Beatri_eric

Seeing a lot of strange takes that Topstep has “liquidity issues” and that this is a major warning sign the prop industry is on the verge of collapse. You can say a lot about them, but unprofitability is not it. ❌ Only 16.8% of all combines pass. Of those, roughly a third ever receive a payout (absolutely terrible numbers by the way, half of that compared to if everyone were flipping coins for their trades). That means out of 100 combines purchased, around 5 get paid and 95 fail. These are odds very comparable to casinos in the long term... so cash flow is most likely not the issue. The price hikes aren’t happening because they’re losing money. They’re happening because they can. The margins weren’t high enough relative to demand, and management wants to optimize them... like any rational business would. One thing is clear, most people in the prop space don’t understand basic business. Price hikes don’t usually happen when a company is struggling. They happen when demand is strong. Look at newer firms like Lucid. Their current strategy is low prices / heavy discounts. Why? To acquire customers and gain market share. Those discounts won’t last. Once they’re established, they will reduce their current discounts offered and thus indirectly increasing price. Topstep is already established, they don’t need to compete on price anymore. The prop firm model is far more stable than people think.

I’ve cleared $100,000+ trading prop firms in one year starting from near zero. I ignored almost everything your mentors tell you. This post will probably give you more value than the trading courses you pay for (cheers, gurus). My perspective is completely different. I don’t see passed evaluations as accounts. I see them as single future trades. When I pass an eval, I’ve simply "earned" the right to take my A+ setup ONE time with heavy size (the entire drawdown), in the future. "You are a gambler, fullporting is insane!" ... I agree, but this is NOT fullporting. Your perspective is flawed. What’s the difference between depositing $300 in a personal account vs. buying 3x 100K evals for $100 each? In both cases, you are risking $300 if you lose. But on a personal account, a 1:1 trade makes you $300. On a prop account with no DLL or consistency rules, I can risk the entire drawdown to make $2000. If I hit the first trade, I immediately floor my risk and aim for base hits to qualify for payout 1. Once that payout hits, I’m left with house money. I can now either trade slow or press heavy again, RISK-FREE. Imagine you are in a trade, and it's not going so great, you can see you are right about to get stopped. Your stop is -$2000. Would you take a deal to change that stop to -$300 right before it hits? Of course you would... that's my entire point. This is why I rotate many accounts as I need one account for every "first trade" I want to take. This is why Topstep put me in the Responsible Trader gulag. I blew a lot of account by pushing size both in the evaluation as well as in sim day one as well as after every payout. Essentially, I beat the casino, and the pit boss kicked me out for counting cards. Let's consider a more aggressive approach... you’re up +$2000 on the first day on a fresh account, you actually have $4000 of play money for that day. By EOD, the DD resets back to $2K, but during that day you can use that $4K buffer (your 2K profit + the "fake" 2K DD) to push for another $4K on a 1/1 trade (or whatever RR you use). If you hit that one, you have +$6000 day one. Massively positive expectancy if you compare the cost to return. I’ve done this more times than I can count while people are busy selling you snake oil about trading "safe", waiting to trade twice a week when the sun shines and stars align... if you want to trade slow, go trade a personal account. In props, you lose odds by wasting the asymmetrical risk you are provided. Are you here to perform or make money? Prop firms don't monetize stats like casinos do, they actually give you the edge. Unfortunately, us traders let ourselves get in the way and self-sabotage. It’s all about optimal risk sizing at different stages of the account lifespan. You might not be a profitable trader in live markets yet, but you can absolutely be one in sim if you stop treating it like a bank account. With all that being said, you should absolutely not go aggressive if you can't afford it. Real life bankroll management is the biggest skill gap between profitable and unprofitable prop traders. A good rule of thumb is to have 10x the cost of an evaluation you wish to buy. Meaning, $100 evaluation, you should have $1000 ready to spend. This is because on average, it'll take traders roughly 3 attempts to pass an account, and it gives them 3 shorts in the sim environment. Rounded up to 10. As always, nothing here is financial advice. ✌️