FTMO

1. FTMO review rules and trading conditions

We examined the rules and trading conditions and were surprised by the strictness and level of difficulty a trader must face in order to receive a pay-out. The Challenge and Verification phases include tasks geared particularly toward identifying potential in traders, as well as account analysis with performance coaches who provide guidance along your journey and help develop strengths as needed or until the trader reaches the profit targets.

After successfully completing the training, Forex traders are offered a position at FTMO Proprietary Trading firm. They can manage up to $400K USD remotely over two passed accounts, all while keeping up to 90% of the profits. We believe that FTMO are better suited to advanced Forex traders that trade intraday or very short-term movements.

2. The FTMO challenge

Before proceeding to the verification stage, Forex traders must complete the first stage of their evaluation process. According to our FTMO review, this prop firm has strict guidelines that Forex traders must follow, such as reasonable rules with balanced profit expectations and drawdown. We believe to successfully pass this challenge you must have skills in risk management as well in day trading environments. The FTMO Challenge Trading Objectives will be met as soon as you reach your 10th day trading with a profit objective met.

After thirty-one days, you advance to the verification stage. This is a slight disadvantage to the trader, as the prop firm world has progressed with firms like Forex Traders UK and The5%ers eliminating any minimum trading day rule. This freedom allows the Forex trader to manage their own work without boundaries to accessing rewards.

3. Verification

The second and final stage of the FTMO evaluation process is verification. In this stage, you will be tested on the strength of your personal Forex trading system. The Profit Target has been reduced from 10% down to 5%, and traders have 60 calendar days to meet the profit target. Once it has been met, you will become an FTMO trader and start trading on live capital.

Essentially, when you pass the FTMO challenge, you will have access to the same amount of capital as in your previous challenge and verification demo accounts. When you sign up to become an FTMO trader, you will be provided with a demo account containing virtual funds.

The Proprietary Trading Firm’s live trading account, connected to this proprietary firm, is what generates real profits and provides traders with up to 90% of those profits. FTMO challenges do not include upgrading options, so you must choose the appropriate account size long-term when initially signing up.

4. Trading rules and environment

It is important for firms to manage daily risk before trading in a proprietary firm. For this reason, the Forex trading objectives are very stringent when set for the trader. To prove your abilities in these areas, it’s imperative that Forex traders consider all aspects, including setting limits on instruments, position size trading, and maintaining discipline.

FTMO uses not only a minimum trading day rule of 10 days, but the also a daily loss metric to cap the Forex trader at a maximum daily loss at the start of every day. Essentially, all open trades and closed trades should not meet the determined daily loss limit.

While this does provide the prop firm with security, it eliminates the buffer that typically allows a trader any downswing. In Forex, we all know how easy it can be to lose five trades in a row while following any strategy. This disadvantage is a feature that really puts us off this prop firm.

5. Profit target

Looking at the profit target, we see 10% on the standard challenge which appears reasonable with the 5% max drawdown. With the funding amounts in addition to all other considerations, this prop firm hasn’t updated their rules in many years. They have dominated the top position within this field and have a good reputation for paying traders.

Whether we think all the rules are fair is another story. Trading rules and conditions set by the prop firm should help the trader to focus on risk management and growth, but there seems to be a lot that can go wrong with FTMO. A forex trader is at a disadvantage beginning on a demo account when it can take many months to trade live.

6. Pay-out time

You might be wondering; how does a Forex trader know when their profit split is completed? The account profits are distributed monthly, and this information will appear in your Account Metrix when you are eligible for a pay-out.

FTMO does have simple invoicing options, which you will receive via email. From YouTube video reviews and various other online reviews, we can conclude that pay-outs are an easy process when the trader has made a profit on a live account.

7. Withdrawals

There won’t be any commissions charged for withdrawals. Withdrawal amounts are sent via bank wire transfer or Skrill, both of which take 1–2 business days to process upon FTMO receiving Invoice approval. Most Forex traders on Trustpilot have said the average pay-out is within 5 working days after your trades are closed.

8. Unique features

Even though competitors like My Forex Funds offer the same types of services for less money, we’ve found during our FTMO review that FTMO customer service is quite efficient through live chat and via email. They have always been able to handle our questions and are often very helpful.

The most unique feature is the branding and quality of their interface. When using a website and dashboard like FTMO’s, you really get a sense of professionalism that can be missed in other prop firms. It is a nice place to work with lots of tools and content to discover.

Even though FTMO was founded many years ago before the Forex crowd, they have been updating the leader board frequently and displaying some big individual profits which can be inspirational for beginner traders.

The nature of trading a prop account is that without tools, knowledge, and discipline, the odds are stacked against you, but FTMO has made an effort to make it easier to learn fresh and relevant concepts in trading.

9. Customer care

FTMO offers Forex traders access to an in-house trading psychologist who can help them achieve success by providing tools such as fundamental analysis, technical research reports (that seems to be updated daily), account metrics, data analytics, etcetera – all at your fingertips.

Tools help to grow confidence in Forex traders who trade for this prop firm. It’s the little things like this that show how they are going above and beyond to support their traders. Practicality is something we very much like to see and could explain why they are the most respected online firm with a huge social media presence.

10. Forex trader support

FTMO is a prop firm that aims to help Forex traders succeed. For this reason, they have developed several tools for the trader’s benefit including tutorials on how best to improve one’s Forex trading strategy as well as what not do in certain situations.

They have built a stats application with live account metrics, helping the trader to keep track of their work. There are other offerings on the dashboard such as a trade journal and tools like equity simulators to help calculate risk management in specific situations.