Maverick Trading Company is an educational trading company, a prop trader that allows you to trade using their money. The company’s website boldly claims that they are all about giving individuals from all walks of life a chance to “Trade as a career, using our capital.” It goes on to explain the steps through which interested persons may follow into becoming their next trader, starting with applying for the position and proving their grasp of forex industry and the effectiveness of their trading strategy.
For a company that prides itself in diversity, respect, and transparency, it would be interesting to know how forthcoming they have been with their prop trading project. We sought to vet the Utah based trading company to test their legitimacy and here is our full review.
How does it work?
Maverick trading describes itself as a proprietary trading firm with proprietary trading strategies and qualification programs geared towards profit maximization. According to their website, traders here follow a ‘proven game plan,’ a personalized and detailed plan that follows a ‘specific rule-based tactics and methodologies.’
They are first taught how to improve their skills through trading strategy courses and are only admitted to the maverick trading team if they demonstrate their grasp of these strategies, profit maximization, and risk management.
Become a prop trader with Maverick Trading
The Maverick Trading website assures traders of a pretty straightforward and registration process. You only have to express interest in the company, prove your skills and be allocated capital that you get to trade and still keep 70 -80% of the profits you make.
A deeper look into the actual registration process, however, tells of an entirely different, and more time consuming, tale for anyone seeking to join maverick. It is particularly dominated by a serious of ‘introductory’ videos after which comes the interview. Should you pass the interview, with Maverick mentioning that only 3-4% of applicants make it past this stage, you are ushered into the training and qualification program.
This next phase takes two months for a full-time trader and six for part-timers. And you are only allowed to the traders’ pool after demonstrating a successful grasp of Maverick’s trading strategies and ability to self-evaluate and even come up with own trading plan. This then ushers them to the live trades and profit-making, dubbed capital sharing program.
Merits and demerits of Prop trading with and Maverick
While the maverick trading strategy has its fair share of advantages, it is also marred by serious allegations of lack of transparency.
Here are its strengths and weaknesses:
Strengths
Quality trading education
Maverick Trading Company adopts a comprehensive approach to training prospective traders. They are constantly furnishing them with the forex trading guides, providing direct assistance, and helping them regularly evaluate their trading strategies.
Maverick mentions that they are more interested in not how long it takes to master forex trading but how deep a trader understands the trading concepts. This explains why most traders end up taking up to four months to master the trade while the curriculum was initially designed to last two months for full-time traders.
Trader support
Maverick expert traders walk with the trader, holding their hand, throughout their training and live trading phases. During the trading period, they are actively helpiong you come up with a profitable strategy and speed your mastery of their trade simulation strategies. When live trading they will be helping you protect your bottom line and identify and unlock profit maximization strategies.
Demerits and reason you should be cautious with the trader
Time-consuming
On paper, Maverick trading company argues that it takes a full-time trader two months to master their platform and trading strategy. They, however, admit to traders an average of four months, in real time, to ‘perfect their strategy and trading plan.’ This translates to four months of watching video tutorials and watching other people trade, and paying for it, given that they charge a $199 monthly training fee.
Lack of transparency
Maverick Trading is full of costly surprises. For instance, when they mention that only 3% of interested traders make it to their training phase, they don’t say most are turned off by the up to $6,000 upfront deposit they demand. They are also secretive about the monthly training fee.
While we are of the opinion that such information should be communicated even before the trader signs up on their website, you will not find any mention of initial deposit or training fee on their website ad this only pops up during the interview. Even more important, they don’t mention that the 70/30 profit sharing structure only applies you hit their weekly return on investment target.
Prohibitive risk deposit
Even after completing the training process successfully, paying the $199 monthly fees religiously, and passing their evaluation and tests, you still won’t access their capital sharing program before committing with a $5,000 ‘risk deposit’ amount.
The company then tops you up with $20,000 to make the trading account $25,000. Maverick is however categorical that you are not supposed to lose more than $5,000 implying that your deposit is only meant to shield them from your losses.
Maverick doesn’t offer prop trading
An ideal prop trading company takes a financial risk with their traders by trusting them fully with their money, without a hedge or risk deposit. But there is nothing about Maverick Trading and their purported “Prop Trading” approach to the forex market.
The fact that they demand a substantial risk deposit and burn you as soon you lose the deposit means that they are not ready to take a financial risk on you. These red flags start popping when the acclaimed prop trader demands a fee for helping their traders prepare for the market.
Verdict:
Maverick Trading Company may maintain a corporate structure, with a known address, and verified social media accounts, but they are not who they claim to be. While they want everyone to believe that they are a prop trading company, their nature of operation goes against everything pop trading stands for, especially when it comes to demanding risk deposits and training fees.
While they may not be full-blown scams, we recommend that traders avoid their services given their overprotective policies that are only aimed at guarding their interests at the expense of the trader’s time and cost. Based on this, and their clear lack of transparency, we don’t recommend Maverick Trading.
