My experience with FTMO funded account Why FTMO funded account trial is a dangerous trap for you. FTMO is a company based in the Czech Republic. They would promise to fund your trading account with any of their chosen brokers (mostly small brokers located in Cyprus), for up to 100 thousand dollars leverage, but only if you first pay them a certain amount of money in advance for a demo. They want you to understand that your payment is to test your seriousness for some time, if they are satisfied with your skills, then they can open a live account with real money for you, to be shared 70 to 30 percent between you and them, if you make some profit in the future. But certainly, there is a catch. Statistics suggest that 98 percent of the new traders would lose their capital, so your chance of losing whatever amount of money you are paying them upfront is 99 percent. 99 percent because you do not have ONLY the market to fight, but FTMO's strong rules too. Your psychology would be destroyed. First, what you are buying with money is a demo account which is obtainable everywhere, free. Yet, if you make a mistake you lose your money. FTMO would not allow not you to lose up to 5000 on any given day if you are experimenting with (say) 100 thousand Dollars. If you do, you will lose 610 Dollars which you must pay them before they would take you in on a demo account. Basically, with your dream to get to their 100 thousand dollars live trading equity, you are sold a demo account. But that is not all, you buy it with tough FTMO regulations, which would almost guarantee that you would fail. That live account, to 99 percent would not come. It all happens automatically. Trading is tough already, and when you buy yourself a different set of even tougher rules other than the market psychology, you are destined to fail. FTMO knows this very well. I am not a beginner, but I tried it without success. Looking back, I would rather open a live account with 610 Dollars. If it's easy, they would sit back and make all the money for themselves. Your deposit would not be necessary.
All these pay for funding sites are waste of money. Their requirements are ridiculously strict. If you actually make it through, that puts you in the top 5%. If you are in the top 5% trading skill wise, why bother paying the fees. PS. If you can't pull together 5k on your own, you shouldn't even be trading, you should figuring out how to make more money from your 9-5 first
Their Brokers include LMAX, Admiral Markets and XM, I´m not that sure if they are that small and regulated in Cyprus. Their strong rules are: Maximum DD 10% Maximum daily DD 5% (not trailing) Profit target 10% in challenge, trading period 30 days Profit target 5% in verification, trading period 60 days If you meet their targets and get funded, you get the fee refunded. Not that bad from my point of view.
That is but the problem. If you win a jackpot you can all retire at 40, lol. FTMO does plenty of adverts for a reason, advance demo trading payment. Why would anybody pay in advance to test a trade a demo account?
It is a business. People are dumb as hell to think the proprietary trading firm will make them super traders and they will be millionaires in no time flat? The goal of any business is to make monies for that business. You want to be a trader? Go read a good trading book, learn all you can from You Tube videos and the internet. All of it being free. Save your monies and use that as your trading capital. If you become atleast, a competent trader, you would be making monies without sharing it with anyone. Never understood sharing your profits with a business. The extra leverage they give you guarantees only that you go broke faster and they take your monies sooner.
Yeah, business, that's exactly what it is. Save your money, don't dash it to prop trading firms. They want to make money trading too, but they know it's not easy, so they offer you cheese in a rat's cage. Then they pay a couple of guys to make youtube videos propping false success. All for your advance payment. That is an easier way to make money.
I disagree in my opinion FTMO offers the fairest deal of all “funding” companies that being said .... if you already think all funding companies are a waste of time and money there is no reason to read any further but if you are considering trying out with the various funding companies such as Earn2Trade, TopStepTrader, SMB Capital and others such as FTMO then consider this when comparing 1) the fee for the $100,000 challenge At FTMO is $610 USD however there are a few funding review sites That review FTMO and others and offer promo codes on virtually all funding companies reviewed. In the case of FTMO I believe the discount is 5% so it would end up saving you $30 or so and it still cost $580 USD so not much difference between $610 and $580 but still it’s $30. You have 2 phases to pass - you must trade for at least 10 days in phase 1 but have a total of 30 days to pass phase 1. Then in phase 2 your profit target that you have to meet is reduced by 50% over phase 1 and you must trade for at least 10 days but actually have 60 days total to pass phase 2. Additionally should you come to the end of 30 days in phase 1 (or 60 days in phase 2) and have a profit (but have not met the profit target to pass) then they give you a free new challenge to start which saves you $580 to $610 USD. They also refund the $580 or $610 that you paid after you start your funded account - they give it back to you as an addl bonus with your 1st withdrawal of profits. Most competitors top funding challenged do not offer the same $4,500 daily loss limit and max fixed drawdown of $10,000 loss limit below the zero line like FTMO does. FTMO also offers Earn2Trade's $150k challenge ($350 per month and $99 per reset) only offers a $3,300 daily loss limit and a $4500 max total loss drawdown and that drawdown is a "trailing drawdown" not a fixed drawdown TopstepTrader's $150k challenge ($375 per month and $99 per reset) only offers a $3,000 daily loss limit and a $4500 max total loss drawdown and that drawdown is a "trailing drawdown" not a fixed drawdown SMB Capitals only appears to have 1 challenge level ($325 per month and $125 per reset) - it only offers a $1,000 daily loss limit and a $3,000 total "fixed" drawdown ($3,000 below zero line) 2) the top account challenge at Earn2Trade is $350 a month and you must trade for at least 15 trading days. If it takes you more than 30 days to pass their challenge (without having to reset) then you pay for a 2nd month - so now you are at $700 ($350 1st month and $350 2nd month) even if there is a special for the 1st month such as 25% off then the 1st month is $262.50 and then 2nd month is $350 and that totals $612.50. Now if you have to buy resets then they are $99 each. I’m not sure what the average resets bought per client are that try’s to pass their highest challenge of $150k but for examples sake let’s say it’s 2 resets (remember Each time you reset starts a new minimum 15 trading days period) so assuming you got a 25% discount for 1st month at Earn2Trade and paid $262.50 then you buy 2 resets and still pass within a month then you have spent a total of $460.50 if you take over 30 days and have to pay for that 2nd month then add another $350 to that and now you are at $810.50 3) the top account challenge at TopStep Trader is $375 a month and you must pass 2 phases - 1 for trading at least 5 days and 1 that you must trade for at least 10 days - so minimum to pass both is 15 trading days. If it takes you more than 30 days to pass both phases of their challenge (without having to reset) then you pay for a 2nd month so now you are at $750 ($375 1st month and $375 2nd month) even if there is a special for the 1st month such as 25% off then the 1st month is $281.25 and then 2nd month is $375 and that totals $656.25. Now if you have to buy resets then they are $99 each. I’m not sure what the average resets bought per client are that try’s to pass their highest challenge of $150k but for examples sake let’s say it’s 2 resets (remember each time you reset starts a new minimum 15 trading days period) so assuming you got a 25% discount for 1st month at TopStepTrader and paid $281.25 then you buy 2 resets and still pass within a month then you have spent a total of $479.25 if you take over 30 days and have to pay for that 2nd month then add another $375 to that and now you are at $854.25 ------------------------------------------------- The simple fact is that traders have a choice--a choice not to use firms like E2T and TopStep Trader to try to get funded on because their funded accounts have to many gotcha's (in my opinion) that make it clear (at least in my opinion) that they do not offer as good of a deal as other firms in the industry (such as FTMO) ---so why spend your time and capital and resources trying to get a funded account with anyone except those that offer the best deal in the end (and offer the most advantages in the traders favor) for a funded account. 1) In my opinion no one should try to get funded with any company that has a "trailing max drawdown" on funded accounts - they are for the benefit of the funding company only --and there is really no benefit to you --the trader--(in my opinion) when compared to using other companies that offered a fixed max drawdown Lets point out the main differences between a "trailing max drawdown" and a fixed max drawdown" Lets say as an example - you have passed the initial trial challenge phase(s) and have moved onto having a funded account Funding Company A offers a $3,500 "trailing max drawdown" on your funded account and an 80-20 profit split (80% to trader and 20 % to the funding company) and Funding Company B offers a $3,500 "fixed max drawdown" on your funded account and a 70-30 profit split (70% to trader and 30% to the funding company) Now at 1st glance you might be inclined to say--obviously funding company A is the better deal because they offer an 80-20 split and funding company B only offers a 70-30 profit split But lets take a closer look at the fine details and different nuances of each to see the truth 1st lets start off with a profitable trading day and then you have losses that take you back to even for the day--lets see the differences between the 2 different types of funded accts Example 1 (Company A with $3500 "trailing max drawdown" on funded account - On company A with a $3,500 trailing max drawdown (that is typically calculated intraday) - lets say you are having a good trading session and you are up $3500 in the session - lets say you have a $100,000 starting balance account so now your intraday balance is $103,500 and that the $3,500 in closed profits represents your high balance (including unrealized profits--meaning you closed out all positions at high profit of the day--more on this later) - so you so far had a high unrealized and realized profits that are the same $3,500 - and your current balance is $103,500. Now lets say you open another position and unfortunately it goes against you and you lose $3,500 and Now you are back down to $0 on the day--you havent made anything but you also havent lost anything--but in most cases --even though you are now at even on the day--you have lost something--you have lost your funded account because according to most companies trailing max drawdown rules on funded accounts you have violated the max trailing drawdown of $3,500 and now your funded account is closed and if you want to have a funded account with this company you will need to start over and pay for a new challenge to pass. Keep in mind thatsome funding companies even take this 1 step further and will consider your "unrealized potential profits" as the "high point of the day" to which they then set the meter running on the trailing max drawdown. So how does that work you say - we lets take the same example - you are having a good trading session you take a long position on the Nasdaq 100 emini futures - it spikes very quickly and then starts tapering off - now your position at the high was worth say $3,500 in profits -----IF----- you had closed it all out at the high--but you didn't as you though it would go higher or frankly you just werent fast enough to close it out at the high--in any event--no matter what the reason you didnt close it out at the high of your unrealized profits so instead when you closed it you closed it with only a $2,000 profit--which is still great--but not if you have someone who is funding you that calculates the "trailing max drawdown" from the hypothetical unrealized high profit of the day--which in this case would be $3500 but you didnt close it out at the high that you could have had if you knoew that was the end of the spike--instead you got out with a realized profit of $2,000 but you still had an unrealized potential profit of $1500 more meaning you could have had a $3500 profit. But your trailing max drawdown (from some companies) calculates your $3500 from the unrealized high of the day----so now you may be thing you have a $3,500 cushio left (your $2,000 profit plus another $1500 because you have a $3500 trailing max drawdown--right?)---wrong, the trailing max drawdown from some companies in their funded accounts is calculated from the the high profit of the day--realized or unrealized--(whichever is greater) so in this case you only have $2,000 left as a cushion and once your account drops back to $0 you have failed. So again you could be up $2,000 on the day (but you could have been up as much as $3500) and if you then lose $2,000 and go back to even for the day--you have violated and you are out. Example 2 (Company B with $3500 "fixed max drawdown" on funded account On company B with a $3,500 fixed max drawdown (that is also typically calculated intraday) - lets say you are having a good trading session and you are up $3500 in the session - lets say you have a $100,000 starting balance account so now your intraday balance is $103,500 and that the $3,500 in closed profits represents your high balance (including unrealized profits--meaning you closed out all positions at high profit of the day--more on this later) - so you so far had a high unrealized and realized profits that are the same $3,500 - and your current balance is $103,500. Now lets say you open another position and unfortunately it goes against you and you lose $3,500 and Now you are back down to $0 on the day--you havent made anything but you also havent lost anything--but in this case you still have $3,500 drawdown left to trade against as a cushion. Now that you are back at even for the day with a $0 balance you have not violated the drawdown and you still have your funded account. The same thin applies on any intraday unrealized profits--so unlike either of the above 2 scenarios with company A--in either scenario Company B has your back and still gives you a $3,500 cushion below the zero line because Company B (in my opinion) is trying to give you a structure that offers real revolving funding credit line 2nd lets look at the differences of the 2 different types of accounts for withdrawing your profits Example 1 (Company A with $3500 "trailing max drawdown" on funded account) - Lets say you just started and had a good 1st month - you made a total of $5,000 in profits for the month and now wish to make a withdrawal to pay your bills. The split with Company A is 80-20. You request a withdrawal of $5,000 and the company takes their 20% cut which is $1,000 and sends you the remaining balance which is $4,000. You then get a notice from Company A that says your funded account has unfortunately been closed as you have no more drawdown left. Even though you only withdrew your profits--because of the way more trailing max drawdowns are calculated in funded trader accounts - your trailing max drawdown is eliminated dollar for dollar as you make profits-so if you have $1,000 in profits on day 1 of trading now (with the way some companies rules calculate it on funded accounts) you now have $1,000 less of a trailing drawdown because you made $1,000 in profits so now it is $2500 not $3500. Once you have made $3,500 or more in profits then the trailing max drawdown is removed in many cases and now your drawdown is the $0 line --essentially meaning you have no more funding and you are now trading your own profits--if you withdraw those profits then you also reduce your cushion dollar for dollar as well--withdraw all $3500 in profits and your account (in most cases) is closed as you have no more cushion Example 2 (Company B with $3500 "fixed max drawdown" on funded account) - Lets say you just started and had a good 1st month - you made a total of $5,000 in profits for the month and now wish to make a withdrawal to pay your bills. The split with Company B is 70-30. You request a withdrawal of $5,000 and the company takes their 30% cut which is $1,500 and sends you the remaining balance which is $3500. You now can keep trading just like day 1 as you still have $3,500 fixed drawdown meaning you can go up to $3,500 below the zero line before you have failed. In this scenario you can withdraw all profits to zero every week or every month-etc and always have your starting funding. Or if you want to leave a positive balance in the account then you have the positive balance plus the $3500 (unlike example A above where all you would have left as a cushion is your positive balance) Example Company A - you make $5,000 in profits with company A and withdraw $4,000 which leave $1,000 positive balance in your account - now that is all you have left to trade with--$1,000 cushion Example Company B - you make $5,000 in profits with company B and withdraw $4,000 which leave $1,000 positive balance in your account - now what you have left to trade as a cushion is $4,500 (the $1,000 positive balance you had left in your account PLUS the $3,500 fixed max drawdown for a total of $4500 to trade with VS only $1,000 with Company A with a trailing max drawdown ----------------------- Now also consider this FTMO currently allows you to have up to 3 funded trading accounts at the same time - each one starts off with a $5,000 daily loss limit and a $10,000 fixed drawdown. The reason someone might want to have multiple trading accounts is that if they blow up 1 account they still have 1 or 2 more they can switch trading to immediately - and/or they might want to trade all of the at the same time and trade different strategies in each one - one might be day trading and the other one swing trading, one could be based on order flow and volume profie while another is based on other technical indicators, one could trade longs only and the other could trade shorts only, one could trade S&P500 and 1 trades Nasdaq 100 and a 3rd one trades Dow 30--etc - FTMO also gives you 70% of the profits and they keep 30% whereas SMB Capital is 50-50. For purposes of this analysis though we will just assume that you only want to have 1 funded account with FTMO Also FTMO offers to increase your account size (and also daily loss limit and max fixed drawdown) by 25% every 4 months if your trading meets certain criteria such as earning 10% profits over the 4 months - so as an example if you have a $100,000 account you would need to earn $15,000 in total profits over the 4 months (so an avg of $3750 per month) and you have to have 2 of the 4 months be profitable - ---meaning you wouldn't get the increased funding after 4 months if you earned $15,000 in net profits in the 4 months but you did it by having 1 month with a $20,000 profit then the other 3 months you lost money but you would get the increase even if 2 of the 4 months you lost money -such as made $8,000 month 1 and $9,000 month 2 and lost $1,000 month 3 and lost $1,000 month 4. at this time there appears to be no cap on the amount of 25% increases you can earn over time year over year at the rate of 1 increase every 4 months (3 per year) So a possible 25% increase every 4 months --what does that translate to over time? Lets assume that every 4 months you qualified so that is 3 increases of 25% per year Start off Year 1 with a $5,000 daily loss limit and a $10,000 max fixed drawdown You earn 3 increases over the course of Year 1 (1 every 4 months) At the end of year 1 you now have a daily loss limit of $9,765.00 and a max fixed drawdown of $19,531 Start off Year 2 with a daily loss limit of $9,765.00 and a max fixed drawdown of $19,531 You earn 3 increases over the course of Year 2 (1 every 4 months) At the end of year 2 you now have a daily loss limit of $19,072.00 and a max fixed drawdown of $38,146 Start off Year 3 with a daily loss limit of $19,072.00 and a max fixed drawdown of $38,146 You earn 3 increases over the course of Year 3 (1 every 4 months) At the end of year 3 you now have a daily loss limit of $37,250 and a max fixed drawdown of $74,503 Start off Year 4 with a daily loss limit of $37,250 and a max fixed drawdown of $34,503 You earn 3 increases over the course of Year 4 (1 every 4 months) At the end of year 4 you now have a daily loss limit of $75,753 and a max fixed drawdown of $174,516 Start off Year 5 with a daily loss limit of $75,753 and a max fixed drawdown of $174,516 You earn 3 increases over the course of Year 5 (1 every 4 months) At the end of year 5 you now have a daily loss limit of $147,955 and a max fixed drawdown of $340,851 So in total you have earned 15 increases over the 5 year period (at the rate of 3 per year) - even if your trading was not consistently good enough to earn a 25% increase every 4 months at the rate of 3 per year and your trading was only good enough to earn 1 increase per year in any 4 month period and you only earned 1 increase per year - in 5 years you would be at a max daily loss of $15,258 and a max fixed drawdown of $30,517