Coming to a decision regarding which prop trading firm to work with can be extremely difficult as this information is not easily available. This article brings all of it together in an easy-to-read manner and will make your decision easy for you.
Whether it is the higher profit-sharing ratio that matters to you or the variety of trading instruments, you will find your answer by the end of this article.
Both FTMO and The Prop Trading will require your identity documents after you pass the evaluation challenge and want to get access to the live-funded account.
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FTMO vs The Prop Trading: Trading Instruments
FTMO has one of the more complete repertoires when it comes to offering trading instruments. You can trade metals, indices, commodities, foreign exchange pairs, bonds, and cryptocurrencies.
With The Prop Trading, you can trade every instrument available on the MetaTrader 5 platform, which includes forex pairs, indices, metals, commodities, cryptocurrencies, and stocks.
FTMO vs The Prop Trading: Account Types and Maximum Account Size
FTMO has one evaluation account with Normal and Aggressive variants. On completing the evaluation, you can choose to have access to the Normal or Swing FTMO-funded account.
The Swing account gives perks that make the trading journey easier for swing traders, as you are allowed to hold your trading positions overnight, over the weekend, or while macroeconomic news is being released.
The maximum account size on the platform after finishing the two-phase evaluation starts at $200,000 but with the scaling plan, you can increase this capital to $400,000. There is no more growth after this as the $400,000 is a hard cap placed by the firm.
The Prop Trading has only one type of account, just like FTMO, where you have to pass a two-step evaluation challenge to access the Funded Account and start working on earning profits and scaling your account up.
It will cost you a one-time refundable fee of $209 for $25,000 in trading capital, and you can go up to a maximum of $400,000 in capital for a one-time refundable fee of $1,898. There are also Islamic/swap-free accounts available on the platform, and you can request the same once you pass the evaluation.
The initial maximum account size is $400,000, but there is no upper limit on how much you can grow this account as per the scaling plan.
100k Account Challenge / Evaluation Prices and Period
FTMO gives you an account with a $100,000 trading balance, and this will cost you €540 for the Normal variant and €1,080 for the Aggressive one. Phase 1 of the two-phase challenge is 30 days long, and Phase 2 lasts for 60 days.
On passing the challenge without breaking any of the other rules, you are given access to the live-funded account with $100,000 in trading funds.
With The Prop Trading’s $100,000 account of the trading evaluation challenge, the first phase lasts for 30 days, and the second phase gives you 60 days to reach your profit target.
For a one-time refundable fee of $499, you can get access to this account, and the refund of the fee will be processed along with your first payout on the Funded account.
In the case that you are at the end of Phase 1, have not violated any rules, and your account equity is still more than the initial balance, you are eligible for 2 retries free of charge. This option is not available after you have completed Phase 1 successfully.
FTMO vs The Prop Trading: 100k Account: Challenge Rules
FTMO’s Normal variant has 10 minimum trading days in Phase 1 to get to your 10% profit target, and the same minimum number of trading days in Phase 2 to achieve the 5% target.
With the Aggressive variant, you have the same 10 minimum trading days, and the same number of days to achieve the profit target, but the marks are doubled to 20% in Phase 1, and 10% in Phase 2.
For the Evaluation Challenge put forward by The Prop Trading, you must earn a profit of 8% in Phase 1, and 5% in Phase 2 without breaking any of the other rules. There are no rules for a minimum number of trading days.
You are also allowed to trade the release of news, and you can hold positions over the weekend with the exception of cryptocurrencies, stocks, copper, NATGAS, OILUSD, UKOIL, and USD.X.
Furthermore, there are no restrictions on the lot size with any of the accounts, including ones in Phase 1, Phase 2, or the Funded Account. Also, you can have any number of accounts if they are traded independently, and hedging is also allowed in all phases of the program.
FTMO vs The Prop Trading: Profit Sharing Ratio
FTMO shares most of the profits (80%) with you off the bat and keeps only 20% of the share. If you keep doing well within the platform’s rules, this ratio can increase to 90% in your favour as well.
Prop Trading offers a singular profit-sharing ratio of 80% in your favour. This ratio does not increase with your scaling plan.
If you do want to grow your account exponentially, TPT has an offering where the platform will not take its share of the profits (20%) if you do not withdraw your own share (80%). This will help your account grow faster, which is what they want to do for their traders.
FTMO vs The Prop Trading: Scaling Plan
FTMO needs you to get to your 10% profit target to be eligible for their scaling plan, where the platform will increase your trading balance by 25% every four months when your account is reviewed.
The scaling plan is only applicable up to $400,000, which is FTMO’s hard cap, and you should have processed at least two payouts in these four months.
The Prop Trading makes sure to review all their accounts every three months for any that might be eligible for an extra capital allocation of 25%.
For the scaling plan to take effect on your account, you should have made a profit of 6% in the last three months, or an average growth of 2% per month, and two out of these months should have the account in profit.
As is obvious, your account balance at the time of review must be higher than the initial balance, and you should not have made any withdrawals during this time.
Once the review is completed, and the extra capital has been allocated, you can pay yourself the profits and build towards the next three-month cycle for further scaling.
Allowed Leverage, Max Daily Drawdown, and Total Drawdown
FTMO’s Normal variant has allowed leverage of 100x, a maximum daily loss of 5%, and a 10% total loss of the initial trading capital.
For the Aggressive variant, the maximum allowed leverage stays the same at 100x, but the maximum daily loss and total loss are doubled to 10% and 20%, respectively.
This drawdown is calculated as the sum of the positions closed during the day added to the current PNL of the positions still open at the end of the day.
The Prop Trading’s trading accounts and allowed instruments can be traded with a maximum leverage of 100x, super low spreads of 0.5 pip, and no commissions and brokerage fees.
The maximum daily loss allowed on the account is 5%, and the maximum drawdown during the Evaluation program is 10%.
FTMO vs The Prop Trading: Trading Hours
FTMO’s trading hours are determined by the kind of account you have. When you are in the challenge’s Verification or Challenge Phase, you can hold positions during news releases, over the weekend, or overnight.
Once you have passed the challenge and decided between the Normal FTMO-funded account or the Swing FTMO account, you have to stick to the rules as dictated by the chosen plan.
The Normal FTMO-funded account will require its users to not have any positions going into the weekend, or if the rollover time is longer than two hours.
With the Swing FTMO Account, you don’t have to close your positions overnight, over the weekend, or during the release of the news.
The Prop Trading allows trading hours as they are on MetaTrader 5 and depend on the markets being traded. As most forex pairs are traded 24 hours a day during the week, you are allowed to trade from Monday morning at 8 am (local time in Sydney, Australia) to Friday afternoon at 4 pm (local time in New York).
Trading of Crypto CFDs follows the above hours, while CFDs for Indices will depend on the market you are trading.
FTMO vs The Prop Trading: Payout/Payment methods
FTMO will pay you on a day that is chosen by you. This day is called Profit Split day and will make sure that you get paid on the same day every week. You are only eligible to be paid out once your funded account is more than 14 days old.
When you want to be paid out for your trading efforts with The Prop Trading, you must wait a minimum of 30 days after you start trading.
When you make a request, you need to have a minimum of 10 trading days, be flat in all your positions, have no violations on the account, and the current balance must be above the initial account balance.
After your first withdrawal, you are allowed to withdraw biweekly and have 5 minimum trading days in addition to the other rules mentioned for the first withdrawal. Your requests can be processed either via Bank Wire Transfer, or you can choose to be paid in cryptos like Bitcoin, Ethereum, or USDT.
FTMO vs The Prop Trading: Allowed EAs and Rules
FTMO allows you to use EAs and discretionary bots both during the challenge and after you have access to a funded account.
A trading account on The Prop Trading is allowed to use EAs that you have created by yourself. But you must be careful of EAs that are commercially available as another trader may use it for their account, and this will breach TPT’s copy trading rule.
A trade copier is allowed in principle, but it only works if you copy trades from your external account to a TPT account.
You can violate rules even if you copy these trades to two of your accounts. These decisions are taken in the favor of risk diversification which works in favour of the prop trading platform.
FTMO vs The Prop Trading: Trading Platforms
FTMO allows its traders to use Meta Trader 4, Meta Trader 5, or cTrader as per their preference.
The Evaluation and Funded Accounts on The Prop Trading are on the MetaTrader 5 Demo Account – Hedge. The live market data here comes from their server location in New York.
Conclusion
If you want a lot of growth in trading capital and you are confident you can achieve it, you should choose The Prop Trading over FTMO as there is no upper cap on their scaling plan, and FTMO has a hard cap on their scaling plan at $400,000.
On the other hand, FTMO wins over The Prop Trading with the available trading platforms as TPT only allows you to trade on Meta Trader 5 Demo Account – Hedge.
TPT’s scaling plan is marginally quicker as it takes three months to grow 25%, whereas FTMO takes four months to increase your trading balance by 25%.
This article should give you enough information to make an informed decision regarding which of these platforms deserves your money.
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