👀 Your weekly prop trading roundup is here

Hi everyone, it’s Kieran. A Tuesday newsletter this week due to the US holiday yesterday, but we’re back to business as usual so let’s get into it.

Most of the social media discussion this week has been around Topstep’s changes to their live account structure.

Most of the push-back that I have seen has actually been around the fact that they are applying this retrospectively to all accounts rather than new accounts going forward. This is designed to protect the firm from traders YOLOing their live accounts for a huge payout, which has been much more effective lately to this historically run-up in in metals markets.

📢 Firm Announcements via promojunction.io

• Tradeify continued rollout of Tradeify Crypto following launch, expanding instant funding and on demand payout options across crypto accounts.

• Apex Trader Funding confirmed ongoing instrument restrictions as volatility remains elevated across select markets.

• Funded Trader Markets announced the delisting of several crypto pairs this weekend, with new instruments coming soon.

• LucidTrading activated stricter cross account hedging enforcement, removing profits and risking breaches for repeated violations.

• Funded Futures Family launched WealthCharts as a new trading platform option and confirmed copy trading is now allowed.

• Blue Guardian Futures rolled out crypto payouts alongside its expanded futures offering.

• Alpha Capital Group launched Alpha Prime, introducing structured learning tools and mentorship for traders.

• PipFarm introduced new trailing instant challenge models including end of day trailing drawdown structures.

• FundingTraders restored full dashboard functionality following recent platform disruptions.

• TradeDay implemented temporary metals position limits amid heightened volatility.

To get announcement alerts for your favorite firms, head over to promojunction.io.

From Payout Junction, here are the firms who 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. A global looking calendar this week so be careful if you are trading FX pairs at firms with news restrictions. Friday afternoon looks to be the highest impact with US GDP, PCE Index (inflation) and Flash PMIs.

📈 Markets

Software stocks cratering

One of the biggest drivers of the current “Risk-off” sentiment is the abandonment of Software companies. The narrative that AI is going to replace them is hard to ignore. Software companies still make up 8.5% of the S&P500 market cap, so continued selling in this sector will bleed heavily into the equity markets.

Mag 7 in correction territory 

Down 10% since the October highs. It’s never easy to buy the dip when in the dip, but buying these stocks on major pullbacks has been a profitable strategy for a very long time.

Back to Fear

Market sentiment has moved from Neutral to Fear. This is far from an extreme reading though so there’s plenty of room for this to deteriorate further. Contrarian longs start to look good once we get deep into Extreme Fear territory.

Why so much Fear?

Mag 7 spend on AI is set to be big...very big. Chart shows free cashflow cratering over the next few years, as some of the biggest companies in the world pour their cash reserves into AI. If they can’t turn this spend into profits, it is going to have huge ramifications for these market leaders, and the overall equity markets.

OK guys that’s it from me, hope you have a great week!

Kieran

Enjoy trading related newsletters? Try the Market Journal 👇️ 

Monitor prop firm payouts LIVE on Payout Junction 🔥 

Real-time prop firm discounts, flash deals and announcements 👇️