Funded Trading Plus – Pros and Cons

This seems to be the year to be a prop trading firm.

Nearly every other week, a new firm comes out with trading rules that seem to surpass the industry standard set by FTMO and the 5%ers. Prop firms can be a blessing for responsible and profitable traders who seek to quit their jobs to make a living from their skills yet lack the capital to make such a lifestyle shift.

As firms compete with one another to provide better returns or more lenient rules to us traders, they still need to craft ways to sift irresponsible and costly traders from responsible ones who are capable of making a profit for both themselves and the firm. Therefore, each firm’s funding model will come with trade-offs – perhaps in lieu of a higher profit split return to the trader, there may be requirements to trade a minimum number of days each month or pass a challenge with a strict drawdown requirement.

It’s likely that whatever firm you trade with, there will be aspects of the arrangement that feel suboptimal. You’ll have to decide which trade-offs are worth the benefits in order to return a profit from a funded account.

Keep this in mind as you seek the best prop firm structured for your trading style and strategy – it’s likely that certain models will fit certain strategies and risk management approaches better than others. You may need to research a number of firms before selecting your first challenge.

For the purpose of this article, I want to share with you a (relatively new) prop firm that has recently caught my attention.

Note: I am an affiliate of Funded Trading Plus. I personally chose this arrangement because I believe this firm has tremendous potential for offering a realistic prop trading challenge that people can more comfortably pass than other reputable firms like FTMO or MyForexFunds. 

<<I’m excited to be able to offer you a 10% discount on your Funded Trading Plus challenge – Just be sure to use DFX10 as a coupon code at checkout!>>

I’ve taken time to chat with both of the owners of the firm and hope to arrange an interview in the future – they are both retail traders who understand the kinds of difficulties retail traders face. One of them mentioned to me something along the lines of, “We’ve built the prop firm that I would personally want to trade with.” 

As I’ve mentioned in another YouTube video where I compared FTP to FTMO and the 5%ers, this firm is like the best of both a challenge-model and a long-term model. You’ll understand why in just a moment, as I list 5 pro’s and 3 con’s that this firm exhibits. It’s up to you to decide whether the benefits of this firm outweigh its trade-offs. I hope this simple list can help you organize your thoughts on the matter.

Let’s begin!

5 Pro’s of the Funded Trading Plus

  1. No time limit or time requirement – FTMO has set the standard for requiring traders to hit a 10% profit target within 30 days. If you’ve been trading for some time, you’ll probably realize that earning 10% in only a month is quite an accomplishment. JP Morgan would come knocking down your door to hire you if you were capable of returning 120% per year. 

A professional trader working for a firm usually aims for something closer to 20% per year. That comes out to 1.6% per month, on average. So if you’re looking to make sure you hit 10% in a single month you’ll likely need to risk more than you’re used to or use other risk management strategies to ensure a pass. (I passed both of my FTMO accounts by using a range of risk % per trade, from 0.5% up to 2.5% – this was not easy to stomach some days)

So, when I first saw that FTP was removing all time-related requirements, I didn’t believe it at first. It was such a relief to see a firm remove time from the already difficult challenge of aiming for a profit target while avoiding a drawdown. Without a time requirement, you can aim to pass the challenge as fast or as slowly as you like. This is an added benefit for swing traders or part-time traders with a day job who may need a few months to hit the target. 

funded trading plus experienced

2. Option for a 1-Phase Challenge – Funded Trading Plus offers a couple of different account options, one of which, the Experienced Trader, only requires one phase to pass and achieve a funded status. This can be beneficial, as starting over with a second account can be surprisingly difficult for traders when you can’t use the capital you’ve already earned to mitigate future losses. However, I believe that this firm still has its own way to include a verification stage – I’ll explain why I believe this when I list the cons.

3. You can use EA’s, Algo’s, Trading Bots, and Trade Copiers – this is a boon for traders who aren’t available to trade high probability setups but depend on technology to assist in making these trades happen. Many firms will deny the use of these tools, but FTP invites you to trade with them, so long as you are still the architect of your trading decisions (and not some bloke who you paid to do your challenge for you).

4. They Accept Crypto – It seems more traders are utilizing crypto as a regular-use currency or investment. You can pay the challenge fee (which is refunded when you receive your first split) using Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin, Tether and USDC.

5. Trading View to come – Most firms only offer MT4/MT5, which have been the industry gold standard for decades (personally, I think they’re outdated) but when it comes to UX, Trading View is likely the best platform currently available. Most notably, their order forms are practical and easy to use to set up stop losses and take profit targets. FTP is working with Trading View to be able to offer this as a platform soon, but the date for launch is TBD.

BONUS: This firm is relatively inexpensive, especially when considering how quickly you can scale your account. Since #5 is still in the works, I’ll give you another solid benefit that is already true to the firm. FTP offers affordable options for a variety of funded accounts and will double the account size for every 10% profit made on the account. FTMO is currently charging about $600 USD for a $100k account. FTP is charging $499 (or $449 if you use the code DFX10!). 

These are just a handful of the reasons why I think FTP is a remarkable prop firm and possibly one of the best firms you can trade with, given what you deem reasonable for trade-offs. I recommend checking out their site and reaching out to their customer support to learn about more than what I’ve listed here.

The Cons of Trading with Funded Trading Plus

Now that we’ve covered some of FTP’s perks, let’s talk about a couple of cons that have stuck out to me as potentially difficult roadblocks to staying funded with or profiting form this firm. I’ve noticed that a lot of firms are pretty responsive to customer/user feedback, so there’s always a possibility that some of these rules will change in the future or be mitigated with the addition of greater perks.

  1. 1:10 leverage only – If you’re a scalper, like me, leverage can be your friend when you are taking 5 pip stop losses. It helps abate some of the commission fees and boost profits with these trades. I don’t take trades every day, and often only have one or two signals, so sometimes I lean on leverage to hit certain profit targets. 

HOWEVER – as I was going over their prop firm model, I remembered something important about this firm – there are no time limits. Thus, instead of rushing to hit a 10% target in one month, it’s better to take smaller trades and hit the target when your strategy lets you, not because of some abstract cutoff time. In this way, we don’t need leverage – we can risk less % per trade and practice the responsible trading styles of institutions (using usually less than 1% risked per trade). 

We need to remember that we need to evaluate each firm within its own context. As much as we want to compare apples to apples, the parameters of each firm can change whether it’s useful or not to have more or less leverage, time, drawn down, etc. So having a 1:100 leverage isn’t as crucial for a challenge without a time limit, when compared to something like FTMO, where you’ll need every boost you can get to finish within 30 days. This concept applies to the next cons, as well.

2. Complicated Drawdown Rules – Instead of using a set and easy to remember, fixed drawdown (such as FTMO uses, requiring funded traders to stay above a 10% drawdown from the initial balance), FTP first requires a relative drawdown (this means that the drawdown increases as profit on the account increases) for the first 5% of profit. After that amount, the drawdown is fixed and will stay set as your initial balance. This also means that you cannot withdraw all of your profit from the account. This leads into the next issue..

3. Withdrawal is Affected by Drawdown Rules – Here’s the example that FTP shares on their website:

Remember how I said I believe FTP has a way to include a verification stage (see Pro #2)? This is it. It’s my understanding that this is meant to motivate you to keep the first 5% of profit you make in the account. This feels like a verification stage to me since you’re forced to keep profit in the account and won’t be able to withdraw it without penalty. From the firm’s point of view, having the trader leave profit in the account helps offset any future loss on their part – you’ll only be risking money that was won. It’s pretty smart as a business model and if you can accept this trade-off, recognizing that you would have to trade an extra 5% on most 2-phase challenges anyways, then you’re not really being deprived of anything. 

Nonetheless, this greatly put me off the first time I read the rule (with brows furrowed and head hurting). It only made more sense to me after sitting on the information for a while and having an insight while making a review video. Most people won’t take the time to do the math, though – there’s a saying in business that “If you confuse – you lose”. I think most traders will look at these rules and psychologically put up a wall. It could even be a deciding factor to avoid trading with the FTP in lieu of another firm (even though they’re signing up for the same setup in another 2-phase challenge). So I think it’s probably in FTP’s best interest to eventually change this rule or find a way to make it easier to understand and accept.

As with the theme of this article, your choice of firm will always come with a series of trade-offs. To access a benefit that better suits your trading style – such as needing more time to hit a profit target – you may need to learn how to maneuver an initially confusing withdrawal ruleset. I hope that the pro’s and con’s listed here can help you discover whether Funded Trading Plus is your best prop firm choice. I know for myself that I hope to trade an account with them soon. (Just waiting on Trading View!)

 

Again, if you can see how the added benefits of this firm help it stand apart from what’s currently available, and that its cons are actually realistic and fair for the industry, then be sure to use the coupon code DFX10 for 10% off of your challenge!

I wish you nothing but the best of strength and luck.

And always do your due diligence!

See you in the markets 😉