Hello everyone regards PROP TRADING I AM NEW TO CURRENCY TRADING

Trading Discussion Prop Firms
42

that means a lot, lol…

most scams have supporters that are religiously devoted to the scams that are ripping them off.

i remember when the bernie madoff ponzi scheme hit the fan, everybody was saying good things about bernie… bernie couldnt do no wrong… bernie used to be the chairman of the nasdaq… he wouldnt cheat anybody… oh no…

bernie ran a ponzi scheme where he was collecting investment capital from investors… he ended up running a ponzi investment scheme that was supposed to be worth sixty billion dollars… but there was a problem… bernie had just been living off of his investors capital… bernie had the house up in the hamptons… bernie had the multi million dollar penthouse up in manhattan… you know, living like a baller.

bernie was straight up a criminal…

by the way, nntp is just another one of the wolves, he aint no saint.

nntp uses the basic indicators, which will never give to you long term success.

43

@tradecode, I appreciate the fact you do not let investment firms pull the wool over your eyes and you are unrelenting at exposing fraud at any length. Those are cool qualities people should be grateful that some possess.

However, as regards FTMO, your alarm is false. There is a trader I know who just quit his job because he earns much more from FTMO than what his job gives him. Though he did not have to but, sometimes, he would upload the proof of payment from the prop firm. This is to encourage traders that it can be done.

@yrurbano1, from multiple indications, FTMO is a legit prop firm. I follow a thread at forexfactory where the nature and legitimacy of prop firms are dissected, tested, argued, and continually observed. The thread has run into a lot of pages discussing new and old prop firms but the two prop firms that have always stood out as tried and trusted are MFF and FTMO. I hope that helps.

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44

no, i seriously doubt that… nobody has ever been a legit 100k live account trader for ftmo… NEVER.

ftmo is a firm that scams people out of FEES.

45

Opening a prop firm and charging news traders entry fees seems a very good business model. Most new traders are under-prepared, under-capitalised and are only able to run losing strategies, so this is a fertile market.

But anything that looks so much like a Ponzi scheme is probably a Ponzi scheme. Ponzi schemes are illegal everywhere. For the trader, this is just not a legitimate and promising business proposition.

46

If I had underutilized capital why wouldn’t I want to hire the best traders and have them deliver 10% consistently month on month? That too with strict rules, guidelines and higher profit splits over time on consistent performance.

Why should I hope traders fail and live off the measly entry fees instead?

It’s a stupid notion to compare it to a ponzi scheme when they are so dissimilar.

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47

If you’re the prop firm, why would you have under-utilised capital if you have a consistently profitable strategy? You should be able to either trade your account to grow it or secure much greater funding from the financial sector.

And if you’re the prop trader, its about 90% likely you don’t have a consistently profitable strategy.

So the likelihood is the firm can only get funded by taking fees from losing traders, and replacing these with new losing traders with fresh fee payments. But surely that sounds exactly like a Ponzi scheme?

48

That’d make sense, to me atleast, if FTMO had a trading desk of their own. What I’ve gathered so far is that they rely on the trading acumen of folks like Alg to make their money work for them. That alone is a brilliant cost cutting measure. You don’t have to worry about overheads like salaries, rents, office supplies, unions, HR, employment benefits, etc.

Not to mention that they can terminate their traders at the drop of a hat if they underperform, of which there are anecdotes out there as well. If I understand it well they have strict trading conditions that they must adhere to enjoy consistent funding at FTMO. @Alg626 - Please correct me if I’m wrong.

Firms with a good industry reputation like FTMO should also attract a substantial amount of investor capital, which should only incentivize them seeking longer term profitable traders that make that money work for them.

It differs from a ponzi scheme in that there are just two layers (firm & traders) and there are no financial incentives from referrals and promised return on failure of challenge. I’d have no financial incentive for trying to convince you to trade with FTMO.

Funding talent, if the allegations are to be believed, worked as you described and did it on demo accounts if I’m not mistaken. My memory’s a bit fuzzy because I read the details a while back. Apparently the owner was trying to suppress inquiries discussing into what was happening and there was a big discussion around it.

I’m trying to find out if FTMO has an earnings report somewhere at the moment. That’d be the best form of due diligence I imagine. That should give a clearer picture of what’s happening.

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49

Here are my thoughts on prop trading and FTMO.

I found out about FTMO through word of mouth, being in a telegram group and hearing the people talk about it. The guy who ran the group also traded with them. He didn’t pressure anyone or try to sell anything to anyone. I also then started my due diligence(since that seems to be the word of the day lol), shifting through pages and pages on the internet and talking to others in the group. You can still find his group as well, I left the group due to me growing into a different trading style.

When I first joined he was going through the challenge as well and everyone was skeptical being no one had done it in the group. He passed within the rules and even had quite a few days to spare as you only get 30 days(which is usually around 20-22 trading days). Then he finally got his first month draw and it was all legit, he still gets paid from them now and has opened up several more accounts.

Just one of the reason’s I was comfortable trying it out, and like I mentioned I failed the first 4 times(all due to my trading performance). I understand and knew from the beginning that, that’s how FTMO made majority of their money, since so many traders fail at trading. But as a trader isn’t it nice to have someone else’s money on the line then yours, plus you get profits from it but no risk(isn’t that what a institutional trader is doing as well, they get paid commission from their trading performance, and if they lose the bank gives them more money). You know what else works to an institutes advantage along with that, since the trader isn’t trading his own money his mind isn’t so much of a mess when the account is in drawdown, cause it’s not his money he thinks a little more clearly. One of the reasons I’m a little more aggressive then most here.

They do state once you are funded you are trading live capital.

Pulled from their website.
You will trade with the same account balance that you traded in the FTMO Challenge. If you traded with $200,000 in the FTMO Challenge, you would also manage $200,000 in the FTMO Account.

To avoid any confusion, please note that all accounts we provide to our clients are demo accounts with virtual funds. After a client becomes an FTMO Trader, he/she is provided with login credentials for a demo account, with the difference that the FTMO Account is connected to our Proprietary Trading Firm’s live trading account where we generate real cash flow. Clients are entitled to up to 90% of profits generated on the FTMO Account. This solution is much administratively easier and gives us more freedom to actively manage risk.

Hey could be a lie, but I along with others have been paid. So to each their own.

Also, I have not had any issues with their broker. I’ve had slippage go against me and for me. Spreads are usually in line with other big brokers IE… IG, Forex.com.

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50

Also did some digging around just now but I’m on really limited net connectivity (downloads are in KB/s atm) till end of month, so there’s not much I can view.

  • Also just found information leading to trading on demo accounts (not live), as Alg confirmed too.
  • They are a Czech registered company
  • They are not regulated and their source of capital is a sole investor (self claim from this post in 2017)
  • Since they are privately held I believe they aren’t required to disclose earnings (not entirely sure. Please correct if I’m wrong)

Even after passing challenge there are limits on maximum daily loss & maximum loss. The drop downs in this page give more details.

FTMO requirements
FTMO requirements1334×649 34.5 KB

I’d still be willing to try trading with them despite these details because at most I’d be risking the USD 200-500 fee to get a chance at controlling a minimum USD 10K-400K. In the event of them shutting down tomorrow, the most I’d lose is the expected bi-weekly or monthly payouts (assuming I’ve traded with them over a period and have already recouped my challenge fee).

Never bothered looking at FTMO as an organization really hard because I had no interest in prop trading for myself, so my investigation so far is lacking.

51

FTMO AND MFF are legit prop firms I have traders here making it from their funded accounts

52

There are no monthly or bi-weekly payments. The only money ever out of your pocket it the fee. And if passed and once you make your first profitable month you are refunded that fee as well.

53

If I understand it right, the trader makes demo trades so does not receive profit per trade when it is closed? A trader who has had a profitable month receives a monthly credit at the end of the month?

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54

I should’ve clarified it. I meant missing out on the commission, which is bi-weekly or monthly right? I thought I read bi-weekly on a forum post by one member atleast.

Edit: Changed term from “payment” to “payout”

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55

Yes at the end of your monthly cycle you send them an invoice 70% of what you made.

If you were positive you can take your money or leave it and have a bigger drawdown cushion.

If you are negative then you don’t receive anything and you also have to work it back up over your initial account balance to make a draw next month.

56

How do you know you are getting the right money per individual trade, are the payments broken down and itemised?

57

You have a running total in your MT4, you also have your trade log and can always see your account balance.

Let’s say I started with a $100k account. And I made $10k in my first month. Your account balance is $110k.

Now as you’ve gone through your month of trading I’m sure you kept tabs on your trades values and then once they reach TP or SL you make sure they are what they’re suppose to be. Which they always have been for me. So you know your pip value per whatever your lot size is correct.

Once your cycle ends thenysend you an email asking if you want to withdraw any funds. You can choose to leave it all there, take a portion of it, or take all of your 70%.

So using the example above. I would send an invoice back of $7,000 cause that’s 70% of my total earnings of the month. They take there 30% every month regardless if you do or don’t take all of yours.

So next example let’s say I only take $3,500 out and leave my other $3,500 in my FTMO account. And the next month I make another $10k. So out of that $10k, $3k goes to them and I’m left with a account balance of $110,500. Cause $7k I made this month plus the $3,500 I left from last month. I can choose to leave it all, take a portion of my $10,500, or withdrawal it all and start back at my initial funded amount of $100k.

Hope that makes sense on how they do their withdrawals.

58

D&B info here on ftmo:
FTMO Evaluation US s.r.o. Company Profile | Praha 1 - Nové Město, Czech Republic | Competitors, Financials & Contacts - Dun & Bradstreet (dnb.com)

Founder is Otakar Šuffner - this from Deloitte:
Trading is like a high performance sport, even the slightest misstep costs a lot of money, says Otakar Šuffner from FF Trader – dReport in English

And here is an interview he gave:2019:
Interview with FTMO’s Founder: Otakar Suffner - Funded Trader (funded-trader.com)

ff trader s.r.o. owns the registered name FTMO Challenge in the US.

They don’t require regulatory approval because they are not a broker.

That’s pretty much it.

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