Mark Meadows

Anthony brings up a great point that does need more airtime.

And this is the same point that I was trying to get at with posts in the past that asked “do you want to beat prop, or do you want to be a trader.”

Payouts obviously get views. That’s the fact.

But too many people are giving up the reason they got into prop (to trade and have independence) for the goal of chasing this game of beating prop. That game is exhausting.

Maybe I’m old man yelling at clouds. But I’d encourage anyone to think about what they want from the industry. What are you giving up by full porting a trade? What did it cost you to get here, now in time, money and, most importantly, energy.

Those are the risks.

OK, now that the market is closed, can we have a discussion?

🛑Stop full porting the U.S. market open.

It's a bad strategy. And odds are that it's not going to work out for you.

This week, we ended our funding relationship with 61 mostly new traders who got into PRO accounts and then decided to full port (e.g., trade large size) at the 9:30 AM ET open. This is a very small fraction of traders, but they're always consistently there. And I don't understand why.

Best case: they make a few thousand dollars. Worse case: they blow their PRO accounts. But either way, it ruins their chances with trading one of the best live-market prop firm programs out there.

The goal of prop firms is to turn good trading into good traders. In other words, to give you the experience and enforce discipline that will help you turn those stretches of good trading into a consistently profitable approach.

From a risk management perspective, trading full size at highly volatile times is not a strategy that will work out. If you do this, you have a 100% chance of ruin. So, it's not the key to a long-term relationship where we can win alongside of you.

First, I should be very clear: trading at the open isn't against our rules. Most traders do this responsibly inside their account and never hear from the risk team. A few do this irresponsibly. For them, we don't claw back profits (if they are lucky enough to make them). We simply identify the behavior, and notify traders that they're not a fit for our program moving forward. They're allowed to withdraw any profits they made, finish out their path in a PRO+ Development account, and then, we part ways.

But these traders aren't entirely irrational, are they? They have a 50/50 chance of winning a few thousand dollars, right?

The data suggests otherwise. Here are the stats from this week:

Monday: 3 of 11 traders made money
Tuesday: 3 of 13 traders made money
Wednesday: 4 of 8 traders made money
Thursday: 2 of 14 traders made money
Friday: 8 of 15 traders made money

In total, 20 of 61 traders made money. 33%.

Why is it so low? The issue with placing huge sized bets at a volatile time is that NQ might go up 15 points and then down 30 points in a few seconds. You can be wrong betting both ways if you try to get too much out of the trade.

But I'm sure you're much more disciplined than the traders above, and you put a bracket trade down so that you either hit it or don't: 15 NQ points – to match the 15 points of drawdown you have at max size. That's truly a 50/50 chance. OK, I'll agree. Now, let's say now that you guess right and hit your profit target.

Great, you just made $4,500 across five accounts. $22,500, right? What's the math behind that now?

You're still inside the buffer, so after the profit split, you just made $2,250 x 5 = $11,250 you can withdraw today. Not bad for 20 seconds of work. Don't forget to save for taxes (e.g., -25%). And you probably paid some to get into the accounts in the first place. So let's call it profits of $7,500… or $1,500 per account. Maybe that's worth it. But when you consider you just burned an opportunity to be a funding partner with a top firm in the space, what's it really costing you?

Or, instead of withdrawing, you now get to move into live with 5x PRO+ Development accounts. You either make these accounts work or go looking for a new funding partner. That's some pressure.

Look, I get it: the allure of full porting is real. Futures trading presents you with an opportunity to make thousands in seconds. But before you do that, do the math as to the real costs and benefits. Even if it works out, I'm not sure it pays.

Woof … from a risk management position, it’s hard to defend this policy.

I read FTMO’s article referenced in the email, and I honestly have no idea what type of behavior they’re trying to prohibit.

Their examples: your first position can’t be large and “exceed the limits of reasonable risk management.” You can’t add to winners. And you can’t add to losers.

What, specifically, are they not allowing? What position size is too large? And adding to winners is exactly what every good trader would tell you to do. So why is that flagged?

More —

“A one-sided bet usually looks so tricky that the trader simply risks a large amount of free margin on a single market event, usually driven by macroeconomic factors.”

This sentence structure is so tricky that a trader can’t understand it.

This seems to be a consistency rule masked? Or another way to say they don’t want traders over-leveraging? Or also a way of saying you can’t trade around events?

But they’re not clear in saying what activity flags this, and that’s a bad trader experience.

And it’s a bad look for the industry.

PW taking some profits.

Hopefully he used code RISK in his trades so I can get a 20% kickback from CME.

Like ants in a kitchen, if there are 2 mistresses, the best approximation for the actual number of mistresses is > 2