Prop Trading

What this page is — and what it is not

Building a proprietary trading firm of my own is planned for 2027. There is no sign-up, no price list and no contract; anyone wanting to deposit money today has nowhere to do it. This page describes the intention so it can be judged early — that is all it is.

What stands here is an intention. What becomes of it depends on things still open: legal form, location, backers, and the regulatory classification. As soon as those are settled, they will be here.

What prop trading usually is

A prop firm (from proprietary trading — trading on its own account) gives traders capital that is not theirs. The trader trades it, keeps to rules on loss limits, and shares the profit with the firm. If they lose, the firm loses — not them.

In practice it runs in two stages almost everywhere:

• The evaluation. The applicant trades a demo or small account and has to reach a profit target without breaching a daily and an overall loss limit. They pay a fee for this evaluation.
• The funded account. Whoever passes trades real firm capital and receives a share of the profit — typically between 70 and 90 percent across the industry.

That is the model. It has an uncomfortable side effect worth knowing: at many providers the evaluation fee is the actual source of income, not the trading. The harder the evaluation, the more often it gets paid. Anyone wanting to know whether a firm lives off trading or off fees should ask exactly that.

What is meant to be different

Three things are why I want to do this myself.

Teaching instead of sifting. The usual evaluation sorts people out — it teaches nobody anything. Everyone taken on should learn to trade: order flow, risk per position, a journal, the review afterwards. The material already exists — it is the books, around 1,300 pages, and they were not invented for this purpose but have been in use for years.

On a tool we build ourselves. Trading and analysis run on the Winkler Trading Station and WTS Analytics. There is a practical reason: if you give traders the software, you can also explain how it calculates — and where it reaches its limits. With someone else's software the explanation ends at the vendor's manual.

Among the best terms in the industry. The aim is to be at the front of the field on evaluation fee and profit share. Concrete numbers deliberately do not appear here yet: until they are costed and legally checked, any number would be a promise I cannot yet keep.

What is still open

• Legal form, seat and regulatory classification
• The exact rules on loss limits and profit share
• The size of the evaluation fee — and whether there is one at all
• The point within 2027

Getting in touch

There is no waiting list and no form — that would be collecting data for something that does not exist yet. Anyone wanting to know early writes to the address in the legal notice. The reply comes personally, not as an automatic confirmation.

Not an offer in the legal sense. Nothing on this page is an offer, a commitment or investment advice. Trading futures carries the risk of total loss.