FTMO, the best-known CFD prop firm, finally offers Futures trading.
1) Growth or Pro?
FTMO Futures offers two challenges, Growth and Pro, in 50K, 100K and 150K account sizes.
Both have the same profit targets, but Pro allows more drawdown.
The difference is greatest on the 50K account: a $3,000 profit target with $3,000 of drawdown room, compared with $2,000 on Growth.
During the evaluation:
- Growth has no daily loss limit and a 40% consistency rule
- Pro has a hard daily loss limit and a 50% consistency rule
A hard limit means that breaching it causes you to lose the account.
On Pro 50K, this limit is $1,000 per day. You therefore have $3,000 of total drawdown room but can fail the challenge by reaching a $1,000 loss in a single day.
Both formats use end-of-day drawdown.
After you pass, FTMO gives you a simulated funded account called "Sim-Funded", with no profit target or consistency rule.
Pro retains its hard daily loss limit. Breaching it closes the funded account.
On Growth, the daily loss limit only appears at the funded stage and remains a soft limit.
If you reach it, FTMO closes your positions and blocks trading until the next session, but the account remains active.
2) Advantages
An attractive profit-target-to-drawdown ratio
For me, FTMO Futures' main advantage is the Pro 50K account.
Its 1:1 ratio between the profit target and drawdown allowance is particularly favourable for a 50K Futures challenge.
No activation fee
There's nothing to pay to move from the challenge to the funded account, and the monthly subscription stops once you pass the evaluation.
No consistency rule on the funded account
FTMO removes the consistency rule after the evaluation.
You don't have to keep making profits just to bring your best day's share of the total down before you can withdraw.
High payout caps on Pro
Pro allows you to request up to 100% of the available profit in a cycle, subject to the account's payout cap.
For example, the Pro 50K cap is $5,000.
There is also no additional buffer to build before withdrawing your first profits.
3) Disadvantages
A subscription-based challenge
FTMO sets no time limit on the evaluation, but the subscription continues until you pass.
If it takes three months to pass, you pay three monthly fees.
A reset costs only $10 less than a new monthly payment and does not postpone the next subscription renewal.
Pro's hard daily loss limit
The daily loss limit reduces some of the benefit of Pro's larger drawdown allowance. You can still lose the account before reaching the overall drawdown limit.
Several payout requirements
Removing the consistency rule on funded accounts simplifies withdrawals, but FTMO still has several requirements:
- Growth requires four profitable days that meet a minimum profit threshold
- Pro requires five, with higher daily thresholds
- Growth allows you to request at most 50% of the available profit in a cycle
- At least 50% of the requested amount must come from new profits earned during the current cycle
The new-profit rule can make profits left in the account harder to withdraw later.
If $10,000 remains available but you make only $1,000 in new profits during the next cycle, you can request a payout of only $2,000.
Only three funded accounts
FTMO limits each trader to three funded accounts at a time.
With three 150K accounts, you can reach a total allocation of $450,000. But three accounts is still a low limit if you trade several accounts together to increase your payouts.
By comparison, Apex Trader Funding allows up to twenty at once.
Position-size scaling after the challenge
You can't use the full contract limits from the evaluation as soon as you move to a funded account.
A 50K starts at two mini contracts before scaling to five. A 100K goes from four to ten, and a 150K from six to fifteen.
Limited platform choice
FTMO Futures supports Tradovate, TradingView and NinjaTrader.
Without Rithmic, the choice is narrower. In particular, you cannot keep certain setups based on Sierra Chart, ATAS or Quantower.
4) My recommendation
If I were choosing today, I'd go for the Pro 50K first.
For me, its 1:1 ratio between the profit target and drawdown allowance is worth paying slightly more than for Growth.
The daily loss limit still requires strict risk management.
For the way I trade intraday and scalp, position-size scaling wouldn't change my choice. Two mini contracts on a 50K already provide enough exposure.
I'd also choose Pro for the 100K, where the extra $1,000 of drawdown room compared with Growth remains attractive.
For the 150K, I prefer Growth. Pro's payout conditions become more demanding: five days at $500, compared with four days at $300 for Growth.
At that size, I'd rather give up some of the extra drawdown room and have fewer restrictions on payouts.
My live FTMO Futures test
Here's the replay of a livestream where I trade FTMO Futures using TradingView.
