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

Status
Not open for further replies.
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

I was off by two decimal places... Sorry my mistake.

I agree with
21 $10,485.76
and
30 $5,368,709.12

I was working on something else in Excel and read it quickly when it was formatted in a funny way.
 
Quote from Maverick74:

Guys, it's labor day weekend. It's a holiday! It's a weekend! He is not going to respond back to you until Tuesday.

Agreed! Taking my my Sons swimming. After that, we're going to see 2016. After that, I'm grilling tuna stakes. Yum!:)


For the impatient folks here, why don't you write down your questions, pick up the phone and make a call? I don't understand the back and forth when you could get the information you're looking for in twenty minutes via phone call.:confused:
 
Quote from GTS:

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.

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

So, it's 2 to the power of 29. And then divide by 100 to get the dollar value.

It's a double or nothing bet done 30 times starting with a penny.
 
Quote from SteveNYC:

What are the odds of 30 winning trades in a row if you don't cheat?

Assuming 1/2 chance on each trade over 30 trades your chances are... 9.31323E-10 or better yet 0.000000000931323 :D ! In other words, your chances are zero (0)!

If you want the odds it won't work on our first example...

ODDS = P/1-P So... 1/2 =.5 ... .5/1-.5 = .5/.5 = 1... It looks like a certain deal but that's obviously false. One to one odds 1/1 actually means a 50 % chance.

Even with a 90 % chance of winning on every trade, the probability of getting 30 trades in a row is only about 4 % or .0424!:eek:
 
Quote from WinstonTJ:

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)

This is really good advice and I don't think it is OT. The real problem in this thread whether you guys realize it or not is that you don't understand that you aren't entitled to anything. If you want to make a good living trading you need to be able to risk larger amounts of money. It is as simple as that. You don't have the risk capital on your own. No one is going to let you risk large amounts of their money until you show them that you can handle smaller amounts. This takes TIME and requires a long term relationship.

You guys are expecting too much too soon.

Look at it from the perspective of the backer. They charge $300 or whatever it is. You show them that you are decent and they back you. Out of 100 traders that they back, how many do you think are going to lose $500 and never make it back? I bet it is at least 90 of them. They have to charge you money and start you small to be able to run this program.

BTW if it sounds like I am talking down I'm not. I gave up on being a full time trader years ago. While profitable and pretty successful on a % basis, I never got the capital together to make a good living and with a family I couldn't afford to not make money for long enough to do a program like this properly.

You could go the route I have. I found a career I enjoy with excellent long term possibilities. I invest every month out of my paycheck, some of it allocated to a conservative retirement account and some of it to a highly leveraged swing for the fences type account that I trade on an EOD basis. It really isn't a bad way to go. Financially it has been much much better.
 
Quote from SteveNYC:

What are the odds of 30 winning trades in a row if you don't cheat?



Remove the random variable – 50/50

Reinsert the random variable – anywhere from 0 to 98 (just depends how successful the variable has worked to become non-random)

The missing 2 is to account for shocks to the system – of course

===================

My response likely comes off as egotistical – rest assured it is not


Besides # of wins in a row has nothing to do with being consistently profitable anyway

=================

I am a bit curious though – how one could/ would cheat at trading – if you would care to elaborate

RN
 
Quote from CoolTraderDude:

Assuming 1/2 chance on each trade over 30 trades your chances are... 9.31323E-10 or better yet 0.000000000931323 :D ! In other words, your chances are zero (0)!

If you use 1/2 chance as the probability of doubling your money each and everyday for 29 straight days, it's like saying what are the odds of flipping 29 heads (or tails) in a row.

The odds of flipping 29 heads in a row is .5 to the power of 29. That is .00000019% or about 1 in 500,000,000.

The odds of winning Powerball/Mega Millions jackpot is about 1 in 175,000,000.
This is equivalent to approximately .00000057%. This is approximately flipping 24 heads (or tails) in a row.

More likely to win PBall/Mega jackpot than flip 29 heads or tails in a row.

Incidentally, to win the PBall/Mega jackpot, just flip 24 heads or tails in a row. This is pretty hard to do but amazingly some people do it.
 
Scalperjoe, I used Ninja for years. It's my understanding, and I could be wrong, that they only allow you 30 days of free live trading. Is that still the case?

Also, as was stated before, you don't need to join and pay for a membership. Pay one time and earn the free combines going forward. So basically total cost is $200 or so.

I asked this question on the other thread. What free sims are out there these days?
 
Quote from Maverick74:

Scalperjoe, I used Ninja for years. It's my understanding, and I could be wrong, that they only allow you 30 days of free live trading. Is that still the case?

Also, as was stated before, you don't need to join and pay for a membership. Pay one time and earn the free combines going forward. So basically total cost is $200 or so.

I asked this question on the other thread. What free sims are out there these days?

Hi Maverick,

Yes, it's for 30 days, but one simple email and they will renew it. After all, they want you to open an account, lol!

Regarding the membership, it's not a recurring $150 monthly charge? If the fixed total cost is $200 or so, that's reasonable. However, that was not the point of my post.

The question is whether or not you are truly being "financially backed", and I wrote my analysis accordingly.

I believe there are other sims out there, just haven't checked. AMP/Ninja seems to work just fine. I trade equities via prop, but look at futures everyday and trade futures in sim.

Heck, I may just try the "combine" on AMP just for kicks. $5k in 20 days trading the whipsaws in /CL should be fun.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top