What types of EAs/trading methods are not permitted?

If your account has been found abusing the system and violating the trading rules, the contract will be terminated immediately without notice, and you will be banned permanently from CTI, with no refund policy.

Below are the prohibited trading methods that lead to the breach of our terms and conditions.

Copy Trading EAs or Social Trading Tools from other traders or signal providers.

This involves automatically or manually copying trades or trading strategies of another trader.

It's prohibited because it often involves using someone else's trading signals without proper authorization or understanding rather than genuinely depending on the actual performance of the trader who signed up with CTI.

However, The Client can copy trades from their personal account to our funded account.

Copy Trading as Group Trading or Coordination with other traders.

Group trading or coordinating with other traders, whether using an EA or manually, is prohibited as it compromises the integrity and fairness of our funding programs. These practices can lead to the distortion of individual performance assessments. Our programs are designed to evaluate and reward the skills of individual traders.

To maintain a level playing field and ensure that each trader's performance is accurately assessed, we require that all trading activities be conducted independently.

Account management, where one individual or entity manages or controls the trading activities of another's account, is strictly prohibited. This includes any form of control or influence over another trader’s account, whether through direct management or by providing trading instructions. Allowing someone else to handle or make decisions regarding your account undermines the principle of individual assessment and can lead to unfair advantages or discrepancies in performance evaluation.

However, there is no issues with sharing analysis from other traders for the genuine experience of learning and improving the trader's own trading performance.

Funded Account Pass Services or any third parties.

Funded account management services are prohibited because they undermine the principle of individual accountability and skill that our programs are built upon.

Allowing third parties to manage funded accounts dilutes the direct relationship between the trader and CTI, making it difficult to accurately assess the trader's abilities and performance.

Additionally, it increases the risk of fraudulent activities and improper trading practices, which can compromise the integrity of our funding programs and create unfair advantages.

Therefore, we require that all trading activities be conducted solely by the account holder.

Account Sharing or Reselling accounts with other individuals or entities

Account sharing or reselling accounts with other individuals or entities is strictly prohibited. This occurs when a trader sells access to their funded trading account to another person or entity, allowing them to trade on their behalf or use the account for their own purposes in exchange for a fee or profit share.

Such practices undermine the integrity of our evaluation process and the trust-based relationship between the trader and the firm.

It obscures the true performance of the original account holder and can introduce unauthorized and potentially risky trading behaviors.

To maintain a fair and transparent trading environment, we require that each funded account be used exclusively by the trader who was evaluated and approved.

News Bracketing Strategy

The bracketing strategy, which involves placing buy and sell pending orders around high-impact news events above and below the market price, is prohibited. 

This strategy entails opening both buy and sell stop orders close to the current price before a major economic announcement.

When the news is released, the resulting volatility triggers one of the orders, allowing the trader to profit from the price swing.

Martingale Style Trading

This involves opening more positions (regardless of position size) as the price moves in the opposite of the trade direction in an attempt to recover previous losses and make a profit once the price returns to the original open price.

This trading method is prohibited as it only works in a ranging market. Once the price starts moving in one direction, this strategy always, without exception, fails in the end with a margin call and wiping out the complete trading account. 

Grid Style Trading  

Grid Trading is a trading strategy where multiple buy and sell orders are placed at predefined price levels on a trading chart, typically both above and below the current market price, forming a grid-like pattern.

These orders create a structured grid of trades that aims to capitalize on price fluctuations within a certain range. As the market moves, these orders are executed when the price reaches the predetermined levels. When the market moves in one direction, the profitable trades in that direction can offset potential losses from the opposite direction.

While Grid Trading seeks to minimize risk, sudden and strong market trends can lead to significant losses. Additionally, a prolonged trend in one direction could result in a large accumulation of losing trades on one side of the grid.

Gamble to pass

To prevent gambling behaviour, ensure responsible trading practices, and accurately assess the trader’s performance on our funding programs, it is prohibited to attempt to pass challenges or evaluations using gambling behaviour in one of a few trades.

"Gamble to pass" refers to a trading approach where traders:

(1) take excessively unusual high-risk trades that are not in line with the trader's past trading history in an attempt to pass in one single trade (or multiple positions opened on the same symbol at the same time); and/or

(2) max out on leverage in one single trade (or multiple positions opened on the same symbol at the same time) to quickly hit profit targets, often disregarding proper risk management and trading strategies; 

This approach is essentially gambling, as it relies on luck rather than skill and consistent performance.

Traders must demonstrate consistent trading activity over the assessment period to pass to the next level.

Responsible trading requires a balanced approach, considering both potential rewards and risks.

Churning of Accounts

Churning of accounts involves clients buying multiple accounts and trading them with excessive risk, aiming to quickly hit profit targets without considering risk management or demonstrating consistent trading performance. 

In this scenario, traders purchase multiple accounts at the maximum amount available and manage to pass them.

This situation leads traders to take unnecessarily risky trades on the first account they receive, believing that if they recklessly breach that account, they can immediately start trading on the next one.

According to our data, a healthy trader should be able to trade responsibly and pass within two weeks under normal conditions. 

One-Side Bets

One-sided bets refer to a trading strategy where the trader takes positions in one direction without considering market conditions or conducting proper analysis.

For example, a trader might enter long positions on a particular currency pair, believing it will rise indefinitely, regardless of market conditions or contrary indicators.

This approach disregards essential risk management principles and can lead to significant losses.

Similarly, leaving a position open until it hits the profit target without any trade management is prohibited.

This strategy involves neglecting active trade oversight, unlike swing trading, where the position is managed throughout its duration.

This lack of management can result in unchecked risks and substantial losses if the market moves unfavourably.

Proper trade management is crucial to maintaining a balanced and responsible trading strategy.

Group hedging

Group hedging involves multiple traders coordinating their positions to collectively hedge risk across their accounts.

For instance, one trader might take a long position while another takes a short position on the same asset on two or more accounts, effectively neutralizing the risk for the group but exploiting the system's rules.

This practice distorts the true assessment of individual trading skills and creates an unfair advantage, undermining the integrity of the trading environment.

Group hedging is strictly prohibited to maintain a fair and transparent market, ensuring that each trader's performance is evaluated based on their individual merits.

Multi-Account Reverse Trading

Automatically or manually mirroring or replicating trades from a primary account to several other accounts but in the opposite direction. Essentially, if the primary account takes a long position, the connected accounts will take a short position, and vice versa. These types of EAs are prohibited because they involve a form of strategy manipulation that can be used to exploit certain trading conditions and can also lead to unfair trading practices.

Multi-Account Reverse Trading involves a trader using multiple accounts to take opposite positions on the same asset, effectively hedging their risk and manipulating outcomes.

For example, one account might be used to place a long position while another account simultaneously places a short position on the same asset.

This strategy ensures that at least one account will profit regardless of market direction, creating an unfair advantage and distorting the true performance metrics.

EAs that scalp during the rollover night to take advantage of the price feed

Using Expert Advisors (EAs) that scalp during the rollover period to exploit price feeds is prohibited.

This practice can manipulate market conditions and take unfair advantage of temporary price discrepancies, undermining the integrity of our trading environment.

We aim to ensure fair and ethical trading practices for all participants.

Third-party EAs that use the same EA.

You can trade with any genuine EA you developed and use personally.

At CTI, we're keenly aware of the significant role that Expert Advisors (EAs) can play in automating and optimizing your trading strategies. We're committed to enhancing your trading experience, which is why we fully support using EAs across all our accounts in every phase of your trading journey.

However, we want to draw attention to the risks of using third-party Expert Advisors (EAs) available on the open market, which breaches our rules against copy trading.

Note: using Trade Managers & Calculators are allowed.

EAs that the trader does not own the source code.

Using Expert Advisors (EAs) for which the trader does not own the source code is strictly prohibited.

This rule is in place to ensure transparency and accountability in trading activities.

Without ownership of the source code, it is difficult to verify the integrity and reliability of the EA, which can lead to potential abuses and exploitation of our systems and programs.

Traders who have EAs, must submit a copy of the source code to CTI to verify the authenticity of the EA used.

Latency Arbitrage Across Platforms or Exchanges

Arbitrage trading, or exploiting price discrepancies or glitches within different markets of similar or identical assets, is prohibited. 

This occurs when a trader takes advantage of price differences for the same asset on two different exchanges, buying or selling on one exchange to profit from the discrepancy. 

Trading strategies that take advantage of system errors

Such as inaccuracies in price display or delays in updating, is prohibited.

This occurs when a trader spots a technical glitch on the trading platform that shows incorrect price quotes for an asset and places trades to profit from these inaccuracies before the error is corrected. 

High-Frequency Trading (HFT)

where the majority of trades are executed within a few seconds or less, is prohibited.

This involves using sophisticated algorithms to execute trades within seconds or less, taking advantage of small price movements in the market.

Ultra-Fast Scalping

Ultra-fast scalping, similar to regular scalping, involves making a large number of small profits on price changes that occur within seconds or minutes.

This strategy is characterized by its extremely short holding periods and rapid execution.

Tick-Scalping Strategies

Tick-based trading strategies, which involve making trades based on every minor price movement or "tick" in the market, are prohibited.

This occurs when a trader engages in rapid-fire trading, entering and exiting positions within seconds based on minor fluctuations in price that occur with each tick of the market.

News Scalping EAs

News Scalping EAs, which are designed to exploit price fluctuations during major news releases or significant economic events by using rapid scalping techniques, are prohibited.

These EAs take advantage of the extreme short-term volatility that occurs during such events. This approach can be highly unpredictable and often results in significant slippage due to the thin liquidity available at these times.

Use of Emulators

The use of emulators in trading is prohibited. Emulators mimic the operations of another program or system, which can be problematic, especially when used with Expert Advisors (EAs).

They can replicate prohibited strategies or bypass system protections, undermining the integrity and security of the trading environment.

This practice goes against our commitment to maintaining a fair and transparent trading platform for all users.

Reverse Arbitrage Trading 

Reverse arbitrage trading involves exploiting price inefficiencies between markets in a way that is opposite to traditional arbitrage.

In this strategy, a trader might sell an overvalued asset in one market while simultaneously buying it in another market where it is undervalued, aiming to profit from the price discrepancy as the markets correct. 

Hedge Arbitrage Trading

Hedge arbitrage trading involves simultaneously taking opposing positions in correlated assets or markets to exploit price discrepancies and take advantage of price differentials on the same or different accounts.

For example, a trader might buy an asset in one market while shorting a similar asset in another market, aiming to profit from minor price differences.