jlabtrades 

Yeah this exactly. They are very clear that you are in a simulation, and in your funding contract they explicitly say your are simulation too and its not real trades, and not real money being traded. Sounds like a hassle, sorry you had to go through all that. Without getting too much into the weeds the difference seems like expectation of live and real trades / profits. If they don't say its real trades or live money then SEC cant come after them. Now will there be some kind of regulation? Feels like it with the huge increase in popularity, but might be a different org like the CFPB or FTC

One would have thought with all the rampant rug pulls and scams in CFD prop, regulators would have come down hard already. But they didn’t. Other then pressuring the platform with the largest market share, to put on restrictions who could use it, not much has really changed.

The biggest scammers are still in or coming back into the game.

FXSurf 

One would have thought with all the rampant rug pulls and scams in CFD prop, regulators would have come down hard already. But they didn’t. Other then pressuring the platform with the largest market share, to put on restrictions who could use it, not much has really changed. The biggest scammers are still in or coming back into the game.

Best I could find was that CFDs were banned back in 2000 by the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 (OTC swaps no longer allowed), so seems like we would need another type of US congressional act to prevent or change these companies work

jlabtrades 

Best I could find was that CFDs were banned back in 2000 by the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 (OTC swaps no longer allowed), so seems like we would need another type of US congressional act to prevent or change these companies work

It was but there were FX Prop Firms popping up in recent years. Once MyForexFunds got halted by CFTC, they all scattered offshore or disappeared altogether.

The assertion was since they were using “demo” CFD feeds they should be ok.

It wasn’t so much the CFD thing that imploded them rather the fear of regulator crackdown and severe platform restrictions caused massive loss of revenue. Payouts got longer/denied, firms folded overnight, etc.

Trust was lost so they all migrated to the next best thing, which was futures prop and Apex’s low barrier to enter.

jlabtrades 

Yeah this exactly. They are very clear that you are in a simulation, and in your funding contract they explicitly say your are simulation too and its not real trades, and not real money being traded.

So this means, if I strictly follow all of my rules and when it comes to payout, they are paying from their profits instead of my earnings from my (supposedly) live account despite me trading in simulation?

lightsun47 

So this means, if I strictly follow all of my rules and when it comes to payout, they are paying from their profits instead of my earnings from my (supposedly) live account despite me trading in simulation?

No.

The simulation in this reference is that your trades are in a simulation environment, no real money is being deposited into the company, and no real money or margin is used to place trades. If you are funded with Apex, I'd suggest you reread their contract (found this link to copy of contact btw from twitter @Big Mike https://pastebin.com/Wqbz2pkG) and you'll see that they define "Live trades" as any "trades placed, including open positions, by the Trader. [...] Company will open each account, the minimum balance as set forth above, initially of synthetic SIM currency. Synthetic accounts do not contain genuine or legal tender, but shall still be available for payout as defined in this agreement"

If you were trading in a "real live account" with Apex or any other funding program company, you would know without a doubt. I have yet to meet someone that is actually trading live in apex, but I do know a few trading live in other online prop firm funding programs. I'm missing where the notion that you were trading live is coming from though.

You get paid when you follow the company rules because you aren't really trading, but doing using "evaluation and rewards service" (the language they use in the funding contracts).

Where the money comes from is unknown, but could be from a mix and match of: new user fees, user reset fees, outside investors, profit share from real "live" traders in their system, your trades being copied to a live market in their own account, them trading independently in their own account but using your trading history as advantaged market information, or selling your simulation order flow to a third party so they can use it as advantaged market information. With the general consensus in this threat being that Apex is getting the vast majority of is money for payouts from new account fees / funding activation fees / blown account reset fees

I lost 3 PA- and 2 eval-accounts because of not executed orders and ghostorders, which you couldn't close. And this after the mass with Rithmic were announced to be solved. "Clear your cache and blablabla" were the answer. So I quit Apex. As an ex-customer, you can't open an account anymore now, while they still take new customers. "They are unable to discuss any details further" Ok, Apex. I've bought popcorn already and will enjoy the show....

pipandrun 

I lost 3 PA- and 2 eval-accounts because of not executed orders and ghostorders, which you couldn't close. And this after the mass with Rithmic were announced to be solved. "Clear your cache and blablabla" were the answer. So I quit Apex. As an ex-customer, you can't open an account anymore now, while they still take new customers. "They are unable to discuss any details further" Ok, Apex. I've bought popcorn already and will enjoy the show....

You think they are going bust ?

"No one can beat the market"
every losing trader

1 Minute Man 

You think they are going bust ? "No one can beat the market" every losing trader

I don't know. But they do everything for it. Too many red flags recently.

kingoliver 

Well let me give you some first-hand experience why the SEC will most likely get involved here. In the years 2009 through 2011, I was involved with a SEC lawsuit as a prop firm trader from an offshore company. They called me and were prosecuting the company, because they were claiming that myself and many others were never put into live accounts and were only trading sim. This case did go through the courts. So, it's not unprecedented for this to happen, especially if they're claiming to push people into live accounts and they're on live sim accounts, this is where it's going to get messy. I have no doubt in my mind that some regulatory body in the next year or two is going to step into this space because it's creating bigger and bigger waves of issues. I would love to hear the counter argument to this, because I've been through this before.

I've been through the Evaluation -> Performance Account -> Live account process with Apex. It was very clear to me at all times that I was trading sim from evaluation to PA. When I went to a "true" Live account, I had to sign new documents (with broker, not Apex), etc., and it was very clear that it was a live environment (you can see your orders hit T&S if trading in low volume). It's a completely different experience than trading a PA account, from contract to account setup, to even the support you get--you get support you'd expect when you're trading a live brokerage account (support isn't through Apex, it's through the broker).

Jack22 

I've been through the Evaluation -> Performance Account -> Live account process with Apex. It was very clear to me at all times that I was trading sim from evaluation to PA. When I went to a "true" Live account, I had to sign new documents (with broker, not Apex), etc., and it was very clear that it was a live environment (you can see your orders hit T&S if trading in low volume). It's a completely different experience than trading a PA account, from contract to account setup, to even the support you get--you get support you'd expect when you're trading a live brokerage account (support isn't through Apex, it's through the broker).

If you care to share, what has been your experience in results/executions between the sim accounts and the real accounts?

Did you find it easier to profit in the sim accounts as compared to the real account?

I frequently see people crushing it in SIM but struggling with real accounts, curious if you have that experience. If you do see difference, why do you think there is a difference?