Support Board
Date/Time: Sat, 23 Nov 2024 05:41:17 +0000
Post From: Feedback Requested: Trading Evaluators (Top Step Trader etc.)
| [2020-08-02 12:00:08] |
| Lodbrok - Posts: 1 |
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First of all I would like to commend Sierra Chart Support on the transparent and open communication with respect to your relationship with Trading Evaluators and your view on their business practices. This sort of direct communication may sometimes be perceived as hostile and rarely carries any upside. In this case however I believe it's not only constructive, but it's even very productive with respect to developing a better solution to funding profitabletraders. Sierra Charts dedication to providing top-quality and well engineered software, and reliable services at affordable prices to the retail trader is indisputable, and it shines through in the communication. While I understand most of the arguments made earlier, I can not agree with the characterization that they [Topsteptrader in this case] are taking advantage of people. They are offering a service people are willing to pay for - that it is possible to provide a better service at more affordable prices, be that as it may; but at this time they are by far the most popular service provider. Based on publicly available information you do not have to be an advanced number cruncher to realize that these Trading Evaluators are making a lot of money on unprofitable traders, and I'd venture to guess that they are making an order-of-magnitude more profits on unprofitable traders compared to the few profitable traders who get funded. It is a question of ethics whether this business model is fair, and it is not something I'm qualified to discuss - but given how a lot of today's businesses, across all spaces, make money on ill-informed consumers I do not think it is fair to single out a few operating in this space. But rest assured, these businesses are definitively, just like gaming-, gambling-, sports-, and a lot of other companies, taking advantage of the human psychology to make money. I have myself signed up for the $150,000 combine with Topsteptrader a week ago, and passed both steps to get a Funded Account® [pending approval and 8 more trading days]. Paying $375 in order to have a drawdown of $4,500 seems like a good deal - the added benefit of other imposed risk management guidelines is nice as well. There's definitely both pros and cons of going with a Trading Evaluator, and there's a slew of reasons why people sign up for these. If Sierra Chart can contribute to finding funding for profitable traders in a more efficient and affordable way that would be fantastic! But at this point there's not a lot of fair options available, and even though there's room for improvement with the one Trading Evaluator I've tried I haven't had a bad experience with them so far. The model described in post #1, where traders make their trading results publicly available with the accompanying leaderboard and potential capital providers can contact traders they wish to fund, is in principle very good; but it has some obvious practical challenges; 1. How will the the relationship between the trader and the funder be regulated? Will there be a standard Contract with T&C provided? Who will ensure that the Contract is fair for both parties? Taxes?
2. What incentive will a capital provider have to go with a random trader on the internet compared to going to more well established traders? 3. Will there be a third party involved functioning as an escrow of sorts? If so, will that be Sierra Chart? I imagine Sierra Chart would want to be paid for their time and services? I believe the concept definitely has merit and there is a huge potential and market to make something like this work; I believe Sierra Chart is by far the best suited candidate to make the technical side of this work, but I don't believe it's the technical side of this which has the most roadblocks. I would love to engage with Sierra Chart in order to contribute to developing a better solution - please let me know at your earliest convenience if there is anything I can do to help you succeed. Date Time Of Last Edit: 2020-08-03 09:55:49
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