Interesting thoughts.. I'm not 100% sure if the risk limits are the same in the combine though. I don't believe they cut you off when you are down 2x the risk limit in the combine. You are not allowed to hit the risk limit on any given day but I think they allow you to keep trading.. I'm not clear on this but this could be a difference. Of course, true they have to clear so much over so few days that I'm nto sure how much it matters.
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TopstepTrader and Patak Trading Partners- Any and all questions answered here
- Thread starter MichaelPatak
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Quote from Maverick74:
Once again, consistency is the key. All traders need to learn this. Did you know that a single penny doubled every day for 30 days will get you more then 5 million dollars. It's called pressing your bet. LOL.
What are the odds of 30 winning trades in a row if you don't cheat?
Quote from Lucias:
Volente, you must have misread. I have my own account funded, live trading futures, and I've nearly doubled it. So, I have my own account and it is sufficient for me to trade. However, if I had more risk cap per day then I could make more money. I want to leverage my existing success.
You may want to look back through the thread to earlier portions where I showed that I only need to make 1/4th of the PTK/TST goal to get the same level of return. At the lowest tier level, simply the market gives me better odds then TST/PTK offer. I am considering the higher tier levels but need to do more analysis, to see if it makes sense or not.
I admit also even if it was a fair deal: I'd have hard time going back to sim and letting so many opportunities go by without taking advantage of them. Especially knowing that I only need to make 1/4th of the combine objective in my real account to obtain the same profits. How can they convince anyone with that kind of odds? It is clear they need to raise the total risk level 4x what it currently is for it to start to make sense. This would give one 4x the risk cap which would be tight but could work. Your risk limit is $500 per day and your total risk is $1,000. If your total risk is $1,000 you should no way in hell be risking $500 per day!! Get real.
But we haven't heard a confirmation from Patak that any of his traders have cleared any tangible money. You know if Regan's trader's records are any guide then they may not have any "tangibly" profitable traders. This would be of paramount importance. I know how hard it is to make money in futures market and actually wouldn't be surprised.
Surely there must be some Patak traders out who've cleared 100k? (or 60k after the split). But none here have came to defend them. We don't have traders coming out and saying.. yeah I trade for patak and made 250k last year. Or yeah, I went live and cleared 30k and quit. Nothing. Not a peep.
Whether or not they have traders making tangible profits is central to their claims of what their business is. They've been doing this for years. If they don't have any traders who've made tangible profits then it tells us most of what Patak has claimed would be false because it would mean
#1 They aren't making money from traders profits
#2 They aren't producing successful traders
#3 They don't fund traders (at a level required for success)
I'm not claiming this but if Michael isn't willing to say.. yes we have traders who've cleared 30k.. 100k.. 120k.. then what does that say?
Again, I think Michael could be a very smart guy. A bit too smart by posing his answer as a question, "Do you think the combines pay the light bills?" Yes. Mr. Patak I think that combines could pay the light bills.
But.. I''m not rushing to judgement. I'd love for Patak to come on here like a boss and talk about how he has 4, 5, 6 traders who cleared 250k last year... how 20 traders had cleared 60k... That'd be cool as hell. I don't think it will happen.
You can already get over 150:1 leverage trading retail on your own, if you can really trade then there is no reason to give 40% of your profits away when you can just compound starting with just 1 contract.
The lowest combine is asking you to make 16.667 es points in 10 days using a 3.25 stop or less intraday. Considering only intraday is allowed you are asked to return $2500 in profit using only 900-1500 of intraday margin. So if you are good enough to generate 277% return in 10 trading days, why do you need pataks backing ?
They are essentially asking you to make 65k a year on 900-1500 worth of margin. Does this sound realistic to you ?
If you can meet their requirements, just take your 300-500 margin for 1 contract plus 500 for risk that you are given in the combine and open an account at global futures and after 10 days you should have and additional $800 in your account. Now scale it up every week and the world is yours since after all you are a pro who makes 16.667 es points every 10 trading days with less then $500 drawdown.
The rules are written where hardly anyone will succeed.
I ask again
65k a year on 900-1500 worth of margin.
Does this sound realistic to you ?
All you ET superstars are free to move on if this deal is not what you are looking for. It's not like they are going to change it if you guys complain for x days in a row. I'm in the army. If I want to jump out of army planes, shoot bad guys with army guns, and get army money and benefits, I have to follow army rules. Some of them are dumb but that's just the way it is. You want the benefits of any organization, you have to play by their rules.
Quote from Maverick74:
Now of course if they start losing money from the start, you can throw all this out the window. Once again, consistency is the key. All traders need to learn this. Did you know that a single penny doubled every day for 30 days will get you more then 5 million dollars. It's called pressing your bet. LOL.
i think it would be over a billion.
Quote from snooptrdr:
i think it would be over a billion.
You'd hit $1M on day 21 and you would be at $536,870,912 on day 30.
GMST is being very illogical and irrational. I think everyone gets it that he has an ax to grind but (I assume) these are two separate companies and two separate tax IDs etc so combine fees can't go to Patak just like commissions can't go to TsT.
Lucias, I was going to send you a PM to this effect but I'll just put it out in the open since I'm pretty sure most everyone would agree. From what I've read it sounds like you have doubled your account and have had great success - congratulations! That said, it also sounds like you are way over leveraged, taking on far too much risk and perhaps have been lucky that your lack of risk parameters have not bitten you in the rear end.
If you have an account with $1,000 and you have been fortunate enough to have doubled it that's great, now you have $2,000 of capital and you can trade exactly the same by risking less overall capital. That is a good thing. If you are consistent you should forget all together TsT and Patak (not because they are good or bad) and just keep trading on your own. In the bigger picture (from personal experience) trading on your own and collecting 100% of your own P&L is always going to be better than a split. So many guys want the world handed to them - you want tons of capital so you can keep the same risk parameters as you have now because you think it will allow you to make more money - that's false logic and it'll burn you. If you don't believe it ask Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Wachovia, Merrill and I'm sure you are smart enough to find a few others.
Just keep trading as you are now. Reinvest the profits back into your account and don't withdraw. If you can't afford to live on the money you have saved or the profits then get a part time job outside trading hours. Nothing is free and scaling up an over-leveraged, risky strategy is most certainly not a smart move.
(Sorry for the OT post in this thread)
You don't double it on day one - you start with a penny on day one and double it every day which means two pennies on day two.Quote from snooptrdr:
you start with a penny but double it on day one, therefore day 30 would be 2 to the 30th power.
=1,073,741,824
Also you guys seem to be forgetting that its a *penny* not a dollar:
Day Cash
1 $0.01
2 $0.02
3 $0.04
4 $0.08
5 $0.16
6 $0.32
7 $0.64
8 $1.28
9 $2.56
10 $5.12
11 $10.24
12 $20.48
13 $40.96
14 $81.92
15 $163.84
16 $327.68
17 $655.36
18 $1,310.72
19 $2,621.44
20 $5,242.88
21 $10,485.76
22 $20,971.52
23 $41,943.04
24 $83,886.08
25 $167,772.16
26 $335,544.32
27 $671,088.64
28 $1,342,177.28
29 $2,684,354.56
30 $5,368,709.12
If you interpreted it to mean doubled 30 times then the answer is $10,737,418.24, e.g. $10M not a billion
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