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Feedback Requested: Trading Evaluators (Top Step Trader etc.)

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[2020-01-25 05:56:47] #1 [Go To First Post]
Sierra Chart Engineering - Posts: 104368
The following is just an initial quick presentation of information on the subject. We may clarify and expand upon what we are saying as needed. ---- As many of you know, there are these trading evaluators, that can evaluate your trading and supposedly offer you a funded account: https://www.speeduptrader.com/ https://www.topsteptrader.com/ https://oneuptrader.com/ https://www.earn2trade.com/ https://www.uprofittrader.com https://www.leelootrading.com/ https://www.t3trading.com/ (different than the above but just adding here as well) These systems use Rithmic for the simulated trading environment. There are technical issues with the integration between Rithmic and Sierra Chart. From time to time we hear about problems on the server side, related to the integration that just would not happen with our own simulated trading service. And even just a couple of days ago someone reported to us a problem that simply would not occur when using our own Simulated Trading service as compared to Rithmic. It was some unexpected order which they did not submit but we really do not know why there was this problem when using Rithmic. It does not mean that Rithmic was at fault but the trader failed the test with Top Step Trader, when they are paying a lot of money to them. This is just a situation that is simply not good. Although what if it was a case where the Rithmic system provided an order to the user which was actually submitted by someone else? And there are dozens of issues over the years. These are things we can solve and we have solved. We are very adamant about not continuing to support Rithmic with these services. We have already informed Top Step Trader to remove Sierra Chart as a listed platform for their services. And technically effective as of 2038 Sierra Chart can no longer be used with Top Step Trader. This is the information about the Simulated Futures Trading Service: Simulated Futures Trading Service Which all these trading evaluators can use. The idea is that these evaluators create templates, that users can create trading accounts from. And then the user shares the trading account with one or more of these evaluators. The user will also have the ability to publicly share their trading activity on this website for anyone to look at including those who are willing to potentially fund them. So this is going to be like a leader board concept where the daily, weekly, monthly leader would be listed on top. And their summary and detailed trading results can be seen. We also have a Sierra Chart user who wants us to create a simulated feed using real exchange data, and then have users trade in a simulated combine and have users/traders compete with each other or something like that. We probably are not explaining it so well. We welcome the user to come in here and explain what they have in mind. Our focus in their particular case is the generation of the simulated data feed. Between what they want to do, and what we are planning to do and already currently offer, we think we can provide a very good environment for no additional cost to Sierra Chart for users to improve their trading skills, and demonstrate to those who are willing to fund them, their trading abilities. After all what do you need to be paying additional money for through those services? It does not make any sense to us. Furthermore from our side this is terribly frustrating, when users are running into technical problems when using external simulated trading environments. These problems just will not exist when using our own simulated trading environment. This unnecessarily takes our time with unnecessary support when a problem could have been avoided altogether. We can put verified trading results on this website, if the user wishes to publicly share this, whether someone is trading using real-time market data, delayed market data, or simulated exchange data based on actual real data. The type of data being used will also be shown. There will also be a contact method by which someone who is willing to fund a trader, can contact the trader. In regards to the fact that Rithmic is offering Real-time CME group data at nonprofessional fees with no definitive verification to our knowledge, whether user has a funded trading account or not, this kind of problem has been solved by this solution available now: Easy Solution to CME Funded Trading Account Requirement So no longer is this an impediment for real-time CME market data access. So finally in summary we want feedback about what we have said here. Sierra Chart Support - Engineering Level Your definitive source for support. Other responses are from users. Try to keep your questions brief and to the point. Be aware of support policy: https://www.sierrachart.com/index.php?l=PostingInformation.php#GeneralInformation For the most reliable, advanced, and zero cost futures order routing, change to the Teton service: Sierra Chart Teton Futures Order Routing Date Time Of Last Edit: 2020-01-28 19:59:12

[2020-01-25 10:05:58] #2 [Go To First Post]
Sierra Chart Engineering - Posts: 104368
So in summary, based upon the perspective of Sierra Chart providing a high quality level of service, simulated trading working perfectly well for users, providing a unified single platform for simulated trading and allowing users to publish their trading results, reducing support burden for Sierra Chart, completely eliminating the cost of these combines and simulated trading through all these different firms, it makes most sense for users to do the simulated trading on our simulated trading service, and then share your results publicly, and then these different firms if they are interested in funding you, they can do that and contact you. Additionally, if you want to be able to publish your live trading through our Sierra Chart order routing service, we can develop the capability for that as well. The storage format of that trading activity, and the generation of results, is all a common code base. So this is very easy for us to do. Simulated or live trading can be published publicly in real time if a user chooses to do that. Another way to look at this, is rather than deciding which of those firms that we list at the top of the first post in this thread, if Sierra Chart is your preferred trading platform, then why not just simply do your simulated trading or live trading in our reliable environment, and get it perfected and publish your results and then gain an interest among these firms that are looking to fund successful traders. You can work at your own pace, and do not have to spend anything extra. You can take advantage of the nonprofessional exchange fees just by opening a trading account for 100 USD. This seems like a very ideal model to us. Sierra Chart Support - Engineering Level Your definitive source for support. Other responses are from users. Try to keep your questions brief and to the point. Be aware of support policy: https://www.sierrachart.com/index.php?l=PostingInformation.php#GeneralInformation For the most reliable, advanced, and zero cost futures order routing, change to the Teton service: Sierra Chart Teton Futures Order Routing Date Time Of Last Edit: 2020-01-25 10:19:28

[2020-01-25 11:00:08] #4 [Go To First Post]
binaryduke - Posts: 360
If an organisation's business model can be profitable based upon selecting/recruiting profitable traders for a split of their trading profits, then this approach works. It requires profitable traders that either do not have the funds to open/trade their own account, or they feel more comfortable trading other people's money in exchange for a split, or their strategy requires account capacity that they do not have. If the organisation's model requires combine/evaluation fees in order to be profitable, then what's written above is of no value to/interest for a trading evaluation organisation. What you write and the mechanism is super clear. One can open a live account (to be non-pro) for $100 deposit. One can subscribe to live data from SC for c.$25/month plus exchange fees (so c. $50/month). Trading results can be published on the Sierra Chart leaderboard. The question is whether anyone would fund a trader who is doing this vs the current 'walled garden' approach that generates profit through assessment for trading evaluation businesses. I'm interested to see who, if any, are the first organisation to step forward and say 'we are interested in recruiting from traders that can demonstrate their results against our template'.

[2020-01-25 11:41:55] #5 [Go To First Post]
User753428 - Posts: 158
i would assume funding companies would simply prefer to have a single, unified solution for offering a simulated trading account across all of their trading platform options for consistency's sake. they obviously can't rely on the SierraChart Simulator service for their users who are using Ninjatrader or any other platform that is not Sierrachart. but for the sake of argument, sure, let's say these funding companies make an exception for Sierrachart users and use the SierraChart Simulator service instead of Rithmic for the evaluation component. well, then what happens after the user successfully passes the evaluation and is funded with a live (not sim) account? what happens is that almost all of these companies only offer Rithmic for ther live, FUNDED accounts so even with a SierraChart Simulator service, there's still no way to avoid Rithmic in the end. either (1) Sierrachart somehow convinces all of these funding companies to adopt TT order routing for funded Sierrachart users, OR (2) Sierrachart maintains support for Rithmic order routing and SC users use the Denali datafeed instead while routing orders through Rithmic. which one do you think is more feasible? obviously (2). i'm not an engineer so i don't know the technical details but when you say the SC bridge with Rithmic is subpar, is that referring to the datafeed only or also order routing? because if it's something that only affects datafeed transmission, would it really be too much to ask that you maintain the latest support for at least Rithmic order routing? that way, we can simply use the Denali datafeed and route orders through Rithmic.

[2020-01-25 12:12:00] #6 [Go To First Post]
Sierra Chart Engineering - Posts: 104368
but for the sake of argument, sure, let's say these funding companies make an exception for Sierrachart users and use the SierraChart Simulator service instead of Rithmic for the evaluation component. Based on our experience, we do think that this would be possible especially if we have a large community of users using those services listed above or are interested in them. The Rithmic bridge program affects both market data and trading. (1) Sierrachart somehow convinces all of these funding companies to adopt TT order routing for funded Sierrachart users, OR This we are not sure about. But we do think that we can develop competitive technology to meet their requirements. Rithmic may be dominant now among them, but certainly competition is needed and Rithmic will not always remain dominant. One thing we would say with absolute 100% certainty, is we are not going to be investing any further time with Rithmic. It is just not going to happen. There is 0% chance that is going to happen. And we mean 0% chance. And the basis of this is CME market data policy. Why would we want to be supporting and enslaved to yet another service for CME market data. It makes no sense when we already have our own high-quality services. Sierra Chart Support - Engineering Level Your definitive source for support. Other responses are from users. Try to keep your questions brief and to the point. Be aware of support policy: https://www.sierrachart.com/index.php?l=PostingInformation.php#GeneralInformation For the most reliable, advanced, and zero cost futures order routing, change to the Teton service: Sierra Chart Teton Futures Order Routing Date Time Of Last Edit: 2020-01-26 02:07:43

[2020-01-26 02:11:13] #7 [Go To First Post]
Sierra_Chart Engineering - Posts: 14110
We just saw post #4. Everything you write makes complete sense. Although we want to make a correction, the cost of the Sierra Chart data feed for real-time data is 20 USD per month and not 25 and the CME exchange fee is just 3.25 USD per month. If the organisation's model requires combine/evaluation fees in order to be profitable, then what's written above is of no value to/interest for a trading evaluation organisation. Yes this makes sense, but if their business model requires these combine/evaluation fees, it would seem not to make sense to be using them, because what value are they even offering except taking advantage of people. It seems that we could have a much more open and competitive environment right here. And if someone is really good with trading, then they could be recruited. Sierra Chart Support - Engineering Level Your definitive source for support. Other responses are from users. Try to keep your questions brief and to the point. Be aware of support policy: https://www.sierrachart.com/index.php?l=PostingInformation.php#GeneralInformation For the most reliable, advanced, and zero cost futures order routing, use the Teton service: Sierra Chart Teton Futures Order Routing Date Time Of Last Edit: 2020-01-26 02:11:34

[2020-01-26 03:32:21] #8 [Go To First Post]
Sierra Chart Engineering - Posts: 104368
When we look here at top step trader pricing this is unbelievable: https://www.topsteptrader.com/learn-how/ $375/month for 150K account!? We have just about all of that functionality. Other than the basic daily loss limit the other risk-management items we do not have but we can put that functionality in, in a week. And Sierra Chart already has full trades and statistics generation for reporting and a websocket server that we can publish this information to a website for anyone to look at, if a user chooses. Why would Top Step Trader charge anything? You would think if they are looking for profitable traders they would put this out as a free platform. We can do a far better job here than they can for nothing extra. Sierra Chart Support - Engineering Level Your definitive source for support. Other responses are from users. Try to keep your questions brief and to the point. Be aware of support policy: https://www.sierrachart.com/index.php?l=PostingInformation.php#GeneralInformation For the most reliable, advanced, and zero cost futures order routing, change to the Teton service: Sierra Chart Teton Futures Order Routing Date Time Of Last Edit: 2020-01-26 03:33:13

[2020-01-26 04:00:08] #9 [Go To First Post]
Sierra Chart Engineering - Posts: 104368
And why do not we take this a step further where we could set up an investment fund, where Sierra Chart users can put some funds in, and have it traded by the best traders. And then receive an income from that. Not sure about this last part. It would require a lot of thought, but it seems a lot more community-oriented. Sierra Chart Support - Engineering Level Your definitive source for support. Other responses are from users. Try to keep your questions brief and to the point. Be aware of support policy: https://www.sierrachart.com/index.php?l=PostingInformation.php#GeneralInformation For the most reliable, advanced, and zero cost futures order routing, change to the Teton service: Sierra Chart Teton Futures Order Routing

[2020-01-26 04:07:00] #10 [Go To First Post]
Sierra Chart Engineering - Posts: 104368
One thing is absolutely certain we are not going to continue the path of serving these services, mentioned at the beginning of the first post, with a substandard integration Sierra Chart has to Rithmic, and using an external simulation environment when we are more than capable of delivering that ourselves which we already do. This is definitively going to come to end and at some point there is going to be a date set that where new versions of Sierra Chart no longer support this and that is final. We are not interested in dealing with any of them. We are going to create a much better solution and a fair solution. Sierra Chart Support - Engineering Level Your definitive source for support. Other responses are from users. Try to keep your questions brief and to the point. Be aware of support policy: https://www.sierrachart.com/index.php?l=PostingInformation.php#GeneralInformation For the most reliable, advanced, and zero cost futures order routing, change to the Teton service: Sierra Chart Teton Futures Order Routing Date Time Of Last Edit: 2020-01-26 10:36:42

[2020-01-26 05:34:27] #12 [Go To First Post]
User753428 - Posts: 158
Basically, the bread and butter of these funding companies hinges on cashing in on the hopes of battered traders who are now undercapitalized after paying too much tuition to the markets. Like seandunaway said, they're selling a dream, knowing fully well that almost all retail traders are suckers. That's why they charge for resets, employ a monthly subcription model, and charge ridiculous prices like the $375/$150k example you mentioned. (btw, the $150k account is actually an account with $4500 drawdwon so you can already see how shady and scummy they are with such false advertising). I don't think Sierrachart needs to necessarily get involved in offering an alternative to these funding companies when the CME has already done just that: by launching the micro indices. Now, even undercapitalized traders can quickly grow their account with the micros, assuming they're skilled.

[2020-01-26 06:30:55] #13 [Go To First Post]
Sierra Chart Engineering - Posts: 104368
Regarding post #11, we will provide a higher quality of service and we will provide our own highly reliable data feed which will bring some additional income although that is not the main objective, and reduce our support burden and have the user have a higher quality of service without issues. I don't think Sierrachart needs to necessarily get involved in offering an alternative to these funding companies We already have it, we are just making some enhancements. Sierra Chart Support - Engineering Level Your definitive source for support. Other responses are from users. Try to keep your questions brief and to the point. Be aware of support policy: https://www.sierrachart.com/index.php?l=PostingInformation.php#GeneralInformation For the most reliable, advanced, and zero cost futures order routing, change to the Teton service: Sierra Chart Teton Futures Order Routing Date Time Of Last Edit: 2020-01-26 06:31:12

[2020-01-26 12:02:26] #15 [Go To First Post]
User753428 - Posts: 158
We already have it, we are just making some enhancements. no, what you have is an alternative simulator service. what funding companies offer is: 1) after passing evaluation in sim environment, guaranteed funding with partner prop firm with no downside risk but profit split (usually 80%/20%) 2) ability to know exactly what account/risk parameters you will have if you pass evaluation and are funded (i.e. max drawdown, daily loss limit, etc.) 3) ability to get funded after a mere 10 or 15 trading days, depending on the funding company. if Sierrachart itself wants to offer an alternative to the services these funding companies offer, it would need to include these 3 components. and trust me, you don't want to actually offer a true alternative because you will quickly find out that most retail traders are not profitable and blow up their accounts. why do you think these funding companies are more focused on imposing ridiculously strict trading rules so that traders continue to remain on the evaluation hamster wheel and pay expensive monthly subscriptions + reset fees? because they know they can't make money off of funding traders since most retail traders lose money. this is also why they all employ that stupid trailing drawdown rule in order to protect their downside. this is why we say that they are selling a "dream" because even the funding companies themselves know, after looking at their own statistics (such as % of people that pass evaluation, % of people that remain profitable in funded account after 1 month, etc.), that the only way to make money in this business is through monthly subscriptions + reset fees, instead of actually funding traders. going with these funding companies used to make more sense for the rare individual trader who was skilled but happened to be undercapitalized. the emini contracts' notional values are huge now and it was certainly a barrier to undercapitalized traders. but now with the micros, skilled uncercapitalized traders can easily build up their account which is why i said the CME has already offered an alternative to these funding companies.

[2020-01-27 16:49:19] #16 [Go To First Post]
archymede - Posts: 18
Regarding post #11 2. Consistently profitable traders have no desire to use one of these trading evaluator services. I do not agree at all. In my country, trading my own account is taxed about 60%, while trading for any prop firm is maxed at 22%. Not everyone has K1 statements condition for taxations ... Trading with a prop firm (a real one though), also provides very low commissions such as 2$ RT, but these are mostly not looking for chart traders. Now regarding serious evaluations, I don't believe that this is what most traders are looking for. What happened to traderdock and positive equity is just an example of a serious offer being shut down, they were providing TT for free and their entire propriety risk management tools alonside a professionnal DOM (either TT or Stellar). If Sierra chart can come up with a serious offer, this might very well be welcomed by many traders, at least those who are not trying to gamble and pay the crazy reset fees once the gamble failed... But I'm not sure that many would just sim trade and posting results in hope of being funded, Jigsaw already tried that with their leaderboard ...

[2020-01-28 20:00:03] #17 [Go To First Post]
Sierra_Chart Engineering - Posts: 14110
Thank you for all the feedback and other information. We will say that removing support for these services is not going to have any impact on Sierra Chart development. Sierra Chart Support - Engineering Level Your definitive source for support. Other responses are from users. Try to keep your questions brief and to the point. Be aware of support policy: https://www.sierrachart.com/index.php?l=PostingInformation.php#GeneralInformation For the most reliable, advanced, and zero cost futures order routing, use the Teton service: Sierra Chart Teton Futures Order Routing Date Time Of Last Edit: 2020-01-28 20:00:22

[2020-01-30 19:17:22] #18 [Go To First Post]
JohnStein - Posts: 11
One use case for these companies apply to people outside the US and I bet there are quite a lot of them. I am just getting to a point where I am consistently profitable in SIM and almost ready to take one of the combines. The reason I am doing a combine is simply exchange rate. For me to pay for a combine after proving to myself that I can do it a couple of times over makes a lot of sense. I cannot put down the initial amount in US$ that would be needed to start an account (to give you a rough idea the exchange rate is currently 16xUS$ here), but I do have a shot at doing it through one of the funding companies. I would then take any profit I make to fund my own account and trade that. Sierra Chart is a VERY BIG part of why I got to the point I am. I am in despair at the moment and it would be very sad if I cannot use it anymore to get to my ultimate goal. Let's face it, there are no other trading platforms out there that can even start to compare with Sierra for retail traders. I have read through this thread and all the arguments from Sierra makes sense and I understand the frustration. It is a business after all and you have to run it as such. I really hope all parties can come to some sort of agreement. Not sure how I will do this without Sierra Chart.

[2020-01-30 22:01:19] #19 [Go To First Post]
SC Support - Posts: 1795
JohnStein, archymede, User753428, seandunaway, binaryduke thank you for weighing in on the debate and giving your view. TopStepTrader was restored to the Data/Trade Service Settings for ongoing versions of Sierra Chart. Sierra Chart will work evolve its simulation environment in interesting ways, lets reserve judgement on everything for now. Thank you for your business

[2020-01-30 22:58:14] #20 [Go To First Post]
User623552 - Posts: 69
I understand what you're saying, and I'm sure Sierra Chart could offer a much better service. However, can you confirm that it will still be possible to use these services, if people choose to, via old versions of Sierra Chart Because I have been using one of these services for years for funding, and Sierra Chart is the platform I use to trade. So you would effectively be putting me in a very difficult position. With no immediate alternative. I have spent years building automated strategies via Sierra Chart, and I trade them via one of these services.

[2020-01-30 23:20:47] #21 [Go To First Post]
SC Support - Posts: 1795
TopStepTrader was restored to the Data/Trade Service Settings and so will be available for ongoing versions of Sierra Chart.

[2020-01-30 23:33:32] #22 [Go To First Post]
User623552 - Posts: 69
Following on from my previous comment. Sierra Chart make a very good point. All these services are a waste of money in the long run, as they effectively charge you for using a simulator, which is usually free. They make their money from failed traders, not successful ones. The reason I still use them is that they provide a third party risk management framework. It forces me to work hard to stay within strict parameters. One of the hardest things with trading is self-risk-management. It is better having a third party doing it. At the moment I do not have an alternative. So I have to use them. However, as stated by Sierra Chart, the same services could be achieved via their own platform. I think all the suggestions Sierra Chart have made including additional risk management, a leader-board for performance, a potential Sierra Chart investment fund etc. are excellent and I look forward to seeing and using them in the future. There needs to be a more ethical way for good traders to find funding, and perhaps Sierra Chart could provide this.

[2020-01-30 23:58:27] #23 [Go To First Post]
SC Support - Posts: 1795
Thank you for this unique insight - TopStepTrader was restored to the Data/Trade Service Settings and so will be available for ongoing versions of Sierra Chart.

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