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FTMO - For serious traders

  • #2,161
  • Jul 6, 2020 3:32am Jul 6, 2020 3:32am
Also note that...
whether FTMO/any prop firm executes my signals in real accounts or not is never going to be my concern...
all I care is, are they paying me as signed in the contract for the profit made in my account...whether demo or real.
at the end of the trading period, that is what matters.
Determination + Persistence = Success
  • #2,162
  • Edited 3:53am Jul 6, 2020 3:41am | Edited 3:53am
watch the excitement in her eyes...she is not faking it...if anyone thinks she is fake, damn, there is some serious work to do.
that is real excitement that she found a way which works for her.

traders like her, inspire me.

Inserted Video
Determination + Persistence = Success
  • #2,163
  • Jul 6, 2020 5:24am Jul 6, 2020 5:24am
Quoting ia1979
{quote} I was meaning 2 people could manage 600k between them, and use different strategies. But it would be a true partnership, so both profits and losses would have to be split. That way even if 1 person managed to blow up one set of 300k, the partnership still has another 300k running and albeit profits would get smaller, you remain in the game so to speak. And then you can do your tests again. Or you can just do what SKLearn has done and have a 200k account, and a 100k account. My thinking was 2 heads are better than one. Horses for courses...
I see what you are getting at here.

It's a possible approach but you would need to find an equally talented trader with a very different strategy.

Finding such a trader might be quite difficult since most are out for themselves.

This approach could then progress into several talented traders all sharing in the profits and losses across the board.

I can see where this leads too ...

Masterrmind.........
Master your Mind then Master your Trades
  • #2,164
  • Jul 6, 2020 5:32am Jul 6, 2020 5:32am
Yes naturally we don't know, nor does anyone except them, what exactly their business model is. Of course they must have their own live account/s. These guys have their own in-house traders and possibly they also somehow harvest the best trades from those like SKLearn who appear to be very good traders. It could very well be a mixture of challenge fees and profits from a live trading account.

Anyway guys - for those still in the game, obviously it doesn't matter where the money comes from as long as it keeps coming!

Good Luck
  • #2,165
  • Edited 5:48am Jul 6, 2020 5:36am | Edited 5:48am
Quoting SKLearn
watch the excitement in her eyes...she is not faking it...if anyone thinks she is fake, damn, there is some serious work to do. that is real excitement that she found a way which works for her. traders like her, inspire me. https://youtu.be/JQamZENfwYc
It looks real mate - for sure

But really the proof of the pudding will be in your own experience right? Do keep us informed of your funded account progress over the next few months. That will be the acid test!
  • #2,166
  • Jul 6, 2020 5:51am Jul 6, 2020 5:51am
Quoting Mtinifx
{quote} It looks real mate - for sure But really the proof of the pudding will be in your own experience right? Do keep us informed of your funded account progress over the next few months. That will be the acid test!
yeah...will update.
Determination + Persistence = Success
  • #2,167
  • Jul 6, 2020 6:10am Jul 6, 2020 6:10am
Quoting newegg
{quote} you are conflating issues. They will let traders manage a demo account but that should be mirroring on some real account with some funds of some sort. The reason for the demo account is because of regulation. They are not brokers and don't have the license for that and i believe assigning demo account to traders who pass the challenge is a way to stay within their regulatory limits. But surely, those trades are mirrored in some real accounts with some funds to cover the cost of paying profits, I believe. Unless of course you mean there's...
Think about the assumed number of funded traders such as 1200+ which has been floating around.

Not all will be 100k accounts but my guess would be that sooner or later the very good traders would jump up to 100k accounts and beyond.

It's not hard to then imagine that maybe 50% of these funded accounts are at least $100,000.

So let's assume the following scenario:

600 funded accounts at $100,000 = $60,000,000

400 funded accounts at $50,000 = $20,000,000

200 funded accounts at $25,000 = $5,000,000

That's $85,000,000 right ?

I have neglected funded accounts less than 25k for this scenario.

Recall that FTMO has mentioned that they have plenty of capital for funding and it's not unreasonable to imagine that they might have over $100,000,000 in the kitty.

With this sought of capital a brokerage firm could easily be bought anywhere in the world including the USA.

There could be many reasons for buying a brokerage or not buying a brokerage.

Whilst many more scenarios can be run with different outcomes, one thing is clear, millions of dollars must be available.

Most would stop thinking at this point.

The smarter ones would start analysing different business models that could somehow offer up the enormous funding whilst minimizing risk.

Hint: Leverage .....

Good trading,

Masterrmind..........
Master your Mind then Master your Trades
  • #2,168
  • Jul 6, 2020 6:45am Jul 6, 2020 6:45am
whiles I believe FTMO has a skin in the game (as obvious from my previous comment), I highly doubt they are running their business with $100,00,000. Nowhere close, I can bet on that.

They don't need to set up $100,000 account for each trader trading that account size when their exposure is limited to 10% of that. I'm very sure this is obviously part of the reason successful applicants still manage a demo account.

10 traders managing $100k account requires a maximum exposure of $100k on the part of FTMO not $1m. And that is even assuming they all lose $10k within the same period.

So it's even possible that 20 traders managing $100k accounts are only trading within a $100,000 fund where their traders are mirrored. some will be making profit, others will be losing.

If i think about it further, there are ways to have even more $100k account managers beyond 20 managing a single actual $100k fund but let me leave that for now.

So it's possible FTMO is running a multi million dollar business but nowhere near $100m. I highly doubt that.
That doesn't diminish the relevance of what they are doing in anyway though.
  • #2,169
  • Jul 6, 2020 6:52am Jul 6, 2020 6:52am
There are professional traders and there are retail traders.
There are professional prop firms and there are retail prop firms.

FTMO is retail prop firm. Their business structure is very smart. There are so many ways they could use to monetize it. We only know what they do by what they say. That is not being fully transparent. Has anyone seen proof that 100% of trades are copied to real accounts? That is kept as internal confidential information.

One thing that no one is really talking about is that traders are losing IP (Intellectual Property) when trading with retail prop firm. If they are smart, they will take advantage of IP from profitable traders and use it for trading on the side. If they are honest, they will never exploit it.

But, as it was mentioned, many traders do not care what FTMO does with their IP. All they care about is that they get paid.

I hope that FTMO is honest business and does not use other ways (exploit IP, rebates,...) to monetize their funded traders.

I would like to see much more investment into their services/website. They easily made over a million euros from failed Challenges last year and this year it will be probably much more.

Still, it is good stepping stone for traders who are already profitable, run low on funds, do not mind giving away their IP and do not care trading with demo accounts.
For traders who want to protect their IP, there are other options available.

FTMO, I am not sure what information you want to keep confidential and what you are free to release, but I will still ask.
How many traders failed Challenge in the first 6 months of 2020?
What is % success rate of getting funded in the same time period?
What is total of failed Challenges in the same time period?
How many funded traders are there currently?

I liked your video about mistakes traders make during Challenge. Maybe you could create more videos like that to prevent 100s or even 1000s of failed Challenges. Greed is very strong emotion for many young people so I guess you don't have to worry about collecting fees from failed Challenges.

Quoting newegg
whiles I believe FTMO has a skin in the game (as obvious from my previous comment), I highly doubt they are running their business with $100,00,000. Nowhere close, I can bet on that. They don't need to set up $100,000 account for each trader trading that account size when their exposure is limited to 10% of that. I'm very sure this is obviously part of the reason successful applicants still manage a demo account. 10 traders managing $100k account requires a maximum exposure of $100k on the part of FTMO not $1m. And that is even assuming they all...
Good point. If I was owner I would maybe put only 20K into live account for each 100K demo account. You're risking 10K and having 20K is enough to handle trade sizes of 100K account using 500:1 leverage.
So you need 5 times less live funds. And this way you also protect your live funds just in case some crazy black swan event happened.
  • #2,170
  • Jul 6, 2020 7:27am Jul 6, 2020 7:27am
Quoting renko4x
There are professional traders and there are retail traders. There are professional prop firms and there are retail prop firms. FTMO is retail prop firm. Their business structure is very smart. There are so many ways they could use to monetize it. We only know what they do by what they say. That is not being fully transparent. Has anyone seen proof that 100% of trades are copied to real accounts? That is kept as internal confidential information. One thing that no one is really talking about is that traders are losing IP (Intellectual Property)...
You ask some good questions but I think those are questions any business will like to keep for themselves. Putting out such data could easily spawn new competitors that would erode the gains they've made on the market. I think they should be allowed to have some business secrets.

There are companies that refuse to go public solely because of the standard of reporting for public companies. Not because they're doing something bad, but because it will cause them to share market insights that took them years and lots of money to get.

As far as rebate is concerned, I'm pretty sure they earn rebate from brokers if traders sign up with their links. I've seen a referral link in a trader metrix someone shared. But is it unethical? If one is going to sign up anyway, then there's nothing wrong with FTMO benefiting from it if they are the IB.
  • #2,171
  • Jul 6, 2020 7:54am Jul 6, 2020 7:54am
Quoting renko4x
There are professional traders and there are retail traders. There are professional prop firms and there are retail prop firms. FTMO is retail prop firm. Their business structure is very smart. There are so many ways they could use to monetize it. We only know what they do by what they say. That is not being fully transparent. Has anyone seen proof that 100% of trades are copied to real accounts? That is kept as internal confidential information. One thing that no one is really talking about is that traders are losing IP (Intellectual Property)...
Well for 2019 92% failed the challenge. This is according to the CEO on a youtube video. I posted this few pages back.

"So according to FTMO by the end of 2019 alone it funded 275 people which represents 8% of the people and the rest 92% lost.
Quick Maths 3437 x 8% = 275
Number of people who lost the challenges 3437-275 = 3162
Assuming that everyone took the cheapest challenge which is = €155 3162 x 155 = € 490,110.
So thats the minimum Earnings for 2019.
Till End of April'20 it had funded 661 traders"

So in a way the people losing are financing the funded traders

Quoting horvat
So according to FTMO by the end of 2019 alone it funded 275 people which represents 8% of the people and the rest 92% lost. Quick Maths 3437 x 8% = 275 Number of people who lost the challenges 3437-275 = 3162 Assuming that everyone took the cheapest challenge which is = €155 3162 x 155 = € 490,110. So thats the minimum Earnings for 2019. Till End of April'20 it had funded 661 traders
Your salary is the bribe they give you to forget your dreams
  • #2,172
  • Jul 6, 2020 8:04am Jul 6, 2020 8:04am
Quoting horvat
{quote} Well for 2019 92% failed the challenge. This is according to the CEO on a youtube video. I posted this few pages back. "So according to FTMO by the end of 2019 alone it funded 275 people which represents 8% of the people and the rest 92% lost. Quick Maths 3437 x 8% = 275 Number of people who lost the challenges 3437-275 = 3162 Assuming that everyone took the cheapest challenge which is = €155 3162 x 155 = € 490,110. So thats the minimum Earnings for 2019. Till End of April'20 it had funded 661 traders" So in a way the people losing are financing...
Some traders failed 3 or more Challenges. And some Funded traders failed few Challenges too before they got funded.
So my estimate of 1 million is very conservative. But I guess it is irrelevant to a trader to know that.
It's up to them how much transparency they show and how much transparency a trader needs to join them.

I do not agree with this - So in a way the people losing are financing the funded traders.
You do not take into consideration that they have business expenses, payroll, service improvement investments, etc..
All you can say is that we don't know if they use some of fees collected to pay traders. And we'll never know coz that would be confidential information.
  • #2,173
  • Jul 6, 2020 8:14am Jul 6, 2020 8:14am
Quoting newegg
whiles I believe FTMO has a skin in the game (as obvious from my previous comment), I highly doubt they are running their business with $100,00,000. Nowhere close, I can bet on that. They don't need to set up $100,000 account for each trader trading that account size when their exposure is limited to 10% of that. I'm very sure this is obviously part of the reason successful applicants still manage a demo account. 10 traders managing $100k account requires a maximum exposure of $100k on the part of FTMO not $1m. And that is even assuming they all...
Yes now you are getting there.

I agree, highly unlikely that 100M is on the line.

Leverage and the business model are a big part of minimizing the operating funds.

In any case, from a retail traders perspective as long as you keep getting the profit share then how they run their business model should not be of any major concern but it is an interesting discussion.

Masterrmind ..........
Master your Mind then Master your Trades
  • #2,174
  • Jul 6, 2020 8:18am Jul 6, 2020 8:18am
EUR is making a strong Candlestick pattern in Heiken Ashi scanner code.
Attached Image (click to enlarge)
Click to Enlarge Name: hai analysis 06-07-2020 - HEIKEN ASHI SCANNER.png Size: 58 KB
  • #2,175
  • Jul 6, 2020 8:23am Jul 6, 2020 8:23am
Quoting Xbeast
EUR is making a strong Candlestick pattern in Heiken Ashi scanner code. {image}
don't you love spammers on FF?
  • #2,176
  • Jul 6, 2020 8:26am Jul 6, 2020 8:26am
Quoting renko4x
{quote} don't you love spammers on FF?
What you means?
  • #2,177
  • Jul 6, 2020 8:29am Jul 6, 2020 8:29am
Only thing I find weird is that both FF Trader.SRO & FTMO Evaluation SRO are companies incorporated on ridiculous asset amounts:

FF Trader s.r.o. ZCK (…2015) – capital: 3000 CZK (US$127)
FTMO Evaluation Global sro (6/2/2020) – capital: 10K CZK ($425)
FTMO Evaluation US sro (6/2/2020) – capital: 10K CZK ($425)

See here: https://rejstrik-firem.kurzy.cz/osoba/2715476/
(check language, use browser translation tool)
  • #2,178
  • Jul 6, 2020 8:38am Jul 6, 2020 8:38am
Hello Traders,
Firstly, Thank you to Swing4Fence and ChilledT for the nice words about us. We try hard and it is always nice to get some recognition.
Congratulations to Swing4Fence on becoming FTMO Trader! As it was mentioned here, if you wanted to be interviewed let us know!

Quoting Ak386
Tomas You are right, sometimes it is saturating the system, it takes time to update, as a suggestion you can eliminate all the inactive or previous demo. FTMO I have a question, when I pay a challenge how many time do I have to start to trade?

Hi Ak386,
Thanks for the suggestion, our system does disconnect from the accounts once their set time limit is reached.
As you also wrote another post asking about the 10 days etc. I will clarify to time restriction conditions for the Challenge.
Once we receive the payment for the Challenge, we send you login credentials. We have no time limit to start the Challenge after purchase. Mizi’s answer that you have 48 hours to start trading is not correct. It would be automatically deactivated after 40 days, but we could reactivate it upon request again. The Challenge is activated by the first executed trade and you have 30 days from that day to complete the Trading Objectives.
The Minimum Trading Days is one of these objectives and states that you have to open a position on at least 10 days. Pl https://ftmo.com/en/welcome/#minimum-trading-days


Quoting renko4x
Hi Tomas, I like AxiTrader. Just did quick look at broker comparison on myfxbook. What about FPMarkets? They have definitely lower spreads than many of your current brokers. Their reviews on TrustPilot are excellent, even better than IC Markets. I may consider opening live account with them. Can you explain what is the point of keeping Blackwell or BOSSA? They have horrible spreads and overall costs are huge for majors; 2.5pips on AUDUSD (don't even want to know what spreads are on GBPAUD and GBPNZD). My guess is that less than 1% of traders choose...


Hello Renko4x,
Thank you for your suggestions. I will take it to the management


Quoting Ak386
FTMO you are going to have to buy servers, it no longer updates every 10 minutes as you say. There are several better brokers than the ones they have in FTMO, like TICMILL {image}

Hi AK386,
We are adding more servers every week. 99% of accounts should be updated regularly within 10 minutes, but there can be few cases every now and then when the update takes longer. If you experience that, please report it to us through https://ftmo.com/en/report-issue/#toggle-id-1
I will take your broker list to the management. Thank you for that.
Quoting ricki72
Is there anybody from Germany (and living in Germany) trading for FTMO?

Hello Ricki72,
We have quite a few FTMO Traders from Germany.
I have not checked but assume there might be some German thread out there if you google it.

Quoting Phylo
{quote} Please review the below images - this was addressed at length before (below link) and FTMO is familiar with the problem. {image} {image}The current exchange rate GER30.lmax and DAX.lmax (EUR) against deposit currency USD -> USD:EUR - 1:1.11954 or 1.11954 tv not USD:USD - 1:1 or 1.00000 tv. Therefore the calculation in the image should be 1.00 lots x 10 points x 1.11954 tv = USD 11.1954 = USD 11.20 not USD 10.00 Note: the indicator tool used in the image automatically determined the deposit currency (in this instance USD) and the broker allocated...

Hi Phylo,
Please be aware that the tick value is measured in the margin currency. You can see in the specification of the DAX.lmax_m that the Margin currency is EUR. The tick value is correctly specified as 1 since 1 tick movement results in 1 EUR P/L. Should you have any more concerns, feel free to contact us at [email protected] where we can provide an answer for you in a more timely manner.

Quoting doji
Hi, Swing. Are you saying you've passed both the Challenge and Verification stages for all your three $100 k accounts? If so, congrats! That's no mean feat. Are they going to interview you? They should, imo, since that's a first (if I'm not mistaken). Do continue to keep us posted, ok?

Hi Doji,
We have many Traders with $300k FTMO Accounts already. Absolute most of our FTMO Traders prefer to stay in the shadow and maintain their privacy though.

Quoting eztrader1
BASIS trading buying SPOT and selling FUTURES or vv is a highly risk controlled strategy is it ALLOWED on FTMO ??? which FTMO brokers offer SPOT AND FUTURES contracts???

Hello Eztrader,
The rules set for our traders are defined in the Trading objectives (https://ftmo.com/en/welcome/#objectives) and they also have to trade according to a real market(https://ftmo.com/en/faq/what-is-trad...a-real-market/). We have no other limitations for the traders. As for our partnered brokers, you can find them listed here (https://ftmo.com/en/forex-brokers-review/#ftmo) Note that for the traders from the USA, only FTMO Platform is available.
You made a further point in your next post about the availability of instruments on the accounts at other brokers which are arranged by us. We make no restrictions and give you the full access to the broker accounts as they come, so you can trade all instruments that the specific broker offers on the specific account type.


Quoting Mtinifx
Yep - the Lmax spread on Gold is acceptable although it never seems to float in the trader's favour! Other spreads are about the worst I've seen so far in the market. Well I'm afraid I blew my account. Of course I'm not blaming FTMO for that however I do think that the two stage process is long winded and difficult as many are finding out! If I do try again I will go with their main competitor (who I will not name for fear of getting stomped on again[IMG]file:///C:/Users/Tomas/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image004.png[/IMG]) who offer...

Hello Mtinifix,
I’m sorry to hear about you losing the account.
We are aware that the spreads can grow wider around the midnight rollovers, but otherwise, the spreads on currency pairs, which are our main focus are very competitive on our FTMO Platform. You can see them here https://ftmo.com/en/broker-review/.
Having a 5% Daily drawdown limit is quite reasonable in our eyes as the risk management is of core importance and limiting one’s risk serves as a proof of strong discipline and control.
Lastly, as Otakar made previously public, around 8 % of the Challenges are progressed to the FTMO Account.
Quoting Mtinifx
{quote} Incredible stuff - well done indeed![IMG]file:///C:/Users/Tomas/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image008.png[/IMG] I'm actually wondering if the FTMO funded account is truly a live funded account? In other words one is given $300k to trade of real money?? I do find it a amazing that any person or company is going to risk $300000 in the hands of a small RT in a market where sudden spikes do occur. Remember the CHF spike of a few years ago and the JPY spike last year. Also FTMO does not stipulate the placing of stop loss on every trade....

I’m sure it was said here before, but to clear it up again – once you pass the Verification, we give you an FTMO Account to trade. This is a demo account, which is connected to our live master account (although we have right not to copy all your trades ). There is a few milliseconds delay in the execution, but we pay out profits based on the results you achieved on the FTMO Account (demo), not our live account in the background. For this reason, we also want all our traders to trade according to the real market conditions.
Of course, there are risks for us, but we calculate with them, aim to diversify our capital allocation among many trading strategies and try to further limit the risks with our other rules (not allowing traders to hold through the market closure longer than 2 hours and not allowing them to trade around some high impact news)

Quoting Swing4Fence
{quote} Max 300k. See SKLearn’s response. If one live account breaks rules, there is a backup to replace. I’ve heard others decline the challenge refund on 1st initial payout, for the purpose of purchasing another challenge to have as a backup in case of failure (correct me if wrong, but I understand unlimited challenges purchased/passed are allowed - which seems to be a smart Plan B). However, I wonder how a failed account would impact overall scaling progress? My assumption is each account treated individually, which may present risk combining...

Hello Swing4Fence,
I confirm that all you said is correct. If more Verifications are passed, the ones that exceed the $300k capital allocation can be put on hold and progressed to FTMO Account if some of the FTMO Accounts are lost.
Unlimited Challenges can be bought as you say and each FTMO Account is treated individually, so losing one has no implications for the others.

There were a few more recent posts asking about for more details about our internal economics and processes. I'm not at liberty to publish any such figures but will pass these to our management as well.
Have a great trading week everyone!
Tomas
  • #2,179
  • Jul 6, 2020 8:51am Jul 6, 2020 8:51am
Quoting tradista
Only thing I find weird is that both FF Trader.SRO & FTMO Evaluation SRO are companies incorporated on ridiculous asset amounts: FF Trader s.r.o. ZCK (…2015) – capital: 3000 CZK (US$127) FTMO Evaluation Global sro (6/2/2020) – capital: 10K CZK ($425) FTMO Evaluation US sro (6/2/2020) – capital: 10K CZK ($425) See here: https://rejstrik-firem.kurzy.cz/osoba/2715476/ (check language, use browser translation tool)
probably has something to do with incorproration taxes. Their office equipments alone should be worth more than that so take that with a grain of salt. That could be the minimum capital requirement and they went by it.
  • #2,180
  • Edited 5:46pm Jul 6, 2020 10:40am | Edited 5:46pm
Quoting newegg
{quote} probably has something to do with incorproration taxes. Their office equipments alone should be worth more than that so take that with a grain of salt. That could be the minimum capital requirement and they went by it.
Yeah, I agree that could certainly be something of the sort. and I'm not criticizing that decision, but generally over time when you have a healthy and steadily growing company that has a solid financial backbone you want to show it throught the assets you hold and capitalization, so as to build trust among investors and the general public. That doesn't seem the case, so it kind of raises a red flag.
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