AllSeeker 

Don't compare numbers in signups of forex funding firms to futures funding firms. Their target audience size is likely very different from each other. Also, for some weird reasons, new comers are easily attracted to forex, at least in my know circle. Could be wrong if anyone actually does any survey. I'm more concerned about common issues like "firms not actually sending orders to exchange and settling off exchange" etc. That in itself tells it was a fraud to begin with and till day one of the biggest fears of funding firms (be it forex or futures).

I don't think new comers are more attracted to forex, the reason to trade with forex companies is simple: their challenges are easier.
The trailing drawdown rule in topstep is too hard.
I made money with both futures and forex funding companiea. But with fx companies I made 8x the amount of money.

Honestly who cares if the company take the other side of my trades or not. Traders.lose money anyway..... companies are not moving the candles.

I hope prop.firms will stay forever

Sent using the NexusFi mobile app

SMCJB 

WOW. Like you I would have had no idea. edit: Worth noting it was the wild west Forex market and not regulated futures.

I'm not surprised. Two years ago, I said that many of these companies are bullshit.

Topstep didn't pay To be honest, this thread doesn't surprise me. I think most of these companies that offer trading combines and funded accounts are BS that prey on fledgling traders' desire to trade for a living. The only way to trade for a living is to …

ZB23 

I'm not surprised. Two years ago, I said that many of these companies are bullshit. Topstep didn't pay To be honest, this thread doesn't surprise me. I think most of these companies that offer trading combines and funded accounts are BS that prey on fledgling traders' desire to trade for a living. The only way to trade for a living is to …

I totally disagree, I have lost most of my money trading my own account when I first started to trade. Prop firms allowed me to keep trading and also withdraw some good money.
You pay 500 USD to risk 10K, it's a bargain. People blow accounts after account becuase they are degenerate gamblers.
It's as if you explain somebody how blackjack works and you allow himg to be the dealer. You take the random guy in the street and he will go bust being the casino.... he will accept someone placing a huge bet and
he will blow up.

I don't know what was your bad experience with topstep but do some math and you will see that prop firms are a bargain for everyone.

Tymbeline 

I agree - but let's not forget that even the regulators' complaint specifies that out of that $310 Mil, they paid out $173 Mil in profits to their traders (not something any spot forex/CFD broker has ever had to do!), and that they employed a huge number of people, had plenty of expenses, etc. Please don't imagine that I'm trying to "defend" them (far from it!!), but at the same time let's remember that the case hasn't even been heard yet: all that's happened so far is a temporary account-freezing order, pending a court hearing. But the Fx market is indeed, as you rightly say, very much the Wild West.

Quick analysis: there were 135.000 customers, and MFF received 310-173 millions (fees minus the payout). That is customers lost in total 137 million, divided by 135000 customers= 1014USD on average!!
Wow!! they lost 1014 USD trading.
Had they opened an account with 1014 USD they could not have made a single operation. And if they had opened an account with 10000USD they would have lost 90% of it in 90 days.

Let me know if I am wrong

phantomtrader 

If you could look under the fingernails of companies like APEX, they're probably doing exactly the same thing. "According to the complaint, the defendants, doing business as “My Forex Funds,” supposedly offered retail customers the opportunity to become “professional traders” by using Traders Global’s money to trade against third-party “liquidity providers” and share in any trading profits. They assured customers that “your success is our business,” and “we only make money when you do.” But, in reality, Traders Global—not a third-party “liquidity provider”—is the counterparty to substantially all customer trades. The complaint also alleges that Traders Global actively minimizes the likelihood that customers trade profitably by using pretexts to terminate customer accounts, misleadingly assessing commissions that reduce customer account equity, secretly using specialized software to cause customer orders to be executed at worse prices than appeared to the customer at the time an order was sent, and handicapping the extremely small number of successful customers to decrease customer profits and increase customer losses." The payout policies are a dead giveaway. You trade, but you don't get paid until they feel like paying you. In the meantime, they're working on finding every excuse not to pay you. There's only a few companies that actually pay out without any bs - Earn2Trade pays when you earn. I think OneUpTrader does as well. Most of them are just like My Forex Funds - a fee scam.

Funnily enough, most of the negative reviews for Apex claim that they lost the account due to "ghost" orders being placed while they weren't even logged on. This at first glance could easily be someone not cancelling all orders left on their chart before logging off, however there seems to be a pattern with Apex.

The pattern being someone does well and makes quite a bit of money. They receive their first few payouts(Apex limit payouts for the first few months), but once they are eligible to get their whole account balance, the ghost orders appear and their account is wiped out overnight.

So you could get a few thousand, say $2000 a month for 3 months, then be expecting to be able to withdraw $50k on the 4th month, then suddenly your account is blown.

I'm not saying this is true, just that quite a few of their negative reviews claim this.

SBtrader82 

Honestly who cares if the company take the other side of my trades or not. Traders.lose money anyway..... companies are not moving the candles. NexusFi mobile app

Both a shortsighted and a nonsensical statement. Traders lose money? Except for those that profit year after year?

Who cares if the company takes the other side? Well, clearly they're in legal trouble over this, so someone cares. And as for trading real money, you know that your goals are aligned with the prop firm.

Personally I'd rather be trading real money than trading a sim that can be easily manipulated. A sim is after all a software simulation of live trading, they'll almost certainly be tweaking parameters behind the scenes, and not always in our favour.

SBtrader82 

Let me know if I am wrong

I’m broadly speaking on your side of the discussion anyway (no surprise there).

I also think spot forex/CFD “funding companies” are probably a whole different world from futures funding companies.

I suspect, however (because so much of the regulators’ information seems to come from an internal whistleblower, and at least some of it appears to be documented) that MFF may have been very dishonest in their marketing representations, but of course it’s too early to know for sure.

I can easily understand regulators and other authorities being “interested” especially if it turns out that MFF owned the alleged liquidity provider (as was so notoriously shown to be the case with FXCM) and that the customers were being deceived about that.

This is a very big and important issue because, if true, it raises significant questions about motivation and incentivization: to put it mildly “We win when you win” is radically different from “We win when you lose.”

Regarding MFF, there will be a longer wait than expected: the court date has been postponed!

SBtrader82 

Honestly who cares if the company take the other side of my trades or not.

I think most people probably care. I definitely would. And courts rightly care hugely if they do but claimed (expressly or impliedly) that they don't. Because that's obviously dishonest.

VirtualMark 

The pattern being someone does well and makes quite a bit of money. They receive their first few payouts(Apex limit payouts for the first few months), but once they are eligible to get their whole account balance, the ghost orders appear and their account is wiped out overnight ... ... ... I'm not saying this is true, just that quite a few of their negative reviews claim this.

I agree (about Apex). I've always been very suspicious and always said so. I may still be wrong, though.

VirtualMark 

Funnily enough, most of the negative reviews for Apex claim that they lost the account due to "ghost" orders being placed while they weren't even logged on. This at first glance could easily be someone not cancelling all orders left on their chart before logging off, however there seems to be a pattern with Apex. The pattern being someone does well and makes quite a bit of money. They receive their first few payouts(Apex limit payouts for the first few months), but once they are eligible to get their whole account balance, the ghost orders appear and their account is wiped out overnight. So you could get a few thousand, say $2000 a month for 3 months, then be expecting to be able to withdraw $50k on the 4th month, then suddenly your account is blown. I'm not saying this is true, just that quite a few of their negative reviews claim this.

APEX is definitely first on the list for a CFTC investigation. Darrell Martin has a history with binary option and not particularly a good one.

VirtualMark 

Funnily enough, most of the negative reviews for Apex claim that they lost the account due to "ghost" orders being placed while they weren't even logged on. This at first glance could easily be someone not cancelling all orders left on their chart before logging off, however there seems to be a pattern with Apex. The pattern being someone does well and makes quite a bit of money. They receive their first few payouts(Apex limit payouts for the first few months), but once they are eligible to get their whole account balance, the ghost orders appear and their account is wiped out overnight. So you could get a few thousand, say $2000 a month for 3 months, then be expecting to be able to withdraw $50k on the 4th month, then suddenly your account is blown. I'm not saying this is true, just that quite a few of their negative reviews claim this.

I highly doubt the claim of "ghost" orders. I'm in a few discord groups myself where I've seen people post that, and I think it's just that those people are just not very proficient with their trading software. One guy posted a video claiming his ninjatrader chart was showing he didn't have any open orders. Turns out he just didn't know chart trader only shows orders for the account selected in chart trader, and in his positions tab were a list of all the "ghost" positions he didn't even know were open.

Also all the screenshots I've screen people post are using tons of custom addons, not just chart indicators, but special addons that completely change the way chart trader looks, special overlays, etc. I think the vendors make it very easy to lure new people into their software without actually teaching them the basic fundamentals of how ninjatrader works without addons. In one group I'm in, half the people don't even know ninjatrader has a built in chart trader function because they're so reliant on their addons

phantomtrader 

APEX is definitely first on the list for a CFTC investigation. Darrell Martin has a history with binary option and not particularly a good one.

I think Apex just may need to change their marketing pitch, but I believe the actual business model is legit.

For example, take a look at one of their competitors, Leeloo. They've changed their website over the last couple of months and no longer call it "getting funded" and are more honest about it