Here is Apex saying they move you to live, meaning that real money is involved. But nothing is about said, who needs to be registered when real money is involved. So is this not completely illegal ? Are you then forced to Live trading at Apex now ? Because then it does not make sense for a lot of traders. Usually going live means being registered as advisor in your home country otherwise no financial regulator will allow this except you sit in Bahamas or Cayman Islands of course. Going live on funded accounts is (must be) a dealbreaker! The regulators will prohibit any prop firm when they go on live funds with independent contractors. It is only allowed when they are registered themselves and hire traders. If traders are independent they need to be registered aswell when going live, there is no other choice in 99% of all countries in the world. When there is real money involved it is all regulated. You cannot say anymore it is just a videogame or simulated only. Then the whole advantage trading on such prop firms is gone!
It depends, Czech regulators in the Euro zone said they are fine with such prop firms, calling them playing videogames or just trading on simulations. But there are countries like Spain and Belgium who do not want such prop firms. So it seems every country has a different opinion on that. As long as the US financial regulators do not prohibit such prop firms, you can trade on them. But personally I would not buy any challenges from them. I prefer trading my personal account.
You’re stating a lot of things there as if they’re facts, when they’re actually opinions. Firstly, what’s legal/illegal regarding these issues varies hugely from country to country. Secondly, in many instances lawyers (and sometimes even courts) don’t always agree about what’s “illegal” anyway. Thirdly, sometimes laws aren’t enforced until either the volume of complaints about their being breached becomes a cacophony, or a regulator’s hand is effectively forced by something like a series of documented allegations from an internal whistleblower (as happened to “MyForexFunds”, for example).
No man, taking money from third parties, that is what you do as trader going live on such prop firms, is not allowed as this is part of the banking business. You cannot open as a private person without being registered at all a banking business and collect real money from third parties and trade with them. And name me a country where banking is not regulated ? I do not mean Cayman etc. Especially in the USA there is friends and family account but very limited. Anything beyond requires registration or one can go to jail and needs to pay big fines. I mean you should know that or ? Since in Singapore banking is also regulated. You cannot be a financial advisor without being registered in Singapore where you are located or ? A big part of the banking business is the wealth management and managing third party money on their behalf. You cannot do the same as private person without being registered in 99% of all countries in the world. That is fact and not an opinion. Wake up.
Are you aware there is a new rule where your next trade of the day cannot have more than 30% (unrealized) loss of total profit of previous trade(s) of the day? Otherwise, all profit of the day is invalid. It doesn't make sense for trading systems that have more than one entry per day. Other new PA rules for withdrawal is safety net = unrealized trailing drawdown. You can only withdraw above the safety net. Another new rule only new PA is 50% of max lot until reach safety net. They're basically capping good trading system from making much profit/withdrawal and even turn profitable trading systems to dust using that 30% rule.
Topstep has been doing this for many years, so I doubt it's illegal, otherwise they would have been in legal trouble by now.
It is because regulators did not care. But since normal brokers want to have their share on this growing market, their lobby put the CFTC on plan and other regulators will follow. It is only a matter of time now that every regulator will have an opinion on that topic, what is allowed and what is not. It was a small nice not many years ago. Since a few years it grew too big so that regulators caught attention. That does not mean what Topstep is doing is all legal. Especially when they provide live accounts. I would be very surprised if that is kind of allowed without any registration. It would open the door to many others to circumvent US national laws here.
There is no way that regulators would have let them do it for years on end if it was illegal. Regulators do care, there have been similar firms that have been under investigation for multiple reasons in the past, regulators are not going to look the other way if they think something illegal is going on.