FXWW has been managing the Axi Select program for 18 months and we continue to experience the usual highs and lows of any market activity. Some of the traders that we had harboured very high hopes for have fallen by the wayside and others that we thought might take a long time to build their business, have blossomed immediately. It just goes to show that you never can tell, to borrow a phrase from Mr Chuck Berry.

From an asset allocation perspective, the big winners have been the systematic day-traders. The market currently wants managers who can use a common-sense overlay on top of a system which shows a conservative risk management profile and a logical trading methodology. Established professional trading businesses with these attributes are having no difficulty in attracting significant allocations from some of the biggest players/investors in the market.

If your goal is to make it in this particular space, I’d be keeping my monthly (notional) drawdowns well below 2%.

I think it’s safe to say that Axi Corp has been pleasantly surprised by the performance of the retail traders who have made the transition into a funded account from their own tracking account. With one exception (who panicked and started over-trading) the other traders have been very responsible and have all started to find their feet. It’s a difficult transition from managing your own personal funds to starting a career as a professional trader, and these traders have done the right thing by making sure their rookie mistakes don’t derail their professional aspirations (trade conservatively in the beginning).

September 2015 will be the new benchmark month for Axi Select with 4 traders making the transition from tracking to funded account; we’ve already publicised Harkanwalpreet’s promotion and he was joined this month by Vlad, UA and Patrick.

We’ve noticed an extremely high correlation in the performance of the ex-interbank discretionary traders. Even though they have no contact with each other, the 6 ex-professionals in the program all seem to thrive and struggle at the same time. (I think we have some work to do on reducing correlation when it comes to trader selection!).

Thankfully the team at Axi Corp is made up of industry professionals and they understand that price swings and p/l swings are all part of market experience.