Using a trade copier with prop firm accounts: what to check first
Passing one challenge is hard. Managing three funded accounts at three firms by hand is harder. That's why many funded traders use a trade copier: trade once on a master account and let every funded account follow, each sized for its own balance and rules.
Done well, it saves hours. Done badly, it can break a rule and cost you an account. Here's what to check.
1. Read each firm's copy trading rule
Firms don't agree with each other. In general you'll find three positions:
- Allowed for accounts you own, often with a limit on total capital.
- Allowed with conditions, such as no copying between different traders, or no copying from accounts at other firms.
- Not allowed during the challenge, or not at all.
Rules change often, so read the current FAQ or ask support before you connect anything. Copying your own trades between your own accounts is very different from copying someone else's signals, and most firms treat them differently.
2. Size each account on its own
Funded accounts often have very different sizes: a $10k, a $50k and a $100k. Use match equity or match balance so each one carries the same risk as a share of its size. Copying a fixed lot to all of them would put ten times the risk on the smallest.
If one firm has a tighter daily loss limit, give that account a lower multiplier, such as 0.8, so it stays further from the edge.
3. Set protection per account
The daily loss limit is the rule that ends most funded accounts. Set Vuxcopy's protection a little inside each firm's limit:
| Firm rule | Suggested Vuxcopy setting | |---|---| | 5% daily loss | Daily loss 4% | | 10% max loss | Max loss 8.5% | | Max 2 lots per trade | Max lot 2.00 |
When a limit is hit, Vuxcopy closes the trades it opened on that account and stops copying to it for the day, while the master and your other accounts carry on.
Prices can jump past a limit in fast markets, which is why you leave a buffer.
4. Watch out for news and weekend rules
Some firms ban trading close to big news or holding over the weekend. Use trading hours to stop new copies at certain times, and remember that copies follow the master: if the master holds a trade over the weekend, so do the copies.
5. Keep comments clean
Some traders prefer copied trades not to say which software opened them. In each copy account's settings you can set the trade comment to the master's comment, your own text, or nothing at all.
6. Don't run the master on the funded account
Trade on an account you control, such as a live account at your own broker or a demo, and let the funded accounts follow. That way a mistake on one funded account doesn't affect the source.
The short version
Check each firm's rule, size each account on its own, set protection inside each limit, and leave a buffer. A copier won't make a strategy better, but it will stop you making different mistakes on every account.