Prop Firm Rules

Prohibited Practices

Micro scalping

• An account is flagged when more than 50% of its profits come from trades held 5 seconds or less. Genuine short-term scalping is permitted. A flag triggers a manual review and a written warning before any penalty.

Hedging

• All hedging across accounts is prohibited, including your own accounts and accounts at other firms. Opposing positions in the same contract, or in correlated contracts such as ES and NQ, across separate accounts are not allowed.
• Within a single account you may hold long and short in different contracts, or mini and micro of the same contract.
• A flag resets the accounts to the prior day's balance without restoring drawdown. Repeat offences breach the accounts.

High-Frequency Trading (HFT)

• HFT is prohibited and detected automatically. A first offence earns a written warning. Repeat offences remove the HFT profits, close the accounts and can lead to a permanent restriction.

Integrity

• Exploiting system errors, update delays or simulated price discrepancies is prohibited.

Inactivity rule

• An account with no trade producing at least $1 net profit or loss in 30 days is treated as abandoned and permanently removed.

News trading

• LucidDaily: trading around high-impact USD news is a hard breach. Be flat from 1 minute before to 1 minute after the event.
• LucidFlex, Pro and Direct: news trading is allowed.

Automation

• Automated systems and trade copiers are permitted if they follow Lucid rules.

Trading hours

• LucidPro, Flex and Direct: positions are auto-closed at 4:45 PM EST Monday to Friday. Trading resumes 6:00 PM EST Sunday to Thursday.

Prohibited Practices

High-Frequency Trading (HFT)

• HFT, tick scalping and arbitrage bots are prohibited and can lead to account closure.
• Trades closed in under 2 minutes may be flagged as tick scalping.

Hedging

• Hedging within a single account is allowed.
• Hedging between separate accounts is strictly prohibited.

Gambling

• Margin usage above 80% in any running trade is treated as gambling and can lead to payout rejection or termination.

Inactivity rule

• You must place at least one trade every 30 days. Otherwise the account is treated as inactive and breached.

News trading

• On funded accounts, do not open or close trades from 5 minutes before to 5 minutes after high-impact news or FOMC. Profits from these trades may be removed.
• Instant Standard: news trading is not allowed on accounts bought after 13 November 2025.

Copy trading

• Copy trading is allowed only between accounts legally owned by the same account holder.

1-Step Standard at a glance

• Daily drawdown 4% (resets 5pm EST). Overall drawdown 6% trailing, locking at the starting balance after 6% profit.
• Profit target 9% (accounts bought from August 20). Minimum 3 trading days of at least 0.5% profit.
• Overnight and weekend holding allowed.

2 Step Standard at a glance

• Profit targets: Phase 1 8%, Phase 2 4%. Daily drawdown 4% (resets 5pm EST), overall drawdown 8% static.
• Minimum 3 trading days of at least 0.5% profit (accounts bought from August 20). Profit split 85%, 90% with add-on.

Futures (Blue Guardian Futures)

• Less than 50% of your total profits may come from trades held under 10 seconds, in both evaluation and funded phases.
• AI, bots and fully automated trading are prohibited. Ultra-high-frequency scalping above 200 trades per day is limited.
• Hedging is strictly prohibited, including between your own accounts. Martingale is not permitted.
• Inactivity: one trade every 30 days in evaluation, and every 7 or 10 days on funded accounts depending on the upgrade date.

Prohibited Practices

Micro scalping

• Tick scalping (high-volume trades chasing tiny price moves) can lead to termination.
• Quick Strike: positions closed within 30 seconds are monitored. A share of profit from them at 20% triggers a warning, and at 30% or above progress is put on hold in the challenge, while on a funded account the quick-strike profit is deducted and the account can be terminated at cycle end.

Hedging

• Opposing trades on the same asset are allowed only within one account.
• Hedging across multiple accounts, including group hedging, is prohibited.

High-Frequency Trading (HFT)

• HFT is not allowed. An account is flagged as hyperactive at 200 trades or 2,000 server messages per day.
• Hyperactivity and HFT warnings count toward the same total and can lead to suspension.

Latency arbitrage

• Exploiting delays in market data or execution is strictly prohibited.

News trading

• Allowed on Challenge accounts.
• On funded Stellar accounts, profitable trades around a listed high-impact event count at 40% of their profit. Losses count in full.

Weekend and overnight holding

• Allowed on Stellar 1-Step, 2-Step and Lite. Swap charges count toward the daily loss.

Copy trading

• Copying between accounts owned by different people is prohibited.
• Copying between your own accounts is allowed if total capital stays within $300,000 and one account is the master.

Expert Advisors (EAs)

• EAs are allowed on Stellar 2-Step accounts below $50,000, and you must keep the same strategy from Challenge to Funded account. EAs are not permitted on $50,000 and larger accounts.
• Third-party services that operate an account for you count as account management and are prohibited.

Inactivity

• An account with no trade for 30 consecutive calendar days is flagged inactive.

Daily loss

• Daily loss limit is a percentage of the initial balance and resets at 00:00 server time.

Stellar 2-Step at a glance

• Profit targets: Phase 1 8%, Phase 2 5%. No time limit.
• Daily loss 5%, maximum loss 10%. Minimum 5 trading days per phase.
• Reward share 80% on the 21-day cycle, 60% on the 3 Profitable Day option, 90% on-demand.

Prohibited Practices

High-Frequency Trading (HFT)

• Classic Markets and Perpetual Futures: you cannot hold more than 50% of your trades for under one minute.
• Futures: more than 300 trades per day counts as HFT, and at least 50% of profits must come from trades held 10 seconds or longer.

Hedging

• Hedging across multiple accounts is prohibited, even if all the accounts belong to the same trader.

News trading

• E8 One: allowed in the challenge. On the SimFi Performance account it is prohibited from 5 minutes before to 5 minutes after high-impact news, and profits may be removed.
• E8 Zero, E8 Pro and E8 Signature: news trading is allowed without restriction, although E8 advises caution.

Weekend and overnight holding

• E8 One and E8 Pro: allowed. E8 Zero and E8 Signature: not allowed (positions are closed daily).

Latency arbitrage and exploits

• Futures: exploiting gaps, illiquid markets, slow data feeds or price-display errors is prohibited.

Expert Advisors (EAs)

• E8 One, E8 Pro and E8 Signature on Classic Markets and Perpetual Futures allow any EA, but E8 may terminate accounts if several users run the same strategy.
• E8 Zero and all futures accounts: bots and AI trading tools are not allowed.

Copy trading

• Copying between accounts you own is allowed. Every account must be traded independently, and cooperation with other traders is not permitted.

Objectives by product

• E8 One: 6% target, 3% daily drawdown, 4% dynamic drawdown. Performance 40% Best Day.
• E8 Pro: 8% target, 2.5% daily drawdown, 8% static drawdown, 2% daily profit cap.
• E8 Signature: 6% target, EOD dynamic drawdown, 2% Daily Pause on performance, 80% split, 35% Best Day.
• E8 Zero (futures): fixed dollar targets and EOD dynamic drawdown by account size, 40% Best Day in the challenge only.

Prohibited Practices

High-Frequency Trading (HFT)

• HFT is banned. It means trades whose durations are mostly a few seconds or less, often run by algorithms.

Tick scalping

• Rapid entries and exits within seconds, based on tiny tick-to-tick moves, are prohibited.

Hedging

• Hedge and reverse arbitrage across accounts are banned.
• Coordinated opposing positions across The5ers and other firms are also prohibited.

News trading

• High Stakes: no order may be executed from 2 minutes before to 2 minutes after high-impact news. Profits made in that window are deducted.
• Bootcamp and Instant Funding (Hyper-Growth): news trading is allowed, but bracketing (buy stop and sell stop placed around news) is not.

Latency arbitrage and exploits

• Trading on incorrect price quotes or delayed price updates is prohibited.

Expert Advisors (EAs)

• EAs that scalp rollover, overload the server with orders, or are third-party EAs run identically by other traders are prohibited.
• You must own the source code of any EA you use.

Copy trading

• Copying or coordinating trades with other traders or accounts is prohibited.

High Stakes at a glance

• Max daily loss 5%, max loss 10%.
• Targets: Step 1 10%, Step 2 5%. Minimum 3 profitable days (0.5% each). No time limit.
• Leverage 1:100. Weekend holding allowed.

Prohibited Practices

High-speed and automated trading

• Ultra-high-speed tools, software, AI or mass data entry used to gain an unfair advantage are forbidden.
• EAs and bots are not banned as such, but making an account hyperactive (over 2,000 server requests per day) is forbidden.

Hedging

• Holding opposing positions on the same or highly correlated instruments to spread profit across days and dodge the Best Day or Consistency rules is forbidden.
• Opposite positions across accounts for manipulation are also banned.

News trading

• On a funded Standard account, order execution (including stop losses, take profits and pending orders) is restricted for 2 minutes before and after selected news releases, on the affected instruments only.
• Swing accounts, and accounts in the Challenge or Verification phase, are not restricted.

Weekend and overnight holding

• Funded FTMO Accounts (Standard) and FTMO Instant accounts must close positions before any market break longer than 2 hours, including the weekend.
• Swing accounts, and accounts in the Challenge or Verification phase, can hold over the weekend.

Latency arbitrage

• Exploiting price display errors or delays in price updates is forbidden.

Gap trading

• Opening trades before major news, macroeconomic data or earnings, or within two hours of a market close of at least two hours, is forbidden.

Account sharing

• Letting a third party trade your account, or sharing account access, is forbidden.

Objectives

Drawdown

• 2-Step: 5% max daily loss and 10% static max loss.
• 1-Step: 3% max daily loss (resets 00:00 CE(S)T) and 10% end-of-day trailing max loss.

Profit targets

• 2-Step: 10% Challenge, 5% Verification, none on the FTMO Account. 1-Step: 10%.
• 2-Step minimum trading days: 4 per phase.

Rewards

• 90% on 1-Step and Instant. 2-Step 80%, rising to 90% with the Scaling Plan or Premium Programme.
• First Reward can be requested on the 14th day after the first trade.

Prohibited Practices

High-Frequency Trading (HFT)

• HFT, server spamming and tick scalping are not allowed.
• Forbidden strategies result in account termination.

Hedging

• Hedging, long-short arbitrage, reverse arbitrage and opposite-account trading are not allowed.

Latency arbitrage and exploits

• Latency arbitrage, toxic trading flow, server execution exploits, gap trading and churning and burning are not allowed.

News trading

• 2 Step Standard, 2 Step Flex, 2 Step Pro and 1 Step Flex: holding trades through news is allowed during evaluation. Purposely trading news in evaluation or on the Master Account leads to account closure.
• On the Master Account, profits from trades opened or closed within 5 minutes before to 5 minutes after Restricted high-impact news, on the affected currency, may be deducted. Trades opened 5 or more hours earlier are excluded.
• FundingPips Zero: opening, closing or holding a position within 10 minutes of Restricted news is a hard breach.

Weekend and overnight holding

• Allowed during evaluation phases on all 2 Step and 1 Step Flex models.
• On Master Accounts it is not allowed unless you buy the Swing add-on. FundingPips Zero never allows weekend holds.

Copy trading

• Copying between your own FundingPips accounts is allowed, and your FundingPips account may act as a master for your own external accounts.
• Copying between different users' accounts, copying into a FundingPips account from an outside source and third-party account management are prohibited.

Expert Advisors (EAs)

• Third-party EAs may only be used as a trade or risk manager. Your own EA can be fully automated if you can prove you own it.
• The 1K Instant account allows third-party EAs and copiers. The Monthly Competition prohibits all EAs.

2 Step Standard at a glance

• Profit targets: Phase 1 8%, Phase 2 5%. Minimum 3 trading days per phase.
• Max overall loss 10% static. Daily loss 3% or 5%.
• Leverage 1:100 on forex. Rewards weekly 60%, bi-weekly 80%, monthly 100% or on demand 90%.

FundingPips decides at its own discretion what counts as a forbidden practice.