Hello all. Long time lurker, first time poster.
I thought I would share my own experience attempting the FTMO challenge. Read posts here and elsewhere discussing the company and noticed a lot of supposition and not much about the specific questions I had.
FTMO was very friendly and gladly answered all questions I had prior to giving them money. They really seem like they want everyone to succeed and their intentions are good.
Currently on my second $50k challenge. Blew up the first one fairly quickly due to circumstances that were not entirely my fault but I entirely should have managed better. The second has gone better from a trading standpoint but unfortunately I have not had a great experience with the reliability of the server, and I've lost a full week of time from my challenge all told.
There is no information posted on the FTMO site about when certain markets are supposed to be available. One is supposed to rely on the specification on the server. And this makes sense, remembering that this is its own global market.
One Friday I was trading US500 when the market suddenly stopped. According to their specifications it was open for another hour (trusted this and had planned to trade from the closing bell to the 16:15 options deadline). Turns out the specification was simply wrong. Luckily it gapped up on Monday.
Crypto futures are supposed to be available 24/7. This was a big reason I chose to go with FTMO. They simply stop working on the weekend. I've narrowed it down to price data simply vanishing and the FTMO Server will not even accept a limit order (it says "no price snapshot"). I reported it one weekend. They said "no one else reported issues" but it happened again.
On other days different markets have simply frozen on me. Then they say "oh there is a server shutdown interval at this time". I asked them to post the schedules on their Web site but they tell me I should rely on the specification.
One day the minimum order size on index futures jumped from 1 to 3 lots randomly. I contacted support because this greatly interfered with my trading plan and risk management. The live representative had no access nor authority to do anything at all, and refused to commit to whether the time waiting for a response would be added back to my challenge. Support did reply the next day, simply saying it was fixed with no explanation and no offer to extend time.
I've seen lots of speculation that the FTMO Server is them trading against the user. I have no reason to think that. But it is interesting that the times the crypto markets have suddenly gone offline is when there was a strong directional trend. Similarly, when there was world news, the minimum order size for index futures changed such that that fluctuations would violate the drawdown. No reason to believe this is anything other than a coincidence, but I do notice it.
So, my takeaway so far. Friendly and informative in pre-sales; they make it comfortable to give them money, and challenge account is set up quickly. No support during US market hours, and traders are not taken at their word, so better hope you have logs for anything. No success yet getting lost trading days added back to challenge. Crypto markets, available on weekends, is a strong benefit; unfortunately, doesn't work. Market specifications changed randomly without notice/explanation and are sometimes wrong. Server fast and reliable, except for the times it goes offline suddenly, and latency is low. I have every reason to believe that anyone who is able to pass the challenge has no difficulty getting paid successfully.
I really like FTMO and want to believe this is an isolated series of incidents. I just noticed they requested logs from the initial crypto incident and in the meantime I was able to get ahold of a live rep and document it with her. She suggested that perhaps they would offer to replace the time lost once I confirmed the issue was resolved. Still working with them and hope we can work something out. If we can I have a goal to work with them long-term, even if it takes another challenge.
Will update everyone here with how this is handled, whatever the outcome.
I thought I would share my own experience attempting the FTMO challenge. Read posts here and elsewhere discussing the company and noticed a lot of supposition and not much about the specific questions I had.
FTMO was very friendly and gladly answered all questions I had prior to giving them money. They really seem like they want everyone to succeed and their intentions are good.
Currently on my second $50k challenge. Blew up the first one fairly quickly due to circumstances that were not entirely my fault but I entirely should have managed better. The second has gone better from a trading standpoint but unfortunately I have not had a great experience with the reliability of the server, and I've lost a full week of time from my challenge all told.
There is no information posted on the FTMO site about when certain markets are supposed to be available. One is supposed to rely on the specification on the server. And this makes sense, remembering that this is its own global market.
One Friday I was trading US500 when the market suddenly stopped. According to their specifications it was open for another hour (trusted this and had planned to trade from the closing bell to the 16:15 options deadline). Turns out the specification was simply wrong. Luckily it gapped up on Monday.
Crypto futures are supposed to be available 24/7. This was a big reason I chose to go with FTMO. They simply stop working on the weekend. I've narrowed it down to price data simply vanishing and the FTMO Server will not even accept a limit order (it says "no price snapshot"). I reported it one weekend. They said "no one else reported issues" but it happened again.
On other days different markets have simply frozen on me. Then they say "oh there is a server shutdown interval at this time". I asked them to post the schedules on their Web site but they tell me I should rely on the specification.
One day the minimum order size on index futures jumped from 1 to 3 lots randomly. I contacted support because this greatly interfered with my trading plan and risk management. The live representative had no access nor authority to do anything at all, and refused to commit to whether the time waiting for a response would be added back to my challenge. Support did reply the next day, simply saying it was fixed with no explanation and no offer to extend time.
I've seen lots of speculation that the FTMO Server is them trading against the user. I have no reason to think that. But it is interesting that the times the crypto markets have suddenly gone offline is when there was a strong directional trend. Similarly, when there was world news, the minimum order size for index futures changed such that that fluctuations would violate the drawdown. No reason to believe this is anything other than a coincidence, but I do notice it.
So, my takeaway so far. Friendly and informative in pre-sales; they make it comfortable to give them money, and challenge account is set up quickly. No support during US market hours, and traders are not taken at their word, so better hope you have logs for anything. No success yet getting lost trading days added back to challenge. Crypto markets, available on weekends, is a strong benefit; unfortunately, doesn't work. Market specifications changed randomly without notice/explanation and are sometimes wrong. Server fast and reliable, except for the times it goes offline suddenly, and latency is low. I have every reason to believe that anyone who is able to pass the challenge has no difficulty getting paid successfully.
I really like FTMO and want to believe this is an isolated series of incidents. I just noticed they requested logs from the initial crypto incident and in the meantime I was able to get ahold of a live rep and document it with her. She suggested that perhaps they would offer to replace the time lost once I confirmed the issue was resolved. Still working with them and hope we can work something out. If we can I have a goal to work with them long-term, even if it takes another challenge.
Will update everyone here with how this is handled, whatever the outcome.
