Do You Have A Market Edge? Are You Sure?
You hear people in trading all the time talking about “their edge”. But how often can people actually define what their edge is, in advance? How many traders know, before they take their trade, that their edge is present, or not? Do you know when your edge is present? Don’t fall into the trap of […]
Is Trading Really Just Gambling?
It doesn’t matter what you trade: futures, stocks, ETFs, forex, options, binary options, crypto… if you’ve been trading for any length of time, you’ve likely had friends/family make the comment that “it’s gambling”. You may also have had bad losses which for sure are what most people would associate as gambling’s outcome. There are similarities, […]
You’re Funded. Now Don’t F*k It Up!
Anyone who’s been around trading any length of time – or has ever visited this site! – should be familiar with the “Trader Evaluation” industry. The TL;DR is that these companies give you a simulated account and let you trade it with some specific (and pretty strict) rules. If you can reach a profit target […]
Should I even do this?
Many people dream of getting rich quickly in the financial markets and the vast majority have this dream broken quickly. The lure of trading evaluators is strong. If you have a trading edge, the right disciplined mindset and an understanding of the business model, you can absolutely benefit from trading evaluator funded accounts Don’t fool […]
Can I cash out all at once?
Evaluators may place monetary restrictions on how much can be withdrawn from a live account, either at any time or during the first few withdrawals. Evaluators explain that this is done “to ensure that a sufficient balance remains within the trading account to protect it against losses and drawdowns”. Cynics will counter with “it’s to […]
Wait, I can’t withdraw it ALL?
It’s typical for an evaluator’s live account to require the trader to generate a residual amount of profit in their live account. This tends to be set around the initial drawdown level. For example, if a live account that’s resulted from a “50k” evaluation has a $2500 drawdown limit, once the account’s generated $2500 in […]
How much of the profits do I get?
In any prop firm, there’s a split of trading profits between the trader and the prop firm. In “traditional” prop firms this can be anything from a 50:50 split up to an 80:20 split in favor of the trader. The prop firm’s taking a split for facilities, risk management, access to better leverage, use of […]
When can I withdraw some money?
This is why we’re all here isn’t it? To extract money from the markets, and in the case of using a trading evaluator, to get to a point where we can do that with less of our own money at risk than if we were to open our own trading account. Once you have trading […]
I blew up. Now I have to start over??
Aligned to what we’ve covered in our last post, some evaluators recognize that live traders have a tendency to blow their accounts up quickly. To cater for this market they offer “live resets”… at a price! Typically several hundred dollars. Yes… you’re understanding this correctly. You have a live account that’s actually a “live sim” account. […]
So I’m trading real money now, right?
Well… maybe. Nearly all trading evaluators start new live traders in “live simulation”. In some cases, this is totally evident… you’re logging on to the same simulated data server that you were during evaluation! With some evaluators, once you’ve generated a certain level of profit in your account, you may be switched to a “live” […]
