In this interview I talk to Darrell Martin, the founder of Apex Trader Funding and Apex Investing. It’s no secret that Apex Trader Funding is my number one, top rated trader evaluation company. It was great getting to know Darrell Martin as a trader and learning why he started Apex Trader Funding.
If you’d like to see the video version of this interview, find it here on YouTube: Canadian Futures Trader Interviews Darrell Martin of Apex Trader Funding.
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Canadian Futures Trader:
Hello everyone, it’s the Canadian Future Trader here. Welcome to the channel and welcome to the video. Everyone, I had the opportunity to interview Darrell Martin from Apex Trader Funding and Apex Investing. Guys, you won’t want to miss this one. We get into Darrell’s extensive background as a trader (decades long), how he started out trading, what he was trading, how it evolved into future’s trading, have an interesting discussion about the software he’s using and what he’s looking for to enter trades, then we transition and talk first about Apex Investing. We get into the trade room which Darrell has, the different tools that are available on Apex investing, and then of course, what I’m most interested in, Apex Trader Funding, the origins, why he started it, and how it’s grown to be such a successful funded futures trader program out there. And then, of course, what would any interview be without rapid fire questions at the end? You won’t want to miss Darrell’s answers. So guys, stick around for the entire interview and here is my chat with Darrell Martin.
Everyone, today we are very fortunate we get to talk to Darrell Martin from Apex Trader Funding. Darrell, how are you doing?
Darrell Martin:
I am doing fantastic, man. How are you doing?
Canadian Futures Trader:
I’m doing great. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me and so I can share it with all the people, with the traders out there. I think what we’ll do is we’ll get to know Darrell as a trader a little bit. I’m going to ask him some questions, then we’re going to get into Apex Trader Funding. I’ve got lots of things I’m curious about there. And then lastly, we’re going to wrap up with some rapid-fire questions. Darrell, don’t worry, they’re easy and they’re fun.
Darrell Martin:
Bring it on. No problem.
Canadian Futures Trader:
Darrel Martin as the trader. So just give me a bit of background. A lot of people might not even be familiar with you or with Apex, but they will be after this interview. When did you start trading and did you start trading Futures or did you start with something else first?
Darrell Martin:
I started about 15 years ago. We found out we were going to have our first child and I was like, I’ve got to make some more money. I went to some Get Motivated seminar that had Giuliani and all these people teaching, and some guy was talking about red and green arrows on options. And I come from a poor family. We don’t have any knowledge in investing or anything like that, we didn’t have any. And so I started out and that course was okay, but it got me hooked. And then I got every course I could get and every seminar I could get, and I finally found some traders and some market movers, forex traders that taught me really how the market works. And I started out with options. I quit my day job trading options. It was costing me too much money to go to work and that’s what I told my boss when I quit because I was making more money trading in a couple hours than I was making all day. From there, I started recording videos for my daughter so she would know how to trade if something ever happened to me. And then one of my friends talked me into turning it into a website that became apexinvesting.com and the educational company that I own. I went from there. As far as markets that I trade, I like to trade NQ and ES, I pretty much focused on those two markets. I found that I could find the heartbeat of those markets versus hopping around between a whole bunch of different markets at the same time trying to figure them all out. That’s led to a lot more consistency in my trading. So yeah, that’s sort of how I started or got started. I traded forex, I made 10,000 the first day, I lost 10,000 the second day, I put that on the back burner. I was glad it didn’t happen in reverse. And then I got more into Forex Options and did some cool strategies on that, but eventually I wanted to get into Futures because Futures is really where it’s at. It’s your best leverage and just the best markets in my opinion of the trade because you see everything. You don’t just see stocks. Because you can trade, you can look at indices. I mean, I do look at the other markets, I look at treasuries, I look at gold, I look at oil, I look at treasuries, I just don’t trade them. I focus on the indices. That’s pretty much how I got going.
Canadian Futures Trader:
It’s funny, your story is a similar story of the few people I’ve interviewed. It always seems to be the same thing. They start out with Options or Forex, the volatility is wild, and then they find a way to futures, and like you said, you can see it all. You can see the market and there’s lots of opportunity there. So awesome. Yeah, it’s a common theme, but I think for a reason because it’s a logical kind of progression. What software do you use? I’m going to say Ninja Trader, but I shouldn’t assume. What do you use to trade?
Darrell Martin:
If I trade options, I use Thinkorswim, but I mainly trade Futures on a daily basis. Yeah, I use Ninja Trader.
Canadian Futures Trader:
Okay. Again, that’s kind why most people seem to go the Ninja route. Speaking of trades, is there a way you can kind of generalize? What’s your style of trading? Are you technical indicators, price action, order flow, crystal ball, what are you doing to enter trade? What are you looking for?
Darrell Martin:
Crystal ball every time.
Canadian Futures Trader:
Okay. Yeah, I know, that’s me too.
Darrell Martin:
I’ve made a unique software called Order Prints. It’s a combination of order flow and footprints, and I changed up all the algorithms and made it really simple versus having to look at a thousand numbers on a screen. It literally details when to get in, when to get out, where to set your take profit, where to set your stop loss. I use that for scalps, and then sometimes I’ll do running trades on that. And then for trailing trades, for my larger trades, I use what I call Simplicity. And it uses a combination of two indicators, one that measures price volatility and the other one measures implied volatility. And it actually factors implied volatility live into the market. So that way I’m able to see if there’s a change in implied volatility versus price action. And when they line up and the price action lines up, then I take a trade.
Canadian Futures Trader:
More sophisticated answer than I expected. And not, because I’m saying I didn’t expect you to trade in a sophisticated way, but most people are just like, yeah, I use RSI and that’s the end of their story.
Darrell Martin:
I don’t use any of the free indicators. Those are made just to keep you trading. They’re not made to make you money.
Canadian Futures Trader:
Yeah, I see.
Darrell Martin:
I know a lot of the guys that made a lot of those indicators back in the eighties and nineties and they would’ve just made them because a lot of them were professors and stuff and it was just popular. Things were coming out and they made them to sell courses.
Canadian Futures Trader:
I’m a little bit anti indicator myself. I trade order flow. But I get some people like the easy route. I don’t want to bag on indicators too much since I know a lot of people who use them. I don’t want to alienate everybody, but I hear you.
Darrell Martin:
I just found that this gives me a lot more consistency.
Canadian Futures Trader:
Yeah, and I think actually maybe even a better point is everybody can kind of find it works for them. You’ve found this and I’m sure other people will find it and be introduced to these things through you or hearing this in the same way.
Darrell Martin:
Yeah, we have 30,000 members at apexinvesting.com. I actually trade the markets every day. I have a live trade room where I call out trades and I’ve got a couple other traders in there. They call out trades as well. So as far as Apex Trader Funding, it’s not just born of people who want to make a funding company. It was born from actual traders. So it’s traders helping traders and that’s our motto.
Canadian Futures Trader:
Actually, that leads into two questions. One was how do you balance your time between running not just Apex Investing but also Apex Trader Funding and trading. Do you have a pretty strict schedule like, hey, this hour to this hour I’m in the trade room, I trade; how do you manage it?
Darrell Martin:
About 9:00 to 11:00 is when I trade and I’m in the trade room. So I only trade a couple hours a day. I found that I don’t really need more than that. As long as I can make a profit and call it a day, it’s good. I don’t need to trade all day. I found that actually leads to making bad decisions. As far as running the company, we have 14, 15 people running Apex Trader Funding because it’s so big. We’ve got several people running Apex Investing as far as the business side, and then after 11 o’clock, any business that I’ve got to do or any escalated things I’ve got to handle, I handle that from 11:00 to 1:00 and then I’m pretty much done for the day.
Canadian Futures Trader:
Nice. As they say, living the dream, it’s kind of freedom. I can only mirror what you say. I learned a long time ago that trading all day, all night, I think when people start trading they get so excited and they want to trade their hearts out and trade as much as they can. I learned quickly too. I only trade the morning session about 8:00 to 12:00 and then I call it quits or if I have a few good trades, I call it quits. I have other things to do myself. And you’re right, if you just keep at it, you take a loser. Now you’re mad or maybe not mad, but you know you want that money back and you just end up over trading.
Darrell Martin:
Yeah, and you go into that downward spiral.
Canadian Futures Trader:
Yeah. It’s too easy to get sucked into that. So no, mentally it’s easier just a few hours a day, boom, done with that and move on.
Darrell Martin:
If I get my profit in the first 10 minutes of trading, then I’m done.
Canadian Futures Trader:
So everyone obviously should check out Apex Investing. If they want to find the Trade Room, is that through Apex Investing?
Darrell Martin:
Yeah, actually, I built it like I wish somebody would’ve built something for me. So instead of like charging $10,000 or $20,000 and then, oh you need this other thing, you need this other thing, we actually give you free access for a month, no credit card. So they just go to apexinvesting.com, they’ll see a free signup for bootcamp. They don’t have to enter any credit card, they get access to indicators, they get access to our training, they get access to our trade room for an entire month. The second month is only a dollar and then after that it goes to $200 a month and if you’re not making $200 a month by that point, then don’t sign up. Basically, we’re so confident in the system, we don’t need to charge you a lot up front. Because people who actually put the work in and who actually watch the videos and be involved in the trade room and ask questions, those people do well. The people who want the easy path of just give me one line and follow it, they’re not going to do well no matter where they go.
Canadian Futures Trader:
I always tell people, you have to work hard at this stuff and put in the time. You don’t get to just show up and click a button and win and not even know what you’re doing. It takes a bit of work, but hey, you’re doing everything on your side that you can do to give them the opportunity to work.
Darrell Martin:
Exactly.
Canadian Futures Trader:
Alright, let’s switch a bit more to Apex Trader Funding. What was the planning process like? How long does it take to start a company like Apex Trader Funding?
Darrell Martin:
I was an affiliate for another company, but I was also a trader with them and they actually capped me out at $300,000. I made that in a month and they decided that I could only make 50 grand after that, period. And I’m like, well, why would I only want to make 50 grand when I had the ability to make that much? And I tried every funding company out there and I’m not going to mention names, but they had too many rules, they charge too much, they have multiple evaluation steps, they have daily drawdowns, like $500 drawdowns that knocks you out, they have things like if you go over by one contract, you lose, and that’s even in a performance account. I was just like this can be done better so I’m going to do it. I have a guy I’ve worked with for a decade that’s just a master programmer. He was able to program the API and everything else we needed in like two months. He’s programmed a bunch of arbitrage strategies and things like that that I have running on autopilot and he’s a perfectionist, so he makes sure to do everything he can and make sure things are working properly. So yeah, we got it up really fast.
Canadian Futures Trader:
Yeah, sometimes it’s kind of what it takes too, having good people around you too like your programming guy. That’s part of the magic, trying to not do it all yourself. Yeah, Apex definitely, it popped up and from what I can tell as an outsider, it’s been pretty wildly successful. Definitely most popular. Actually, I just the other day put a poll on my YouTube channel saying, hey, I’m going to do a new trader evaluation out of these companies, which one would you want to see? And there was five or six listed, whatever it was, it was either five or six, but Apex won by a landslide. All right, can do.
Darrell Martin:
This year we’ve had 215,000 accounts through Apex.
Canadian Futures Trader:
Wow. That’s almost unfathomable. That’s crazy.
Darrell Martin:
Our performance accounts are funded 998 million so far, so almost a billion dollars, and we’ve paid out nearly $2 million to traders.
Canadian Futures Trader:
Wow.
Darrell Martin:
Which is more than anybody else that I know of, any other funding company I’m aware of.
Canadian Futures Trader:
Those are huge numbers because I was going to say at the end of 2021, it was triple digit millions, but sounds like it’s hitting billions. Cool. And then actually one of the other questions I was going to say, but I think in some ways, you kind of answered, Apex really does have pretty liberal rules relative to other companies. I was going to ask, was that kind of the plan from the start, but it sounds like it was kind of born out of that’s exactly why you have it that way. You want to be a step above the competition.
Darrell Martin:
Yeah, basically if don’t hit your trailing stop, hit your take profit, trade at least 10 days, close by 4:59 and don’t let anybody else trade your account, that’s our rules. That’s it.
Canadian Futures Trader:
Yeah. Sometimes we get a lot of people that are like, these evaluations are too tough, there’s too many rules. They’re seriously like four rules, don’t hit your trailing drawdown, don’t trade when you’re not allowed to. There you go.
Darrell Martin:
And with the trailing drawdown, that’s probably the one complaint we do get is to be transparent, but we want to see that people can manage their risk and their profit both, that they’re not just going for big gains and then they give it all back. I mean, how many traders? Me and you both have been up 5,000 and all of a sudden, we’re down 2000. Right? And we want to see that people can take profits. We actually stop the trailing drawdown in the performance account once you hit the balance plus a hundred dollars on the trailing drawdown. So that way you can build a buffer. And then once you build a buffer, then you can let trades run. Then you can go for it. You can let things go up and down. But you don’t want to do it. You want to go in and you want to take profits. And it doesn’t have to be scalps, but you don’t have to pick tops and bottoms either. You’ve got to go in and trade well and don’t give up your profits.
Canadian Futures Trader:
I get, just talking with traders, why maybe it’s an adjustment for them. And when people ever ask me tips, somebody literally called yesterday, can you give me tips on how do I pass Apex. Dude, you know there’s a trailing draw down so…
Darrell Martin:
Take a little bit every day and stop.
Canadian Futures Trader:
Yeah. Take some quick profit. Don’t just let it run up and down and sit and watch. Take profits and then the trailing draw down’s always going to be way down there. It’s not approaching you if you’re grabbing the profit and not letting it run up and come back against you.
Darrell Martin:
Everybody wants the trade to go to the moon.
Canadian Futures Trader:
Yeah. I mean, but that’s part of the through the pain. That’s how it worked for me. It took enough fails to go, okay, I need to change what I’m doing. What do I need to change? And that’s how I became successful at these things.
Darrell Martin:
Like I said, we have a lot of people try to complain about it, but like I said, almost a billion dollars in funding, obviously it’s very possible.
Canadian Futures Trader:
A hundred percent, I agree. It’s definitely possible if you kind of employ the right strategies and it’s a great opportunity for people. I was going to ask you what are some tips you could give traders to help through the evaluations? But I don’t know if you have any additional ones, but we kind of touched on a few already.
Darrell Martin:
My biggest summary is take some profits and stop trading for the day. Don’t try to pass it all in one day. You’ll end up doing a billion resets that way. And then when you get your PA account, you’ll do the same thing and then you’ll blow it the first day. And be patient. Look for good trade setups, have a trading plan. Don’t just randomly hit buttons based on what you think. If you’re looking for one, check out one of the companies on our tools page or go to apexinvesting.com, whatever, we don’t care how you trade. We just care that you’re consistent. And it takes consistency for not only the evaluation to work but the PA to work. And if you can be disciplined enough to take profits at stock and let it build, it doesn’t matter if it takes you a month or two, maybe it takes you 10 days, which is the minimum, there’s no maximum, and it’s cheaper to pay for a couple months of evaluation than it is to pay for a hundred resets.
Canadian Futures Trader:
Yeah. And I think too, the other thing I’d tack on is people really need to kind of get out of that mindset of, yeah, just going in, trying to hit it hard and fast and be done. If you’re actually planning on making a career, lifetime career out of trading, there’s no reason to rush and try to pass evaluation in one day. Take the opportunity to get used to just taking quick wins.
Darrell Martin:
And the people that do that, they blow their PA account within a day or two because they do the same thing. What you do in your evaluation is probably what you’re going to do in your performance account.
Canadian Futures Trader:
The problem I had was sometimes I got lucky and passed and then I would keep doing bad habits and blow funded accounts. So it really took changing approach and trading style and all those things. When they pass their evaluation account, how long until they get their performance account?
Darrell Martin:
Basically, it’s the next day. After 1:00 AM, they’ll get an email that says, hey, pay your performance account fee and sign the contract. As soon as they do that, they get set up. So a day or two days, once you sign that and get that done, your performance account is usually set up within 15 minutes. It’s all automated. You don’t have to wait three or four days like some companies that go through and review everything and all this, we have everything automated, so it’s very fast.
Canadian Futures Trader:
One other thing I’ll touch on is, so you guys offer the ability to have multiple accounts, and I know that’s a big thing. It’s funny, when I first started futures trading, it had never even dawn on me. I had so many people ask me about trade copier. Can you maybe rattle off why would somebody want multiple accounts if they’re not familiar like I wasn’t back in the day?
Darrell Martin:
Well, the biggest reason is to spread out your risk and instead of trading 10 contracts in one account, you could trade one contract in 10 accounts. And so if you do have a bad day, you have it on one contract, not on 10 contracts. So you’re less likely to blow your account and then you multiply your profits as well as you go up and as you get your account bigger. And we have people that go in and they’re making $6000, $10,000 an account in a PA. They have 10 accounts, they’re making $60,000, $80,000 a month, and they’re not having to take big trades and risk blowing everything. Trade copier on tools page of Apex Trader Funding. It’s 150 bucks and it allows you to trade multiple accounts at the same time on one funding company at a time.
Canadian Futures Trader:
Yeah. And it’s super simple to use. It couldn’t be easier, honestly, to use the copier. I don’t think I have any other questions about Apex Trader Funding. Obviously, everyone, whenever anybody asks me what do I recommend? It’s Apex Trader Funding. It’s no secret you guys are my top recommended funded evaluation company. So everybody check them out. I’ll put links down below in the video description to Apex and to Apex Investing as well, so you can check all those things out. I like to end every interview with the rapid-fire questions section. There’s about six or seven questions here. Just first thing that comes to mind. Some are trading, some aren’t. Here we go. All right, Darrell Martin, what is your favorite color?
Darrell Martin:
My favorite color is orange.
Canadian Futures Trader:
You can only trade one product and one product only for the rest of your life. What would it be?
Darrell Martin:
Nasdaq.
Canadian Futures Trader:
Would you rather be short or would you rather be long?
Darrell Martin:
Oh, I love being short.
Canadian Futures Trader:
Have you ever yoloed a trade?
Darrell Martin:
Oh yeah. I’ve made that mistake before.
Canadian Futures Trader:
I think we all have, more than once for me, but you learn over time. Number between 1 and 10, how many is the ideal number of monitors?
Darrell Martin:
Ideal? I’d say as many as you can have but four.
Canadian Futures Trader:
And then the last question, I think I know the answer, but I’m going to ask you anyways. What is your favorite online features? Trader Tryout firm.
Darrell Martin:
Oh, that’s going to be apexinvesting.com for sure.
Canadian Futures Trader:
Of course, all right. Everyone, I want to thank Darrell for being here again. Darrell, thanks. I think that was a ton of great info all about both Apex Investing and Apex Trader Funding so we kind of got two for one on the intel. Everyone should check out both the sites. Like I said, there’ll be links down below. And again, Darrell, thanks for being here.
Darrell Martin:
Hey man, thank you. I appreciate your time.
Canadian Futures Trader:
All right. Thanks everyone for listening.
Ready to learn more about Apex Trader Funding after that fantastic interview? Be sure to read my Full Review of Apex Trader Funding!
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Risk Disclosure:
Futures and forex trading contains substantial risk and is not for every investor. An investor could potentially lose all or more than the initial investment. Risk capital is money that can be lost without jeopardizing ones’ financial security or life style. Only risk capital should be used for trading and only those with sufficient risk capital should consider trading. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results.
Hypothetical Performance Disclosure:
Hypothetical performance results have many inherent limitations, some of which are described below. No representation is being made that any account will or is likely to achieve profits or losses similar to those shown; in fact, there are frequently sharp differences between hypothetical performance results and the actual results subsequently achieved by any particular trading program. One of the limitations of hypothetical performance results is that they are generally prepared with the benefit of hindsight. In addition, hypothetical trading does not involve financial risk, and no hypothetical trading record can completely account for the impact of financial risk of actual trading. for example, the ability to withstand losses or to adhere to a particular trading program in spite of trading losses are material points which can also adversely affect actual trading results. There are numerous other factors related to the markets in general or to the implementation of any specific trading program which cannot be fully accounted for in the preparation of hypothetical performance results and all which can adversely affect trading results.
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