FTMO Review

FTMO Review

Are you considering joining FTMO and taking on their challenge? Make sure you read this FTMO review first. The problem with prop firms is that there have been numerous scams over the years. As a result, it’s important to consider the funding company’s reputation and ratings within the trading community before deciding whether it’s worth the risk. The credibility of FTMO has been proven. They have an excellent reputation, and there is proof of traders obtaining payouts.

About FTMO

FTMO is a prop trading firm based in the Czech Republic that specializes in Forex trading, and they offer traders up to $2,000,000 in capital and a profit split up to 90%. Since the start, FTMO has been known for its 70 percent profit split. Other competitors have based their offerings on this figure as well. To stay competitive, they are now providing traders up to a 90% profit split, with the company keeping only 10% of your profits. For their live corporate accounts, they engage with a liquidity provider who provides an institutional data feed as well as a direct market access execution method.

Funding Program Options

The evaluation process for both regular risk accounts and aggressive risk accounts is broken down into two stages: the first stage is the challenge, and the second stage is the verification. You will become a funded FTMO trader once you have completed both of these steps. You have the ability to select the type of capital funding, and the costs associated with each option are different.

They are also now offering a capital scaling program, which allows you to grow the balance of your funded account by 25% after meeting certain requirements. 

To be qualified for capital scaling, traders must make a 10% profit for four consecutive months. Also, the account balance must be more than the initial beginning balance. With this offer, your trading account will double in size every 16 months. This is capped at $2,000,000 per trader. Compared to a prop firm like FundYourFX, where they automatically double your account once you make a 10% profit, FTMO would take you a very long time before you can reach a significant amount of capital scaling.

If you look at the graphic below, you can see that even if someone had a capital investment of $400,000, it would still take them 16 months to achieve $800,000. However, they do not even have a funding account of $400,000 to their name. You will need to open an account with a maximum balance of $200,000. In the best-case scenario, you have to wait 16 months to receive $400,000, and then you have to wait another 16 months to get $800,000.  From what we can gather from the graph below, it would take 32 months, which is equivalent to 2.6 years, to get from $200,000 to $800,000.

Fees

To become a funded trader with FTMO, you must pay a fee. The cost of joining varies depending on the challenge you want to accept, ranging from €155 to €1,080. If you fail to complete the three steps, you can start a new challenge, but you must pay the fee again. The charge structure is determined by two factors: first, the risk level chosen, and second, the trading account amount chosen. 

FTMO accepts bank transfers, debit/credit cards, and Skrill payments.

Prices for normal risk accounts:

$10,000 account for €155

$25,000 account for €250

$50,000 account for €345

$100,000 account for €540

$200,000 account for €1,080

Prices for aggressive risk accounts:

$10,000 account for €250

$25,000 account for €345

$50,000 account for €540

$100,000 account for €1,080

Tradable Assets

FTMO allows you to trade forex pairs, commodities, indices, stocks, bonds, and cryptocurrencies with a 100:1 leverage on all accounts. But swing accounts can use 30:1 leverage.

Restrictions

In comparison to other prop funds, the FTMO trading restrictions are not overly strict. But their drawdown limit is quite strict at 5% drawdown. For the aggressive risk category, it is a 10% drawdown.

Their trading rules are not as relaxed as FundYourFX. For example, you are only allowed to hold trades overnight in evaluation accounts. Once you become an FTMO funded trader, they need you to close your positions shortly before the markets close for the weekend or if the rollover (market break) lasts for longer than two hours. Also, unless you have a Swing Account, you can’t trade the news. News trading is only allowed on Evaluation accounts. So basically during evaluations, the rules are relaxed, but once you become an FTMO trader, it has restrictions.

Challenge

The challenge is basically a two-step measure to evaluate your trading ability. The first stage is the challenge, followed by verification to demonstrate that the first time was not a fluke. For all accounts, the FTMO Challenge lasts 30 calendar days. It is the maximum number of days for you to achieve the goal. If you meet the profit objective quicker while adhering to all criteria, you will proceed directly to the Verification phase. However, the minimum number of trading days necessary is 10. The second step is FTMO verification. You have twice as much time to meet the profit objective while adhering to all rules. That means you have 60 days to complete the verification procedure.

With the normal FTMO challenges, you are not permitted to hold trades over the weekend unless authorization has been obtained earlier in the week. However, a new Swing Challenge allows traders to trade with up to 1:30 leverage and hold all transactions overnight with no permission required.

The challenge and verification are performed on a demo account, the details of which will be provided to you once you have purchased a challenge from FTMO. 

The objective is to demonstrate that you are a consistently profitable trader. The company basically searches for profitable traders who only need funding and then provides them with the necessary tools and funds. 

There is now a new FTMO swing challenge where you can keep trade overnight and over the weekend without asking for permission. The leverage is lower at 1:30, which is still plenty for swing traders. Previously, all swing traders worked with the 5%ers prop firm.

FTMO also now offers a free challenge for you to join. This challenge is a shortened version of the original, but it is free.

The goal is to hone your trading skills and ensure you can pass the challenge before investing in the real thing. They will not penalize you if you fail this challenge. And if you pass this challenge, you will not receive any funds because it is merely a free challenge.

In Conclusion

For forex traders, FTMO is a reputable proprietary trading firm. The fee is reasonable, and the trading tools supplied are well-liked by traders. If you are searching for a professional and trustworthy prop firm, FTMO is a good option. However, their challenge is really difficult. 95% of traders will most likely fail their challenge. MyForexFunds has a slightly cheaper and easier challenge. If you fail the FTMO challenge, you can purchase one again. But also remember that you will lose your initial refundable fee when you fail the challenge. If you want a no evaluation prop firm, then there is FundYourFX. That one also has a refundable fee. But you will get it once you hit 10% profit 5 times.

The other problem is the time you need to pass their challenge. It can take up to 30 days for the first stage and up to 60 days for the second stage. That means it can take up to 90 days before you can start trading with a live account. And that still depends on whether you pass or not.