The Funded Trader

This may not be a popular opinion because The Funded Trader is heavily promoted. Some prop funds create hidden rules designed to make you fail and others manipulate market conditions and call it “simulating live conditions.” Many new prop funds are cropping up, backed by Eightcap, but what few realize is the Eightcap backend for prop firms has a fully customizable suite of tools to control market conditions. They have the ability to adjust slippage based on the lot size traded, apply slippage only in phase two or the live account, among other things.

TFT admits on their website that the account is completely simulated, it is not backed by actual broker data and not even a demo account. It is 100% simulated.

They admit that it is a fully simulated account, meaning that while the market quotes, or the prices of the instruments, comes from a broker, everything else is simulated by them. They control slippage, fills, and everything in between. It makes more sense that their website is designed like they are an MMO. It’ is all a’s essentially a game. “But, aren’t all prop firms simulated trading?” FTMO states on their website, “all trading via the FTMO platform is simulated only, with fictitious capital.” This is completely different from simulating market conditions. Ohh, kudos if you caught the part where they mention selling your data to other firms. Just in case there is any doubt they “simulate” real market conditions, whatever that even means.

Concerns

1. Simulated slippage – Because trading and market conditions are simulated TFT controls your slippage. This is a conflict of interest and a huge concern.
2. Eightcap commissions/spreads are mediocre – Commissions are just shy of double that of The 5ers and among the highest you can pay. Spreads overall on Eightcap aren’t terrible in and of themselves but Eightcap allows the prop firm to adjust these as well.
3. Most large payouts get “investigated” – Almost any payout over $5,000 gets flagged for investigation where they look for any possible way to refuse payment. We have tried many prop firms, even new prop firms like Crypto Fund Trader, and most payout unless there is a true violation. Many users have reported that TFT excuses them of letting others trade their account, just because they trade on multiple devices.
4. Drawdown is dynamic and trailing – When trading futures with a prop firm, there are no options for a static drawdown, but in forex, there are many options. There is no reason to choose a prop firm that has a dynamic drawdown.
5. Free trial – Has different conditions than challenges or funded accounts. For instance, free trial drawdown is static and does not move. Challenge accounts/funded accounts drawdown is dynamic and moves. This is unacceptable and deceptive!
6. Other crazy rules – Such as not being allowed to use a simple trade manager, lot size calculator, or technical analysis indicators unless you pay them for the “EA addon,” which is pure nonsense. It is one thing to limit EAs that trade, quite another to fleece a customer who simply wants to use a lot size calculator.

When there are so many things going against a prop firm it is hard to even consider any potential pros. When a chat rep was asked about one of their confusing rules “use of guarantee of compliance” the chat rep had no idea what it meant and asked for screenshots. If their employees don’t even know what their rules are or mean, how can they expect traders to? Near as I can tell the rule means, in simple language, “we manipulate the market through simulation, if somehow you find a way to take advantage of our simulation that is prohibited”

The Funded Trader Challenges

The Funded Trader offers six different challenges, each with varying profit/loss targets, different phases, and the option for you to purchase the ability to copy trade, use EAs, and other gimmicks. We will give you images showing the difference challenges then key points to be aware of.

Standard Challenge

• Entry cost: $65 for $5k in funding. Challenge fee is refunded upon passing, if you become eligible for a payout. Essentially, the challenge is free if you succeed.
  Other funding option for standard challenge:
  $10k for $129 per month, $25k for $199 per month, $50k for $299 per month, $100k for $499 per month, 200k for $939, 300k for $1469, and 400k for $1879.
• Challenge: Two-step program requiring 10% profit in step 1 and 5% profit in step 2, with max dynamic trailing loss of 10% and max daily loss of 5%.
• Max Drawdown: Dynamic 10% based on equity or account balance, whichever is greater, at 5pm EST
• Max Daily Drawdown: They claim it is based on initial account balance but their example shows it to be dynamic.
• Leverage:

Challenge Type	Account type	Phase	Forex	Gold & Commodities	Indices	Crypto
Standard Challenge	Regular	Challenge	1:200	1:30	1:20	1:2
	Regular	Simulated Funded	1:100	1:30	1:20	1:1
	Swing	Challenge	1:60	1:20	1:5	1:1
	Swing	Simulated Funded	1:30	1:10	1:5	1:1

• Minimum of 3 Trading Days required to pass. These days do not all have to be profitable, however. You can open a 0.1 lot trade to count as a trading day
• No time limit to complete challenge, take as long as you need. But you must login at least once every 30-days or you will lose your account.
• News trading is only allowed in the challenges. Once you are funded, you are not allowed to trade within 2 minutes of a news announcement, including take profit/stop loss triggers. You can pay more for the swing account to avoid this.
• Weekend holding of trades is only allowed if you choose the Swing Trading option when paying for your challenge. The regular standard challenge does not allow weekend holding
• Stop loss is not required
• Scaling plan: If you can generate 10% each month for four months straight, you will be eligible for a 25% increase in capital

Rapid Challenge (2-step program)

• Entry cost: $79 for $5k in funding. Challenge fee is refunded upon passing, if you become eligible for a payout. Essentially, the challenge is free if you succeed.
  Other funding option for standard challenge:
  $10k for $129 per month, $25k for $229 per month, $50k for $299 per month, $100k for $499 per month, and 200k for $899.
• Challenge: Two-step program requiring 8% profit in step 1 and 5% profit in step 2, with max dynamic trailing loss of 8% and max daily loss of 5%.
• Max Drawdown: Dynamic 10% based on account balance, whichever is greater, at 5pm EST
• Max Daily Drawdown: They claim it is based on initial account balance but their example shows it to be dynamic.
• Leverage:

Challenge Type	Account type	Phase	Forex	Gold & Commodities	Indices	Crypto
Rapid Challenge	Regular	Challenge	1:100	1:30	1:20	1:2
	Regular	Simulated Funded	1:100	1:30	1:20	1:1
	Swing	Challenge	1:30	1:10	1:5	1:1
	Swing	Simulated Funded	1:30	1:10	1:5	1:1

• No minimum trading days needed
• No time limit to complete challenge, take as long as you need. But you must login at least once every 30-days or you will lose your account.
• News trading is only allowed in the challenges. Once you are funded, you are not allowed to trade within 2 minutes of a news announcement, including take profit/stop loss triggers. You can pay more for the swing account to avoid this.
• Weekend holding of trades is only allowed if you choose the Swing Trading option when paying for your challenge. The regular Rapid Challenge does not allow weekend holding
• Stop loss is not required
• Scaling plan: If you can generate over 10% in profit and request a profit split, where the split equals at least 10% of initial demo balance, then you will receive an additional 10% added to your account to trade with. This is a really lame scaling plan considering The 5ers will double your account.

If you’re looking for a prop fund that doesn’t have five thousand hidden rules, insane slippage, and terrible payout history we highly recommend The 5ers which is honest, has an amazing scaling plan, and pays out.

Fees and Spreads

The Funded Trader uses Eightcap, Purple Trading, and ThinkMarkets as their source for market data.

Spreads

ThinkMarket is probably the best of the three in terms of spreads.

Average spreads during normal trading hours

Average Spreads from 4-6PM EST

Trading Commissions

• Forex: Commission is $7 / lot round trip which is almost double FTMO or The 5ers
• Metals: Commission is $3 / lot round trip
• Indices: ZERO Commissions
• Crypto: ZERO Commissions
• Oil: ZERO Commissions

Prop Fund Fees

The Funded Trader does not charge any fees apart from the evaluation/challenge cost. Because you can only withdraw in Crypto now, there are fees associated with the crypto withdrawal.

Verdict

The Funded Trader has been weighed in the balances and found wanting. This firm has a tarnished history of failing to pay out large profit shares. Their spreads are, at best, mediocre, and when combined with “simulated” slippage — in reality, a form of controlled opposition — they stack the deck against you. We cannot endorse this firm. The judgment is in: risky choice, benefits clearly do not outweigh risk.