I discovered Oanda has partnered with FTMO to offer an FTMO prop product to USA based traders. They offer 14 day free trial accounts, and I blew 2 of them before finally figuring out how lot sizes work in MT5 spreadbetting accounts (Gold and SP500 are NOT the same lol).

This is not a "get funded" proposition. This is a straight up permanent sim environment for as long as FTMO is willing to pay you once you pass.

The 200K account is $1250 USD. That's obviously a very dear price to pay for a prop account when compared to every other prop account I've come across. However, it has some distinct advantages. Let me first note that the initial profit target for step 1 is 10% profit, or $20K on a $200K account. Then, once that initial target is met, there is a second step, which FTMO calls "verification," and that target is half of the initial target, i.e. 5%, or $10K on that $200K account.

The advatage to FTMO is that unlike every other prop firm out there where the rules to become funded are all set against the trader, FTMO is actually set up t give you a real shot at passing.

How so?

Well, there is a daily loss limit that must NOT be breached, or you lose the account. On a $200K account, the daily loss limit is 5% or $10K on that $200K account. Then there is a max total drawdown which must not be breached or you lose the account. That max total drawdown is 10% of the account, or $20K dollars.

In other words, this is the only prop firm proposition of which I am aware that has a true 1:1 profit objective to drawdown allowance. Yes, because of the %% daily limit, it appears to act as a 2 to 1 profit objective to drawdown limit. However, if you were to lose say 4.9% on any given day, you still keep the accont. If on the next day you lose an additional 4.9%, bringing the total drawdown to 9.8%, you still keep the account. If you somehow manage to fight back from that loss without ever being down more than the full 10% initial drawdown limit, you stay in the game.

The one drawback is MT5. I had a position on and price clearly had traded through my take profit order. However, the platform took its time. On one trade, it finally filled the order as price continued in favor of the trade. However, in another instance, price reversed within seconds, and I had to exit manually as the take profit order never filled. It's been many years since I traded a funded account using the MT platform, but some things never change I guess lol. After the second free trial account was blown, I had shaken off most of my MT rust and on the third free trial account I was able to navigate the platform and trade effectively.

I am intrigued. FTMO claims the average trader who reaches FTMO Trader staus is over $13K USD (presumably before finally blowing up lol). Also, that hefty $1250 fee that you must pay to enroll in the evaluation period is fully refunded when you make your first payout request. That makes it much easier to swallow, imo.

I'm going to continue the trial. Given the drawdown limits and profit objectives and the nature of the spreadbet products, I can see how it is likely much easier to pass this evaluation and reach payout stage than it is with most of the futures based propes, e.g. Topstep, TradeDay, Apex, TakeProfitTRader, etc.

I should also note that the two accounts I blew were $100K and not the $200K I am working with now. The blow up level on the $100K was -$5K from the starting balance. In both cases the blow up was because I traded XAU at a size 10 times as large as I should have been trading. Again, a 10 lot SP500 is much more manageable than a 10 lot XAU given gold's current volatility. The fix? I added a second chart dedicated to XAU and I was able to set the size to 1 lot so as to avoid the 10 lot error. You can lose quite a lot of money quite quickly trading 10 lots of gold right now.

I'm not saying I'm ready to plunk down $1250 to try FTMO; nor am I saying I'll ever be ready. However, I am interested enough to see how I do in the trial environment to see if it is worth my while.

I'd be interested to hear about anyone's experiences with FTMO. It does seem they have done a bit of denying payouts and such from a few anecdotes I've been able to find on youtube. One user received an email that said that his method wasn't "sustainable," and yet he had an 80% win rate and 5 to 1 reward to risk. It seems that perhaps FTMO is somewhat like Apex in that a trader's method is deemed "unsustainable" if it is unsustainable for the prop firm because it doesn't blow up quickly enough lol.

I've been trading my own money along with two funded accounts. I believe 2026 will be the year I eventually leave the prop space behind for good. However, you can't beat the true risk reward of the prop firm proposition: Even FTMO's $1250 seems to have a realistic path to get to a $12,500 or greater payout within a short period of time (8 days minimum to pass to FTMO trader).

If any of you know of any links to FTMO posts I should be aware of here at FF, please share them here in this thread.

Thank you all!