they are attracting guys who probably should not be trading. They don't have the background or the knowledge or the ability. But I'm a free market guy and I'm never going to tell anyone that they can't do something. Let them try, let them fail. That's life. Some people want a chance. This business is tough for long term discretionary traders. Not impossible, just tough. And it tends to attract all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons.

Jesse Livermore said it best, over the years, the markets never change, only the players.

I'm coming at this from a neutral perspective. I have no bias and honestly don't have any personal interest in any of Patak's offerings. I'm just partaking in this little conversation we have going on here.

You don't need to tell me this business is tough lol. This business is like any other...the majority fail. This thread was created for questions for TST and PTK Trading Partners. Simple, lets keep it on topic!

 

[Laissez Faire]

Quote from Maverick74:

Don't accuse anybody of anything until you have the facts. If you think the rules are too strict, move on. We are never going to come to an agreement here on what the rules should be so it's pointless debating them.

This is what I find fascinating as well. Why not do thorough research on your own and talk directly with the firm instead of spending all this time here discussing interpretations and rumors about their model?

Personally, I had a few concerns with their model and if it were even realistic for me at all to be successful following their parameters. Because of this, I booked a call with one of their scouts to talk to them directly and get it confirmed once and for all.

My main concerns was if there was a profit objective AFTER completing the Combine and going live and exactly how the trailing stop rule worked. If it were on open profits, it would put severe limitations on my trading, but learning that it was on realized profits, it definitely was something I could live with and even condone on my own. I also learned that there were no profit objectives on the live account and a few other things as well.

I know what I`m going to and I know what to expect. It is my choice to take it or not. I completely understand why they have strict performance criteria and I would not have done it differently myself if I were putting forth money and backing traders.

Now, if it is true that there are people who have successfully completed the Combine, but not allowed to go live, that is of course a major concern and definitely something I would be interested in finding out of.

But the model as I understand it is solid and attractive to me.