10 Best Prop Trading Firms (Jan 2022 Update)
Proprietary Trading is a trading activity when a firm or an institute invests its own capital into stocks, bonds, commodities, and other financial instruments. The risk factor in proprietary Trading is high, so is the profit making opportunity. Selecting a Proprietary Trading Firm is never an easy task, especially if you are a beginner and want to get the most for your investments. To help you out, we have created a list of some of the best proprietary trading providers. It will make your task easy while searching online for the best proprietary firm.
Following is a handpicked list of Top Proprietary trading firms with their popular features and website links.
Top Proprietary Trading Firms
| Name | Initial Balance | Key Features | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fidelcrest | $10k balance for €99 |
• Up To $500,000 in Funding • Scaling plan up to $1,000,000 • Up to 90% profit split |
Learn More |
| FTMO | 25k balance for €250 |
• Accounts worth $200,000 • Offers profit-sharing up to 90% • 2 step evaluation • Leverage up to 1:100 |
Learn More |
| City Traders | $20k to $70k |
• Offers 50/50 profit split • Provides great education to traders • 1:100 Leverage (max exposure of 1:5, 1:6 |
Learn More |
| The5ers | $6k balance for $275 |
• 50/50 profit split • 1:3 & 1:30 Leverage |
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| Leeloo | 200k buying power for $125 monthly |
• No daily drawdown. • Only One login for multiple accounts. • No daily drawdown. |
Learn More |
1) Fidelcrest
Fidelcrest is a globally operating prop trading firm with headquarters in Nicosia, Cyprus. It is one of the best prop firms for forex trading. It gives skilled traders the ability to meet specific requirements after accessing accounts with real funds, thus making a difference in their living.
Features:
- 40% of Phase 2 Profit payed instantly as passed
- 5% profit target on MicroFX accounts
- Allows Trading funded accounts up to $500,000.
- Scaling plan up to $1,000,000.
- Up to 90% profit split.
- Offers low funding options for newer traders.
- 1:100 Leverage.
- News trading allowed.
- Allows you to hold positions overnight and on weekends (Aggressive account only).
- Instant and automatic account opening
Key Statistics:
- Founded: 2018
- Type: Proprietary trading firm
- Location: Nicosia, Cyprus
- What they do: This prop trading firm offers a wide range of account size options designed to suit all types of traders with various levels of expertise and needs.
- Initial Balance: $50,000
2) FTMO
FTMO is one of the best prop firms for forex trading that occupy a specific market niche, combining a classic broker, a school, and a competitive platform for traders and their professional associations.
Features:
- Provides accounts worth $200,000.
- Offers profit-sharing up to 90%.
- 2 step evaluation.
- Free re-test (if only balance is positive).
- It can use EAs, hedging, or trade discretionary.
- News event trading and holding positions overnight.
- Leverage up to 1:100.
Key Statistics:
- Founded: 2017
- Type: Forex Trading Firm
- Location: Czech Republic
- What they do: FTMO prop trading firm offers a variety of trading instruments, including forex, commodities, indices, cryptos, stocks, and bonds.
- Initial Balance: 25k balance for $250, 50k balance for $345, 100k balance for $540 and 200k balance for $1,080.
3) City Traders Imperium
City Traders Imperium is a London-based prop firm offering to fund forex traders. It offers one of the best scaling programs and educational offerings in the industry.
Features:
- Offers 50/50 profit split.
- Provides great education to traders.
- 1:100 Leverage (max exposure of 1:5, 1:6).
- Up to 1 year of evaluation time.
- EAs and hedging are allowed.
- News trades, holding overnight/weekends are allowed.
- Stop-loss required.
Key Statistics:
- Founded: 2014
- Type: Proprietary trading firm
- Location: London, England, United Kingdom
- What they do: They provide various financial trading services, from trading education to automated signals and funded trading accounts.
- Initial Balance: Funding up to $2,000,000.
4) The5ers
The5ers is one of the best prop trading firms for forex trading. It offers an excellent option for everyone, from beginners with zero experience to skilled swing traders who do not need capital. To join this firm, all you need to do is prove that you can trade successfully, stick with your trading plan, and maintain consistency.
Features:
- Instant funding in real accounts.
- One-time fee only.
- Funding doubles at every stage.
- Provides evaluation on a real live trading account.
- External performance statistics.
- Overnight & over the weekend holding is allowed.
- You can get access to a community of successful traders to share ideas and feedback.
- 50/50 profit split.
- 1:3 & 1:30 Leverage.
Key Statistics:
- Founded: 2016
- Type: Funded trading platform
- Location: Raanana, Israel
- They do a funded trader platform and growth program that funds the top forex talents. It helps you to leap to become full-time traders.
- Initial Balance: 6k balance for $275, 10k balance for $450, 20k balance for $875.
5) Leeloo
Leeloo Trading is one of the best and highly reputed prop tradings. The rules of this prop trading firm are very transparent to facilitate the trading and funding process. Its funding phase lasts from a minimum of 10 days to unlimited. It allows you to trade for at least 10 days and must not violate the rules.
Features:
- You can freely trade with your strategy.
- Minimum 10 traded days.
- No daily drawdown.
- Only One login for multiple accounts.
- No scaling.
- Free Ninja license key.
- Allows you to trade full-size accounts.
- No minimum or maximum withdrawal limit after 1 month of Trading.
- You can keep 100% of the first $8000 profit, 80% of profits in 1st year, and 90% after the next 12 months
Key Statistics:
- Founded: 2008
- Type: Proprietary trading firm
- Locations: Hayward, CA, United States
- What they do: This forex trading firm offers a solution to improve their employees’ foreign language conversational skills through textual and voice-based interactions with a chatbot.
6) TopStep
TopStepTrader is a financial technology firm for day traders to operate in real-time simulated accounts and assess their profit/loss performance. It is one of the best prop trading firms with no capital contribution. Traders passing the firm’s evaluation get a trading account to operate in the forex market using the firm’s capital.
Features:
- High Leverage 1:100.
- Buying power of up to $500,000.
- Small monthly fee.
- Excellent reputation.
- Simple rules.
- News event trading, holding positions overnight, and weekends allowed.
- 1:100 Leverage, 1:30 (Swing only).
Key Statistics:
- Founded: 2012
- Type: Proprietary trading firm
- Location: Chicago
- What they do: Provide prospective day traders with a simulated account. Day traders who perform well and stick to specific parameters of the Trading Combine are rewarded with fully funded accounts.
- Initial Balance: 200k buying power for $125 monthly, 300k buying power for $165 monthly, 500k buying power for $275 monthly
7) Jane Street
Jane Street is a global prop trading firm having over 1,200 employees. This prop trading firm has been one of the largest market-makers globally for the past two decades. Their assets include ETFs, equities, futures, commodities, bonds, currencies, etc.
Features:
- The Trading is based on their proprietary models.
- Allows you to actively trade in global equities, bonds, options, and ETFs every day.
- Offers institutional clients access to its principal liquidity through a variety of services.
Key Statistics:
- Founded: 2000
- Type: Proprietary Trading
- Locations: New York, Chicago, London, and Tokyo
- What they do: It is a quantitative prop trading firm that combines a deep understanding of markets. Helps you to learn about the scientific approach and innovative technology to trade successfully in financial markets.
Link: https://www.janestreet.com/
8) IMC
IMC is a technology-driven trading firm and liquidity provider on the NYSE Arca, NASDAQ, CBOE, etc. This prop trading firm uses highly automated systems and trading strategies to “tighter” spreads between bids and offer lower transaction costs for traders.
Features:
- Inclusive work environment
- Support from manager
- Manipulative and Disruptive Trading Practices
- Trade Reporting
Key Statistics:
- Founded: 1989
- Type: Proprietary Trading
- Locations: Sydney, Chicago, Amsterdam
- What they do: They provide liquidity and opportunity for price improvement to end-user retail counterparties.
Link: https://www.imc.com/
9) PEAK6
PEAK6 is a prop trading firm that focuses on developing sophisticated, proprietary technology to manage risk more efficiently in the options market. It is one of the best prop trading firms with no capital contribution, offering liquidity and risk management services for the options market.
Features:
- Design and implement options and equity order router
- Maintain and support 2 real-time systems processing
Key Statistics:
- Founded: 1997
- Type: Proprietary Trading
- Locations: Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, New York
- What they do: They strategically accumulate and manage an inventory of long and short options contracts over extended periods, from days to years.
Link: https://peak6.com/
10) DRW
DRW is a technology-driven proprietary trading firm. It trades across various asset classes and instruments, using a variety of different models. They combine risk management, research, and technology to create optimal trading and investment strategies.
Features:
- Efficient and sophisticated systems and networks.
- Offers Trading in crypto assets, venture capital, and real estate.
- Provides the right tools and reward outstanding results.
Key Statistics:
- Founded: 1995
- Type: Proprietary Trading
- Locations: Chicago, London, Toronto, Huston, London, Singapore, New York, etc.
- What they do: DRW is a diversified prop trading firm that uses its capital for Trading and manages its own risk. This firm leverages a mix of technology, risk management, and research to develop optimal investment and trading strategies.
Link: https://drw.com/
11) Hudson River Trading
Hudson River Trading (HRT) is a multi-asset class quantitative trading firm. The firm is one of the leading innovations in the world of algorithmic trading. This firm has strong quant traders, developers, software engineers, and mathematicians to develop and improve its proprietary trading strategies.
Features:
- This prop trading company has a sophisticated computing environment for research and development.
- They provide idea sharing and collaboration.
Key Statistics:
- Founded: 2002
- Type: Proprietary Trading
- Locations: New York, Chicago, London, Singapore, Dublin, Austin
- What they do: Hudson River Trading is a liquidity provider. This proprietary trading firm offers a scientific approach to trading financial products.
Link: https://www.hudsonrivertrading.com/
How does one get started with a Prop Trading Firm?
Here are the steps that you can follow to get started with a prop trading firm:
Step 1) Understand the basics of Prop trading
Learn how prop trading works, processes, etc., for a better understanding
Step 2) Get Trading and Market knowledge
You should study and analyze how trading and markets work
Step 3) Go through the market rules
You need to understand and follow all the market rules associated with Trading
Step 4) Make a trading strategy
Study and prepare a trading strategy for executing your trades
Step 5) Practice with risk management
Analyze and practice risk management using historical data
Step 6) Try paper trading
Before starting actual Trading, you should practice paper trading on simulator accounts provided by trading firms
Step 7) Do research and find the best proprietary trading firm for you
You can go through the list given above to study all the proprietary trading firms and how they operate
Step 8) Apply to a Proprietary firm as a Trader
Once you are ready for Trading, you can apply to a proprietary trading firm to start trading
Step 9) Get evaluated
Once you apply to a proprietary trading firm, you need to be evaluated by the firm in different means to qualify
Step 10) Get funded
Once you are evaluated, you can now get capital funding to trade with your strategy.
FAQ:
❓ What Is Proprietary Trading?
Proprietary Trading, also called (Prop Trading) occurs when a firm or bank trades stocks, bonds, derivatives, commodities, bonds, or other financial instruments in its account, using its own money in place of clients’ money. This allows prop trading firms to earn full profits from a trade rather than just the commission from processing trades for clients.
Prop traders use numerous techniques like index arbitrage, volatility arbitrage, merger arbitrage, global macro-trading, and maximizing returns. They also have access to sophisticated software and pools of information to help them make critical decisions.
✔️ What are the Best Proprietary Trading Firms?
Following are the Best Proprietary Trading Firms:
- Fidelcrest
- FTMO
- City Traders Imperium
- The5ers
- Leeloo
- TopStepTrader
- Jane Street
- IMC
- PEAK6
- DRW
- Hudson River Trading
⚡ What are the Pros and Cons of joining a Proprietary Trading Firm?
Here are the important pros and cons of joining a proprietary trading firm:
Pros:
- You can obtain start-up capital with a low entry threshold.
- Free training in Trading.
- Getting access to high-level data software.
- You can directly access the exchange.
- Does not have a conflict of interest between the legally operating company and traders.
- You can take advantage of company priority–algorithms for fast profit share.
Cons:
- You need to pay a security deposit.
- You need to spend lots of time and effort.
- You need to learn prop trading software.
- If you are constantly making a loss, the account will be automatically blocked.
🚀 What is Funded Trading?
Funded trading is a form of speculation that can be done through private investment. For this trading to take place, the individual must be able to get funding from outside sources such as banks and other lending institutions.
The funds are given in the form of credit, so the trader does not need to have any additional funds or capital. This type of trading does not come with high risks because the trader only needs to repay the money if they make a profit
It offers several amazing advantages for the trader, like gaining immediate capital to work with lesser paperwork.
However, you cannot become a funded trader easily without a proven and consistent performance track record.
🏅 Hedge Fund vs. Prop Trading
Here are some major differences between Hedge Fund and Prop Trading:
| Hedge Fund | Prop Trading |
|---|---|
| Hedge funds put their client’s money to invest in the financial markets. | Proprietary traders use the firm’s money to invest in the capital markets. |
| Hedge funds are answerable to their clients. | Proprietary Trading works to strengthen the firm’s balance sheet by investing in the financial market. Hence, no restrictions are followed in terms of risk. |
| They are the target of the Volcker Rule, which aims to limit financial institutions’ risk. | Traders can certainly take more risks since they are not dealing with client funds. |
❗ How to Select a Proprietary Trading Firm?
Here are some important criteria which help you to select the right Proprietary Trading firm:
- The term and size of the deposit: The deposit term and size increased by a portion of the firm’s capital should provide an increase in the volume of transactions. It should not increase the risk of current drawdowns and also not forcing yourself to limit the volume.
- Conditions for Participation in Traders Contests: Legitimate proprietors hold such events using demo accounts and not the real ones. In contests on real trading accounts, there is a risk of not getting back the funds deposited by anyone Trading without a prize. However, there is no certainty that they will get the money from the prop trading firm for the winners. You should remember that market conditions of real Trading cardinally differ from contest ones.
- The reputation of the organization: Bad rep proprietary trading firms are marred with a lot of inconveniences, slippage, non-market price jumps, or interrupted communication. So, there is a greater possibility that scammers may not allow withdrawing the profit and trade to the profit. So, you need to avoid such a company.
- Paid training: A trader in a prop firm is an employee, and the employer must educate him free of charge. However, Russian pro-trading companies train for money, and they do not even guarantee employment. So read the terms of your selected proprietary trading firm.
