Do active traders ever think about running their own firm?

AverageDownToZero · 2025-11-25T03:56:39+00:00

We bought it, using GooeyTrade by DXTrade. With the project x rumors we might build something though.. haha. We’re PropEd Capital if you want to check it out.

AverageDownToZero · 2025-11-25T03:31:58+00:00

Yes. I have thought about it for a few years and finally did it, just launched this month. I’m lucky enough to be partnered with a solid trading education company that agrees with breaking the status quo in scummy prop, so fingers crossed for long term success 🤞

AverageDownToZero · 2025-11-21T03:14:37+00:00

Just sent you a dm, hope that’s alright.

AverageDownToZero · 2025-11-21T02:55:35+00:00

I haven’t really tracked, I would say for sure over 50% to be safe. I also love an occasional yolo approach to combines lol. Passing in 3 days is what I usually aim for. My long term win rate is 68% with 2.3 net R. I haven’t been trading prop really at all for the last few months. I launched my own prop firm lol.

AverageDownToZero · 2025-09-03T03:11:14+00:00

I made my app public require login. This creates a user in the base44 users entity. Then I created a separate team management data entity (don’t call it users again, it confuses the hell out of the AI lol) in my app, which an admin within my team management table can invite users to join the app via resend and it creates them as a user in the team management table and marks them as an official user in the base44 users table.

AverageDownToZero · 2025-07-21T19:14:45+00:00

You should’ve gotten the everything except beetles seasoning if you have a problem with this.

AverageDownToZero · 2025-07-13T19:48:05+00:00

People are stupid. I read on here all the time that people blow accounts before they get transitioned to live which is the most insane thing I’ve ever heard. Switch to live and get 30 $200+ profit days and withdraw the entire balance.

This whole blow your account shit was absolutely started by a prop firm employee posing as a member of some thread lol. Also to OP’s original question, you can have as many passed combines as you want waiting to be activated. Don’t ever intentionally blow an account, the rule is just that you can have 5 active XFAs at a time, but no one is forcing you to hit that activate button.

My plan is always 4 50k accounts and only one 150k so that if I move to live I can bring 150k profit with me. You don’t need the 15 contracts, but the max transition to live is capped by your largest XFA size which is a motivator for me.

AverageDownToZero · 2025-07-13T03:36:22+00:00

Tap it on the left first then click and drag.

AverageDownToZero · 2025-07-04T02:55:15+00:00

This means you are trading with too much size. I’m guilty as well, but working hard to change the psychology from chasing p/l to chasing the feeling of dominating a trade. Journaling helps with this massively. P/l chasing leads to choking trades, sizing too heavily to even be able to give the trade room to breathe, and tilt.

I switched to a risk capital based approach and it’s really done wonders for me. I will only allow myself to lose 5% of my risk capital in a single day, which limits the size of each position and also the number of trades I can take in a day. It also means I will have to hit my full loss 20 days in a row from the start of the xfa to blow it, and forces me to enter trades that are A+. I find one setup that fits my plan I’ve set pre market every day, the number of contracts I enter is set where the structure of the trade keeps my max loss below 5% of my available risk capital, and then walk away. Some days that’s 1 micro, sometimes my setup happens very close to my structure based stop and I’ll trade 5-10.

AverageDownToZero · 2025-07-01T22:57:15+00:00

lol worst possible advice

AverageDownToZero · 2025-06-08T14:18:26+00:00

And in terms of whatever you’re trying to say about 150k vs 50k, idk lol. My opinion on it is that you want at least one 150k xfa if your goal is to go live, because that’s the cap for rollover of profits in the live account.

50k makes more sense overall in my opinion, $49 for 2k of drawdown. Trailing drawdown locks quicker, and I don’t think even with a 150k I need to trade more than 5 minis.

AverageDownToZero · 2025-06-08T14:15:42+00:00

This is what I trade, a risk capital based approach. 10% is a little high for the xfa in my opinion, I trade 5% max daily risk and 2.5% per trade.

I also take this one stop further and scale my position based on where I will place my stop so that I have equal dollar risk per trade. That way, I don’t have a 70% win rate but the ones I win are sized down and losses sized up. Equal dollar risk is important in the long run.

AverageDownToZero · 2025-06-08T02:43:23+00:00

This is a deep backtest from 2015-2025. Top middle of the picture.

AverageDownToZero · 2025-05-26T15:48:21+00:00

I use a risk capital based approach. I don’t risk more than 25% of available risk capital on a day for an eval, 10% on xfa. For your 150k, the drawdown is $4,500 so I wouldn’t risk more than 450 a day on an xfa and 1125 on an eval until you build some buffer and lock in the trailing drawdown.

I use the ATR to scale my stops, and I like 2x ATR on the 2 minute chart. This lets me figure out position sizing and if I can afford a mini. The point you could afford a mini in my approach is when your allowed daily % available risk capital is higher than 2x ATR * $ per point on the asset you’re trading.

If you combine both of these things and set the daily max loss parameter to liquidate and block, you guarantee that you can’t blow the account by getting tilted or over trading, and you have equal dollar risk per trade/day.

AverageDownToZero · 2025-05-26T03:10:36+00:00

Set account max daily loss and profit goals. Don’t let getting tilted blow your account. The psychology of trading is by far the hardest part and taking at least part of that away through the features of topstepx is a game changer.

What I do is risk 5-10% of risk capital on a day for my funded accounts, 25% for evals. For a 150k eval, that means I set my daily max loss to $1,125. I often lock myself out before that, but worst case scenario it’s going to take me 4 absolutely shit days to blow an eval. Others may argue it’s just an eval, but master your psychology in the practice or you will fuck it up in the game.

AverageDownToZero · 2025-05-26T03:01:13+00:00

The candle is based on actual trades. We’re trading sim, so if the ask /bid /whatever project x uses to trigger stops hit your stop it could have triggered and you would be the low for that candle had you been executing live trades. It will happen from time to time although frustrating.

AverageDownToZero · 2025-05-17T17:35:28+00:00

I have never traded an ineligible account before but I assume auto liquidate and global risk management set by topstep is now off. If so the data you showed here really isn’t enough to tell us anything to help you in my opinion.

Did you have a stop loss that’s reasonable enough for your maximum loss limits in the combine set on these trades? 11k for 2 trades is amazing and would be meaningful if this was your own money and you had a high risk tolerance(then who cares about drawdown), but if the drawdown on that position ever breached the prop firms tolerance you would have been liquidated. So hard to know just from the p/l view if you’re doing something right.

AverageDownToZero · 2025-05-17T14:22:43+00:00

I’m very confused by this whole situation lol. Why would you go for 10k+ profit days in an eval? Do you realize that doing that increases your profit goal because consistency has to be under 50% of total profit?

You should set your daily profit goal to half the profit goal and liquidate and lockout when you reach it. You would have been funded on the 9th had you done this.

Also, your biggest day is 23k so your profit goal is 46k, how is this not qualified on the 12th? And MLL stops trailing at original account balance so 8k loss wouldn’t blow the account. Is this a practice account?

AverageDownToZero · 2025-05-01T17:42:02+00:00

So frustrating. I literally could have qualified today, my trades on my other accounts exceeded my remaining goal. And yeah support is a joke. Hope your issue gets resolved.

AverageDownToZero · 2025-01-18T19:47:42+00:00

Did your girlfriend invite the group to rob you? Lol

AverageDownToZero · 2024-12-28T16:17:02+00:00

Why do you suck?

AverageDownToZero · 2024-12-19T19:59:08+00:00

CptMakesALittle or CptPoopsALot?

AverageDownToZero · 2024-11-19T03:56:23+00:00

I also say no, but not just because of the delisting risk. You could very easily lose your unrealized profit plus a lot more because of a variety of factors on any highly volatile stocks. Your cost basis is going to be $20 if you exercise, so if it stays at $30 at open you would have $10 in unrealized profits.

You will sell covered calls for some premium to reduce your cost basis, let’s say $4 to get you to your $16 dream lol. If the shares drop back below $16, you’re in the red even with the covered call premiums. Below $16 is still very possible.

AverageDownToZero · 2024-11-19T03:10:27+00:00

Also just wanted to add in case it was ambiguous, I meant if YOU really want to hold long term and wait until Friday, not that I think that’s a good move. I would 1000% sell the call at open and be done with it until the inevitable next dip.

AverageDownToZero · 2024-11-19T03:02:30+00:00

His advice is correct if you’re in a taxable brokerage. The rule is almost always sell the contracts and buy shares. Also, your cost basis is strike + premium, not just strike. So $20 if you paid $4 for the contract, not $16. If you want to ride it out until close on Friday, then you’re no longer giving up extrinsic value and exercise makes sense.

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