That’s funny! My take is that prop firms are not in the business of making commissions. They have investors to answer to. Investors expect to be investing with real traders not a trader that used a third party service. That would be like I’m going to invest with someone that finds a good signal service. Also, there could be rules with the broker(s) partnership between the prop firm and the brokers where third party services are not allowed. So it might not even be the prop firms rules; it could be coming from the brokers?
[EDIT]
I’m chatting with Fidelcrest…
[question]
Traders are not allowed to coordinate their trades with third parties or otherwise copy their trading signals from a third party. Can I use a trade copier from MT5 to MT4 for brokers that only use MT4?
Martin 11:40
You’re not allowed to copy other traders but if it’s from your own account then it’s fine
[question]
Do my positions have to be 1 minute from eachother on the same symbol?
Martin 11:47
Min position duration is 180sec
[question]
so I have to keep my trade open for at least 180 seconds ?
Martin 11:48
correct
[question]
What if I open another position on the same symbol during that time? Do positions have to be spread out from eachother by a certain amount of time? Thanks!
Martin 11:54
No they don’t have to be spread out
[question]
ok, the reason I ask is for the following:
Fidelcrest shall have
the right to deem that Traders coordinate or copy their trades if several trades with the same instruments in the same direction are made within one minute of each other.
So “within one minute of eachother” is the part I have a question about
Martin 12:06
That’s if you copy other traders, otherwise it’s fine
[question]
ok, I really appreciate the help. Some of my questions are actually questions from other people on a forum on Babypips. I’ve been updating them with your answers, so we really appreciate it!
Delivered
Martin 12:08
Np at all
[question]
what are the hours livechat support is available?
Martin 12:14
It’s usually from 5pm to 3am gmt +3 but we’re trying to cover 24h by the end of this month
I would have a hard time ensuring that this never happened. As a scalper, you have to be ready and able to respond very quickly to market changes. Personally, I just do not see the reasoning for enforcing such limitations unless they are trying to deter scalpers from joining.
I would love to know the reasoning behind many of these weird rules these prop firms have. ProFX accounts require closing all positions daily; is that because of swap fees? If that’s the case I can just trade the direction where I’m actually earning interest. Example with TradersWay EURUSD you gain interest actually make money on swaps when shorting. The reason I’m still weeks out from doing trials is because of coding/testing these rules and making sure I have them all correct before I go waste money on trial fees.
I’m disappointed with FidelCrest due to a hidden rule that are not stated upfront, unlike other prop companies that offer the same services. Due to that rule, one shall easily get trapped. FidelCrest should have said in the rules upfront that they have 10% margin limit which render their Max Daily Loss useless because the margin limit (which is not stated upfront) will almost always get hit first causing one to fail the challenge. My experience testing other prop companies, they either stated rules like that upfront or follow the upfront rules that they created. I will not recommend this company to my friends.
I cannot speak about ProFX. Perhaps it is due operational hours or similar? Some prop firms prohibit having open positions over the weekend, perhaps if they do not have access to the markets during that time? In such a case, they obviously would not be able to close out positions and protect investor funds, should the need arise to do so. In the case of closing out positions overnight, this could be a requirement set by the liquidity providers, since their funds would be tied up in trades.
Generally speaking, I think that some of the odd-ball rules are simply due to the fact that they are wanting more control over investor funds and have decided for various reasons that they do not want to allow certain activities because they or their investors feel that there is some associated risk in doing so.
However, in line with what HyperScalper was saying, why should some of these things matter so long as they are profitable and have the necessary safeguards in place to protect investor funds? Scalping comes to mind in this case, but anything outside of their control would not be relevant to that argument.
I just found this “Minimum position duration is 3 minutes (180 seconds). Scalping is not allowed.” I have not created an account on their site so that’s the rule for their “low risk” USD 2500 account. That’s the only account type I can find for detailed rules without having to create an account to see the others. They have a lot of account options, so I’m not sure if scalping is allowed in their aggressive $100k account.
Another thing that has me worried about this. With wmwmw’s post, I started looking around; on some recent threads on Forexfactory there are people saying the margin limit is really low–like he said 10% margin limit, but other account types are even lower. They are saying in some cases a $25,000 account would actually only be a $500 account with the margin limit, so why pay them fee and just create your own account like on Coinexx and trade your $500 there? Ok, $500 is really low, but it’s the principle here. Do you know what the margin limits are for FTMO’s accounts? I can’t find that information on their site. With these really low margin limits, to me it looks like Fidelcrest’s rules are set up to rake in the trial fees, and that is their primary business model. I did read that they say “Maximum allowed total and single trade margin usage dependence on chosen initial capital size, trading strategy and your proved trading performance/history.”
Anyway, I’m curious what FTMO’s limits are. If they are better, then to me it sounds like FTMO is the better choice even if that means I have to use a MT5 to MT4 trade copier.
Already checked into them as well. Profit split is 50/50 up to 10% per month. Anything over 10%, you split 90/10. Unless you are consistently 18%+ per month, FTMO pays better.
One thing that makes FTMO better so far is the free trial account. I’m not seeing that with Fidelcrest. The free trial lets you test out your strategy before needing to pay them cash to find out if your strategy works.
This would need to be verified by FTMO support, but it is my understanding that there are no limits other than the loss allowance based on equity. In this case, there would technically would be a limit, since taking a massive trade could immediately put you below your daily loss allowance due to spread and the like.
“Since FTMO is classified as a professional client under ESMA’s regulations, the leverage we offer is firmly set to 1:100 and cannot be increased. The leverage can be lowered upon request.”
I’ve been reading this thread for years and I’m wondering if it’s just me, or has this thread evolved into a discussion that probably deserves its own thread. The whole FTMO thing, which is obviously a popular topic, has kind of taken over the discussion here, and I’m not sure what it has to do with Going Offshore for a Broker. Please enlighten me if I’m misunderstanding its relativity to this threads topic.
Thanks gang…
Frankly the whole thing sounds like applying for, and being tested, to qualify for a job as a trader with a company. But so be it, I’ll just keep scrolling…
