Further IC funded says "We do not accept traders from the U.S.A, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong," if they are legit Kosher why this?
This is the best advice. If your system is profitable why waste your time using a prop firm? This forces you to integrate their rules into your system. Micro ES contracts are $5 a point. For a couple of grand you can build your own bankroll and scale up in contracts until you reach regular emini contracts. If your system is actually profitable there's no downside. If it isn't, then at least your money has gone towards mistakes you can learn from to refine your system, rather than fees and all sorts of extra hoops you must jump through to trade. You will learn a ton more and be beholden to no one.
When did OANDA Labs Trader program begin operations? The OANDA Labs Trader program began operations on January 22, 2024. This program is designed to help traders grow their skills and accelerate their profits through a profit-sharing model, but as one would expect, the USA is not an allowed jurisdiction.
I have to express my disagreement. If you're a profitable trader and want to minimize risk (regardless of having big capital or not), those bucket shops prop firms are leverage. There are multiple (verified) people out there who start by a smallest account on a prop firm and scale out to multiple biggest accounts on multiple prop firms (copytrade between accounts) using the first withdrawal from that smallest account and achieve 7 figures accumulated withdrawals in 2-3 years. The problem is none of these people are those marketers/furus, trade silently and only those traders who are close to them know the story. The keyword here is you're already a profitable trader. Many profitable forex/futures trader out there have very low capital (literally have low saving or lost a lot in their starting journey and become reluctant to start out again with significant capital) to make significant return.
This retail trader mentions at 4:25 how she uses a trade copier and at 7:25 she talks about how she copies her trades to 20 prop firms to maximize her returns...
There was a great post about this on the two plus two poker forum that I imagine is 100% correct: "My guess would be that modern day prop firms are scams and/or ponzi schemes. That said, I started my trading career in prop firms. But that was in the 80's and the prop firms were legit back then. All of the Chicago pits (CBOT, CME, CBOE) needed market makers and prop firms could provide them. The prop firms filled a need. Now? Now there is no need to provide market makers. These days markets are made by algo's. Now? There are no barriers to entry in any market. No need for a pricey floor badge and minimum balance (25K+) trading account. Now? Now anybody who wants to trade can with little money and access to any online account. Now? If you can't make it on your own now with no barriers to entry and no minimum $ required you aint gonna make it with a prop firm either." It is a great strategy for the modern prop firm to do these tiers of the scam so that the mark feels like they are worthy of being let into the exclusive club. A big part of the Madoff scam too was that you had to be worthy and let in. Not just anyone can join.