👀 TakeProfitTrader bot scandal erupts

Hi everyone, it’s Kieran. Another week is in the books and it’s time to do it all over again.

It was a wild week for TakeProfitTrader traders as many, (seemingly most of X!) was banned from the firm due to bot usage (which is against their T&Cs).

Also bans due to hedging we being handed out.

Thankfully after about 24 hours, it seem that TPT admitted that in many cases they “misclassified” the activity and most of these accounts were reinstated.

TPT is often stated a favorite firm of profitable traders, due to their live account structure, so this was a bit of a shocker for the community. Thankfully the situation appears to have been rectified quickly.

📢 Firm Announcements

• FTMO expanded its product offering with new stock CFDs including MSTR, PLTR, and GME.

• FundedNext introduced a new rewards scaling model offering 4% growth per cycle and up to $4M allocation, alongside updates to Stellar and Instant account structures.

•Funded Futures Family rolling out major upgrades: 5 accounts per user, metals trading enabled, no payout windows, and new Premier Plus structure. Customisable evals also coming in April, plus Funded Crypto Family early access launching April 6.

• Finotive Funding introducing clearer floating drawdown tracking with warnings at 1.0% and strikes at 1.5%, alongside DST schedule adjustments.

• HolaPrime introduced new add ons including swap free and challenge reset features, alongside broader product upgrades to leverage, payouts, and account conditions.

• FXIFY launched a new Instant Funding Lite model with significantly reduced entry pricing.

• Blueberry Funded introduced payout boosting via broker transfers, offering a 30% bonus when converting payouts into trading capital.

• Goat Funded Futures introduced a soft breach system allowing accounts to pause instead of being closed, alongside new instant and sprint style funding models.

• My Crypto Funding completed Rise onboarding, introduced daily payout add on and 24/7 trading support, with ongoing infrastructure and server upgrades.

• Top One Trader removed the 1% max open risk rule on its Two Step Plus model, increasing flexibility with weekend holding allowed.

• The5ers updated leverage on metals and indices to 1:25 across all account sizes.

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🕜 Red Folder News

Here are this week’s red folder news events. Non-farm payrolls on Friday is the key event to look out for, as well as Retail Sales on Wednesday. Headline risk is of course very high, due to events in Iran.

📈 Markets

April Seasonality

On a 20 year lookback, the S&P500 usually breaks out in April and never looks back.

Contrarian long setup looking good

Taking the opposite side of market sentiment is the cornerstone of the buy the dip regime which we have been in for last decade. Looks easy after the fact, but buying the dip whilst in the dip is difficult, however performs very well over the long term.

Third largest selling in 10 years

For a true market bottom we would want to see capitulation selling, where longs throw in the towel, or get stopped out. Last week we saw the third largest selling volume over the past decade, approaching levels seen in Apr-May ’20 during Covid and Liberation Day.

Brutal consistent late-week action

Interesting market dynamic that I came across. 9 straight negative Thursdays, 5 straight negative Fridays. Traders do not seem to want to be long over the weekend. Something to keep an eye on this week.

OK let’s get this week started, have a good one!

Kieran

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