Among those who took FTMO challenge, 8% got funded accounts.
This number is much higher than my impression with Lmi, maybe due to the fact FTMO has 5% daily loss limit and LMi has 2%.
From youtube I can see a lot of traders claimed to make big money with FTMO funded accounts.Those are most likely to lose their funded accounts later, because their focus is on higher return, which will cause them more likely to break rules. After 6 months, those who still stay with funded accounts are those who focus on low risk low drawdown.
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Not really⌠almost all of those featured have 100K accounts and the daily loss limit is still in place. Thereâs actually less pressure to chase performance since there is no challenge goal once funded, no ongoing monthly fees and the 10% drawdown limit is not trailing with profits.
More than likely, for marketing purposes FTMO is simply cherry picking those that had an exceptional month simply trading the same way they did in the testing.
If your system was good enough to pass the 10% target under the constraints of a 5% daily and 10% draw down in 30 days (>185% annual performance)⌠10-30K a month with 100K should be routine multiple times throughout the year.
You missed my point.
What you said was as a funded trader he has less pressure to chase high return,therefore easier to survive later.
What I said was those funded traders who chase high return are most likely to lose their funded accounts.
Also,10% monthly return would translate into 300% annual return, not 185%.
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lol I knew my math was off in my spreadsheet.
I guess I misinterpreted what you posted⌠it sounded like you were making a statement against all those on youtube claiming theyâre making big returns. What I was trying to say is that with 100K trading conservatively, I donât think what theyâre claiming as big returns is that big a deal.
That being said, the founders mentioned they had 600 traders at the end of 19 and now theyâre up to 1200⌠Iâm sure a big boost in that number and recent returns could have been due to the abnormal massive increase in volatility with traders having performance that will be much harder to reduplicate going forward.
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Hey Methos,
I do not understand this part of your post:
âMost traders fail, but most traders do not have the patience and discipline to trade on a demo account for 2 years, either.â
It sounds like one must trade 2 years on a demo account or if someone trades on a demo account then he is cool and can make then real money. I think success has absolutely nothing with demo accounts. But if it has, the time interval might be enough for only 2 months or of course lifelong without any success.
It might be more expensive not to trade demo at all, on the other side it is very hard to learn the psycho part of trading if there is no real money on the line.
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you donât need to trade demo for 2yrs there is no max or limit to trade demo account, for example if your trading system show good results after one month and you think itâs ready you can go live and see what happens
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Hey Guys,
There are tons of posts here lately, and I have no come to the very end yet.
BUT I see many discussions going on about how many people succeed the FTMO challenge and many fails.
Actually it is all said in the long video that SmallPaul posted.
To me it looks really nice that the CEO discusses the numbers as this is not the usual case in trading. Companies do not like to share the real numbers. Also, what he says could be real as the percentages cannot be that much worse 
He said, last year 8% of the people managed to go through the challenge, this year it is a bit higher due to high volatility. In times when there is little volatility, the number is less than 8%.
As he also clearly says how many people made the challenge last year and this year, with a simple calculation you guys can figure out easily how much money they made with lost challenges (I know some people wrote about it). Now you have to check the exact numbers, but as I remember he might have said to have 275 qualified traders last year and already reaching a new record this year with 660 managing the challenge. These number might be a little off though, you might want to listen it again. It is in the second half of the podcast.
I wish everybody a great success with it!
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My point is that most traders start trading with real money prematurely, without first proving to themselves that they can be consistently profitable. As such, they often lose their real money, eventually get frustrated and quit. Everyone is different. There is no magic number for how long it will take someone to become consistently profitable.
I often advocate the use of demo accounts, simply because most people do not have unlimited supply of cash that they can dump into learning how to trade. It also helps to stay committed to learning when you are not constantly losing real money in the process. None of this has anything to do with the value that trading on a live account can offer. Certainly not about being cool, either.
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methos for me i was trading differently on demo than live account, with demo i was very calm with live account i was 
a nervous wreck
So I spent some time trying to nail down FTMOâs rules on when/how etc. you can trade during news events. In their faq section under âCan I trade news?â there are the following key statements:
In the Challenge and Verification, you can hold trades during news. However, you cannot scalp the news or use a straddling method (catching news spikes using stop orders).
and
Only our FTMO Traders are not allowed to execute any news trade or close any existing trade on the targeted instrument in the window of 2 minutes before to 2 minutes after the release of the below news announcements.
The âbelow news announcementsâ can be monitored on their Economic Calendar, and itâs only the events marked by the blue ribbon you have to worry about.
I spent some time talking with a live chat person about this. For me, being able to carry existing open positions through the news events is very important. If they didnât allow this then that would be a complete deal breaker for me. Beyond the information in their Faq pages, this is my understanding after the live chat:
For the rules for a funded FTMO trader: they can only carry current open positions (positions opened before the news event) through the news period BUT they cannot close them or open new ones, basically no deals of any kind during that time. No pending orders, SL/TP, nothing.
For someone taking the challenge: (the live chat guy just kept quoting the faq page) âyou can hold trades during news. However, you cannot scalp the news or use a straddling method (catching news spikes using stop orders).â
For me, because Iâm not a manual trader, I build my own EA, I have to program these rules into my EA. I have to make sure my EA doesnât open and close a position within the 4 minute news window during the challenge.
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One important thing is how FTMO calculate drawdown?
-
For a 50000 account, your account can not go below 45000. Now If you make 4000 earlier, and your account is 54000, now your loss limit raise to 48600( the new 10% drawdown from 54000,)or stay at 45000?
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If your funded account goes from 50000 to 60000, and both trader and FTMO withdraw profit,for the remaining 50000 account,will the loss limit be still at 45000?
For question 1,most other prop firms raise their loss limit to 48600.
For question 2, some of prop firms count your withdrawal as a loss.That means if you withdraw your profit more than their drawdown limit, your account would be regarded as breaking rules, therefore be closed.
I fully agree! In my opinion demo accounts are completely useless outside of backtesting to lock in some semblance of a trading plan. For one thing the feed is different from a live account and the fills are not the same when it comes to slippage. Demo accounts also canât prepare you for the biggest obstacle to success⌠managing yourself and your emotions! Missing a great trade or making an order entry mistake that costs you money or holding on to a winner and watching it turn into a loss feels MUCH different on a demo vs live.
I would much rather beginning traders skip the endless demo trading and trade with a small live account using micro lots where the losses are slightly annoying but wont kill you.
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i agree, nothing can prepare you for live trading and dealing with real money, i only use demo to see if my system work, the emotion part and how you react to different situation comes with live trading and experience
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FTMOs drawdown limit is fixed, you just canât ever get below 90% of original funding. If you keep the money in to compound you have the original 5K loss limit (on 50K) on top of your share of profit as buffer. If you withdraw all profits, youâre back to the beginning of having a 5K loss limit. They have the best drawdown limit I have seen since itâs fixed and does not trail with your profits.
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Yes, if this is true, FTMO would be the best in this industry.
I mean this is a game changer and make FTMOâs challenge more favorable than other prop firms.
I was very skeptical about this⌠i did research on these companies a couple years ago and practically all of them made no sense. However, after researching FTMOâs offering⌠no ongoing costs, ability to start at 100K and get to 300K quickly, 10% fixed drawdown, LMAX feed, overnight holding, holding through news and no profit goals after funding⌠I changed my view point.
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Demo trading would be more useful if it were an accurate representation of live trading. Too often, the demo feed is pure fiction. Demo trading is good for functional testing. I.e. what happens when I click this button or code this logic. Itâs often not helpful in gauging live performance. New traders should still demo trade, just donât expect the same results live. Start small
EDIT: agreeing big time and adding commentary to statement
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My email inquiry about these two questions has not been answered.
Once I get their confirmation, I will take their challenge.
Edit: just got their confirmation email on this: the drawdown will always be at 45000 for above two questions.
I will also be taking it soon. Itâs potentially free money on top of what Iâm generating with my personal accounts.
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