👀 Apex faces federal lawsuit over payout claims

Hi everyone, another week is upon us and the markets are open, so lets get into it.

Apex Trader Funding found itself at the centre of a new legal challenge last week after a lawsuit was filed in U.S. federal court. The complaint alleges fraud and regulatory violations, arguing that some of Apex's marketing claims, including "No Payout Denials" and "Simple Rules", did not reflect how trader accounts were actually managed. As with any newly filed lawsuit, these are allegations that have yet to be tested in court.

Traders on X quickly began dissecting the filing.

📢  Firm Announcements

• Tradeify removed the Microscalping Rule from the evaluation stage, giving traders more flexibility while keeping the rule in place for funded accounts. The firm also announced that TylerG_Capital is joining Tradeify TV as a new weekday host.

• FundedNext introduced Bulk Purchase, allowing traders to buy multiple CFD and Futures accounts in a single transaction. The firm also closed its first FundedNext Labs experiment after filling all available places.

• Funded Trader Markets launched Copy Trading, allowing traders to automatically mirror trades across accounts with customizable risk settings.

• Crypto Fund Trader announced that its BREAK accounts are being discontinued as the firm shifts its focus towards improving challenge conditions, payout speeds, and platform stability.

• Elite Trader Funding added a new Trader Journal to its dashboard, allowing traders to log, review, and optionally share their trading notes and performance history.

From Payout Junction, here are the firms that paid out the most over the last 7 days 🏆️.

🔥 Monitor prop firm payouts LIVE on Payout Junction - https://payoutjunction.com.

🕜 Red Folder News

Here are this week’s red folder news events. Non Farm payrolls on Friday is the biggest event of the week.

📈 Markets

Choppy conditions

A volatile week for equity markets, with a sharp sell off on Wednesday almost completely reversed by Friday after the hyperscalers reported another round of blockbuster earnings.

Hyperscalers earning their keep

All 3 hyperscalers, Google, Microsoft & Amazon, reported revenue accelerations compared to last quarter. Google Cloud revenue growth in particular going supersonic.

Hedge Funds back buying tech

That appears to be all hedge funds needed to pile back into technology stocks. According to Goldman Sachs, hedge funds were net buyers of U.S. technology stocks at the fastest pace since December 2022, driven by both new long positions and short covering.

August Seasonality

On a 20 year lookback, August has historically been a fairly flat month for the S&P 500. With continued uncertainty in the Middle East, a major breakout may prove difficult, although markets have surprised us plenty of times before.

OK, you’re all caught up. Have a good week!

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