Phoenix Trader Funding is a fairly new futures prop firm located in Paris, France. They aim to succeed in the highly competitive futures trading arena by supporting aspiring prop traders in starting their careers, offering an all-encompassing program that includes simulated trading accounts, access to live markets and attractive profit-sharing options.
Phoenix Trader Funding’s structured funded program is ideal for futures traders who place a strong emphasis on managing risk. The firm’s practice account enables traders to hone their skills before venturing into live markets with the flexible 1-Step evaluation, and they offer starting capital of up to $150,000. Traders enjoy a generous profit split, retaining 90% of the profits they make with their funded account.
Challenge Account
Phoenix Trader Funding provides two different Challenge accounts, both of which have a one-stage evaluation and one practice challenge which enable you to get to grips with the platform and establish a good strategy before beginning your Classic or Ascension Challenge and qualifying for funding.
Practice Account
The firm’s practice accounts are designed to help you prepare for their funded challenges, giving you a simulation of the real trading experience and letting you test out your strategies and risk management skills without putting real capital at risk. They’re included free with every challenge account and have the same rules and targets as challenge accounts (like starting balances, profit targets, drawdown limit and maximum position sizes). The firm offers unlimited free resets if you fail your practice account and your performance in your practice account won’t have any impact on your challenge. Just be aware that you can’t qualify for funding with a practice account – they’re solely for training purposes.
Trial Breakdown:
Classic Challenge
Phoenix Trader Funding’s best-selling account is the Classic Challenge, which comes in three different sizes: $50,000, $100,000 and $150,000. These have profit targets of $3,000, $6,000 and $9,000 respectively, and trailing drawdowns (a limit on the amount your account value can decline from its peak) of $2,000, $3,000 and $4,500. There isn’t a daily drawdown restriction.
Classic Challenge accounts have a minimum trading day requirement of three days. Maximum contract sizes are five, 10, or 15 contracts according to account size, and real-time data is included with all accounts.
Fees vary according to account size and are $49, $99 or $149 per month. You also have to pay an $149 activation fee, but this is refunded when you withdraw your first payout.
Ascension Challenge Overview
Τhe Ascension Challenge is an alternative to the Classic Challenge, the key difference being that Ascension accounts don’t have a trailing drawdown, instead concentrating on fixed daily drawdown limits and scaling plans. This is ideal for traders averse to trailing drawdowns but still in favour of some risk management parameters to help them stay disciplined.
These accounts have no strict limits contracts, though you will be disqualified if you exceed your account’s maximum position size for more than 10 seconds. Phoenix Trader Funding are confident about the risk management abilities of their traders, but they have tools in place to check you’re complying. Every account has its own drawdown limit that varies according to the scaling plan. If you surpass this limit, you’ll fail the challenge – so placing stop-loss orders is advisable.
The account options are as follows:
$50k Challenge
- Profit Goal: $4,000
- Daily Drawdown: $625 – $1,125 (depending on scaling plan)
- Max Position Size: 2 – 3 contracts (depending on scaling plan)
- Monthly Fee: $270
$150k Challenge
- Profit Goal: $10,00
- Daily Drawdown: $1,250 – $2,250 (depending on scaling plan)
- Max Position Size: 3 – 5 contracts (depending on scaling plan)
- Monthly Fee: $540
If you exceed your maximum drawdown, there are two possible options:
- Wait for your account to renew the following month. If your account fails to renew, Phoenix Trader Funding will reset it at no additional expense.
- Pay the $85 reset charge (found on your dashboard), and your account will be reset immediately. Accounts can be reset several times without limits. The reset amount isn’t determined by your account’s starting size: whether you tried a $50K or $150K challenge, the reset amount is always $85.
Rules
For your challenge to be validated, you need to follow the rules listed below:
Minimum Trading Activity
- Classic: Trade for a minimum of three winning days (with a profit of $200 or higher) within the challenge period.
- Ascension: Trade for a minimum of 10 days (no matter what the profit you make on each day).
The difference in approach between the two account types is explained by the need for Phoenix to carefully evaluate your trading proficiency and risk management skills. Classic accounts’ focus on winning days ensures you have a profitable strategy, while the bigger number of trading days required by Ascension accounts gives Phoenix the chance to assess how you execute your strategies over a longer period.
Trying to game the system by scalping micro-contracts to meet the 10-day minimum – a practice known as “Funding Zone” – is not permitted. Doing so won’t disqualify you, but any trading days where you use the practice don’t count towards your minimum, so even if you reach the profit target, you’ll still have to trade for a minimum of 10 days using your regular strategy.
The 30% Rule
Like the 10-day trading requirement, Phoenix Trader Funding’s 30% Rule is designed to allow the firm to assess your abilities. It only applies to Ascension challenges and Funded accounts, and stipulates that throughout your challenge, the profit from a single day’s trading shouldn’t exceed 30% of your total profits. For example, if you make the following profits with a $100,000 challenge account:
- Day 1: +$460
- Day 2: +$3,540
- Day 3: +$540
- Day 4: -$1,140
- Day 5: +$560
- Day 6: +$550
- Day 7: +$160
- Day 8: -$430
- Day 9: +$860
- Day 10: +$560
Then you would have made a cumulative profit of $5,660 by day 10 – thereby meting the target of $6,0000. However, the $3,540 profit made on Day 2 is 62.54% of your total gains, so it’s a breach of the 30% rule and your challenge won’t be validated. You won’t fail your challenge, but you will need to keep trading until the day 2 profit is less than 30% of your overall profit. So if you go on to make the following profits:
- Day 11: +$760
- Day 12: +$960
- Day 13: -$335
- Day 14: +$1,850
- Day 15: +$1,350
- Day 16: +$1,650
Your cumulative profits now add up to $11,895 and day 2’s profit is only 29.76% of the total – thereby meeting the 30% rule.
A few things to bear in mind regarding this rule:
- Phoenix is by no means trying to limit your profit potential – large profits are encouraged, but the firm also want to ensure you can generate profits consistently too.
- Any surplus earnings you generate during the challenge won’t be transferred to your funded account.
- The 30% rule also applies to funded accounts.
Once you’ve successfully completed the challenge phase, you’ll be able to apply for a “Funded-Tier” account, enabling you to begin your trading career with Phoenix and start trading with real capital. While the challenge phase has tough criteria and you have to meet all the stipulations in order to be eligible for funding, do remember that failing to do so shouldn’t be seen as a setback. See it instead as a way to hone your skills before you re-apply after 30 days.
Scalping
Phoenix Trader Funding permits scaling under certain conditions: you can’t use the strategy for more than 200 trades per day, and trades must last for a minimum of five seconds. If you break either of these rules, the firm’s first step will be to contact you. If you continue to breach the rules after this, you’ll fail your challenge.
Trading Accounts
The firm doesn’t limit how many challenges you can do, through there’s a maximum limit of five on Pre-Funded and Funded-Tier accounts to ensure they can maintain a reasonable degree of consistency with Phoenix Trader Funding Scaling programs.
Trading Hours
You can trade from 6pm to 4.59pm ET, including during holidays and news events.
News Trading
“Tier 1” news trading isn’t allowed, so you mustn’t be in a position two minutes before and two minutes after the news. Trading significant economic news is often viewed as gambling. While this isn’t in itself an issue, it’s not what Phoenix Trader Funding wants for its traders. As such, breaking this rule (which applies to both funded accounts and challenges) will mean your account is disqualified. The following news is considered to be “Tier 1”:
FOMC minutes – All products | 1:00 PM CT |
FOMC interest rate decision statement – All products | 1:00 PM CT |
Phoenix Trader Funding CPI – All products | 7:30 AM CT |
Phoenix Trader Funding employment report (Non-Farm Payrolls) – All products | 7:30 AM CT |
Crude Oil Inventories (EIA) – Oil contracts only | 9:30 AM CT / 10:00 AM CT* |
Natural Gas Inventories (EIA) – Gas contracts only | 9:30 AM CT |
Crop production reports – Ags contacts only | 11:00 AM CT |
Do note that you are still allowed to trade in this way on the Practice account that comes with your challenge and doing so won’t mean your account is disqualified.
Funded Tier
Once you have a “Pre-Funded” account, you can apply to upgrade this to a “Funded-Tier” account. Phoenix Trader Funding will carefully analyse all your trades to check that you’ve followed a proven risk management strategy (rather than just got lucky!). It’s common to fail at this point if you’ve had a problematic trade or other signs of risk management that isn’t quite up to scratch.
If you succeed, Phoenix sets up a meeting between you and a member of their team, so they can get a better idea of your goals (for both the short- and long-term) in partnering with Phoenix, and your trading philosophy.
Trailing Drawdown
Think of a trailing drawdown as a protective measure for your trading profits. If you’re doing well in a trade and want to ensure you don’t lose your gains if the market shifts, you can set a rule:
- If your profits begin to fall and hit a specific threshold below their peak, you’ll automatically exit the trade to preserve the majority of your gains.
- As your profits grow, this threshold adjusts upwards, maintaining a buffer below your highest profit point. It’s a strategy to secure a portion of your gains, even if the market turns against you.
- This concept isn’t limited to a single trade but applies to your entire trading account.
To illustrate this concept, the graph below shows account balance over time in blue, and the trailing drawdown is shown in orange.
If the blue line falls below the orange at any point, your challenge will fail.
There are two methods for calculating trailing drawdown:
- The unrealised P&L method: This adjusts continuously based on your peak unrealised profit and loss.
- The end-of-day method: As opposed to the continually adjusting method described above, the end-of-day approach sets your trailing drawdown limit once a day at market close. It’s calculated using the highest value in your account at the close of each trading day and then stays the same for the entirety of the following day, changing only when the market closes.
Phoenix Trader Funding uses the end-of-day method for all challenges with a trailing drawdown.
The following graph adds in the unrealised balance in dark blue and the trailing drawdown calculating using unrealised profits in red.
If the light blue curve dips below the red curve, the challenge has been failed – demonstrating that succeeding in a challenge with an unrealised P&L trailing drawdown method is tricker and gives you much less flexibility. In short, the end-of-day approach makes your life much easier, and even newcomers to the industry should be able to get to grips with it quickly.
Once you qualify for pre-funded and funded accounts, your trailing drawdown is removed once it exceeds your initial account balance plus $100. This is illustrated in the next graph.
Scaling Plan
Scaling Plan Ascension Accounts
Intra-challenge scaling is exclusive to Ascension accounts and to Phoenix generally. This approach adjusts two main factors: the largest allowable position size and the daily drawdown limit.
Modification of maximum position size
- $50K account: At the beginning of the challenge, the maximum number of contracts is two minis (20 micros). Your challenge will be disqualified if you exceed this limit. When you’ve achieved a net profit of $2,500, your position size goes up to three minis (30 micros) for the rest of the challenge. The chart below summarises this:
- $150K account: You can trade three minis (30 micros) to start with. This rises to four minis (40 micros) once you’ve generated $2,000 in profit and then rises again to five minis when you’ve generated $6,000. Again, the chart below summarises this:
Modification of Daily Drawdown
- $50K account: The other main feature of the intra-challenge scaling plan is daily drawdown. This starts at $625 and increases to $1,125 for the rest of the challenge when your account balance exceeds $52,500, as shown in the chart below.
- $150K account: Daily drawdown starts at $1,250, rises to $1,750 when you’ve made $2,000 in profit, and rises again to $2,250 for the rest of the challenge when you’ve made $6,000 in profit.
Scaling Plan Funded Account
The scaling plan is a crucial part of partnering with Phoenix Trader Funding. The firm offers static drawdown accounts, feeling that these better reflect real trading. The diagram below details how the scaling plan operates:
Payout withdrawal
Profit sharing
Phoenix Trader Funding’s profit-sharing framework is straightforward. Traders receive 80% of their profits (with the firm retaining the remaining 20%). If you maintain an exceptionally high level of consistency for a minimum of six months, you’ll be eligible for a manual account review and may potentially receive an increased profit share of 90%.
While this is a lower profit share than that offered by other prop firms, Phoenix works with their traders rather than against them, and therefore sees it as a fair setup for both parties.
Payout rules
As payout rules are always developing, it’s a good idea to keep up to date with any changes through Phoenix’s social channels or Phoenix Trader Funding Discord. The rules are currently as follows:
- Trade for a minimum of 10 days before requesting each payout (including the first one).
- One payout per month is authorised automatically. This can be increased to two (without extra charges) on request, and just requires a manual review of your account which happens in 72 hours, looking at your performance on both the funded account and the challenge you used to qualify for it. If your request is refused, another review may be carried out after 30 days.
- Your funded account is subject to the 30% consistency rule, so between each payout, the profits from each of your 10 trading days mustn’t exceed 30% of your overall profits (using the active balance at the last payout as a basis).
- There’s a minimum withdrawal amount of $500.
- The maximum withdrawal amount is $2,000 per payout, subject to a limit of three times the account’s total drawdown OR $6,000 – a measure intended to ensure you still have a “safety net” after each payout. For example, to withdraw $2,000 from a $100K account, you’d need a balance of $102,100.
- Payments via bank transfer are processed by Payoneer.
- Cryptocurrency transfers are processed by Phoenix themselves.
Platforms
Phoenix Trader Funding provides access to the following wide range of platforms:
- QScalp
- Tslab
- Collective2
- Investor/RT
- Multicharts
- Overcharts
- Medved Trader
- Photon Trader
- OptimusFlow
- Quantower
- Agena Trader
- SierraChart
- VolFix.Net
- MotiveWave
- ScalpTool
- Trade Navigator
- Atas
- NinjaTrader (with your own license)
- InsideEDGE Trader
- R | Trader / R | Trader Pro
- Bookmap
- Tiger.Trade
Instruments
You can trade all the products listed below with Phoenix Trader Funding:
| Equity Futures contracts | Symbol | Tick size | Data Feed / Exchange |
| E-mini S&P 500 | ES | $12.50 | CME |
| Micro E-mini S&P 500 | MES | $1.25 | CME |
| E-mini NASDAQ-100 | NQ | $5 | CME |
| Micro E-mini NASDAQ-100 | MNQ | $0.50 | CME |
| E-mini Russell 2000 | RTY | $5.00 | CME |
| Micro E-mini Russell 2000 | M2K | $0.50 | CME |
| Nikkei/USD | NKD | $25.00 | CME |
| E-mini Dow | YM | $5.00 | CBOT |
| Micro E-mini Dow | MYM | $0.50 | CBOT |
| FX Futures Pairs contracts | Symbol | Tick size | Data Feed / Exchange |
| Australian Dollar | 6A | $5.00 | CME |
| British Pound | 6B | $6.25 | CME |
| Canadian Dollar | 6C | $6.25 | CME |
| Euro FX | 6E | $6.25 | CME |
| Micro Euro FX | M6E | $1.25 | CME |
| Japanese Yen | 6J | $6.25 | CME |
| Swiss Franc | 6S | $12.50 | CME |
| New Zealand Dollar | 6N | $5.00 | CME |
| Metals Futures contracts | Symbol | Tick size | Data Feed / Exchange |
| Gold Futures | GC | $10.00 | COMEX |
| Micro Gold Futures | MGC | $1.00 | COMEX |
| Silver | SI | $25.00 | COMEX |
| Copper Futures | HG | $12.50 | COMEX |
| Platinum | PL | $5.00 | NYMEX |
| Palladium | PA | $50.00 | NYMEX |
| E-mini Silver | QI | $31.25 | COMEX |
| E-mini Gold | QO | $12.50 | COMEX |
| Agricultural Futures contracts | Symbol | Tick size | Data Feed / Exchange |
| Lean Hog | HE | $10.00 | CME |
| Live Cattle | LE | $10.00 | CME |
| Feeder Cattle | GF | $12.50 | CME |
| Corn | ZC | $12.50 | CBOT |
| Chicago SRW Wheat | ZW | $12.50 | CBOT |
| Soybean | ZS | $12.50 | CBOT |
| Soybean Meal | ZM | $10.00 | CBOT |
| Soybean Oil | ZL | $6.00 | CBOT |
| Bond Futures contracts | Symbol | Tick size | Data Feed / Exchange |
| 2-Year T-Note | ZT | $7.81 | CBOT |
| 5-Year T-Note | ZF | $7.81 | CBOT |
| 10-Year T-Note | ZN | $15.63 | CBOT |
| U.S. Treasury Bond | ZB | $31.25 | CBOT |
| Ultra Bond | UB | $31.25 | CBOT |
| Micro 10-Year Yield | 10Y | $1.00 | CBOT |
| Energy futures contracts | Symbol | Tick size | Data Feed / Exchange |
| Crude Oil | CL | $10.00 | NYMEX |
| Micro Crude Oil | MCL | $1.00 | NYMEX |
| E-mini Crude Oil | QM | $12.50 | NYMEX |
| E-mini Natural Gas | NG | $10.00 | NYMEX |
| Henry Hub Natural Gas | QG | $12.50 | NYMEX |
| Heating Oil (NY Harbor ULSD) | HO | $4.20 | NYMEX |
| New York Harbor (RBOB Gasoline) | RB | $4.20 | NYMEX |
Commissions for Rithmic
The commissions applied to your trades (for challenges, Pre-Funded accounts and Funded-Tier account) are as follows:
| Equity Futures contracts | Symbol | Exchange | 1 Side | Round Turn |
| E-mini S&P 500 | ES | CME | $1.99 | $3.98 |
| Micro E-Mini S&P 500 | MES | CME | $0.51 | $1.02 |
| E-mini NASDAQ-100 | NQ | CME | $1.99 | $3.98 |
| Micro E-Mini NASDAQ-100 | MNQ | CME | $0.51 | $1.02 |
| E-mini Russell 2000 | RTY | CME | $1.99 | $3.98 |
| Micro E-mini Russell 2000 | M2K | CME | $0.51 | $1.02 |
| Nikkei/USD | NKD | CME | $1.99 | $3.98 |
| E-mini Dow | YM | CBOT | $1.99 | $3.98 |
| Micro E-mini Dow | MYM | CBOT | $0.51 | $1.02 |
| FX Pairs Futures contracts | Symbol | Exchange | 1 Side | Round Turn |
| Australian Dollar | 6A | CME | $2.36 | $4.72 |
| British Pound | 6B | CME | $2.36 | $4.72 |
| Canadian Dollar | 6C | CME | $2.36 | $4.72 |
| Euro FX | 6E | CME | $2.36 | $4.72 |
| Micro Euro FX | M6E | CME | $0.42 | $0.84 |
| Japanese Yen | 6J | CME | $2.36 | $4.72 |
| Swiss Franc | 6S | CME | $2.36 | $4.72 |
| New Zealand Dollar | 6N | CME | $2.36 | $4.72 |
| Metals Futures contracts | Symbol | Exchange | 1 Side | Round Turn |
| Gold Futures | GC | COMEX | $2.31 | $4.62 |
| Micro Gold Futures | MGC | COMEX | $0.76 | $1.52 |
| Silver | SI | COMEX | $2.31 | $4.62 |
| Copper Futures | HG | COMEX | $2.31 | $4.62 |
| Platinum | PL | NYMEX | $2.31 | $4.62 |
| Palladium | PA | NYMEX | $2.31 | $4.62 |
| E-mini Silver | QI | COMEX | $1.51 | $3.02 |
| E-mini Gold | QO | COMEX | $1.51 | $3.02 |
| Agricultural Futures contracts | Symbol | Exchange | 1 Side | Round Turn |
| Lean Hog | HE | CME | $2.79 | $5.58 |
| Live Cattle | LE | CME | $2.79 | $5.58 |
| Feeder Cattle | GF | CME | $2.79 | $5.58 |
| Corn | ZC | CBOT | $2.79 | $5.58 |
| Chicago SRW Wheat | ZW | CBOT | $2.79 | $5.58 |
| Soybean | ZS | CBOT | $2.79 | $5.58 |
| Soybean Meal | ZM | CBOT | $2.79 | $5.58 |
| Soybean Oil | ZL | CBOT | $2.79 | $5.58 |
| Bond Futures contracts | Symbol | Exchange | 1 Side | Round Turn |
| 2-Year T-Note | ZT | CBOT | $1.36 | $2.72 |
| 5-Year T-Note | ZF | CBOT | $1.41 | $2.82 |
| 10-Year T-Note | ZN | CBOT | $1.51 | $3.02 |
| U.S Treasury Bond | ZB | CBOT | $1.72 | $3.44 |
| Ultra Bond | UB | CBOT | $1.56 | $3.12 |
| Energy Futures contracts | Symbol | Exchange | 1 Side | Round Turn |
| Crude Oil | CL | NYMEX | $1.99 | $3.98 |
| Micro Crude Oil | MCL | NYMEX | $0.51 | $1.02 |
| E-Mini Crude Oil | QM | NYMEX | $1.99 | $3.98 |
| E-mini Natural Gas | NG | NYMEX | $1.98 | $3.96 |
| Henry Hub Natural Gas | QG | NYMEX | $1.26 | $2.56 |
| Heating Oil (NY Harbor ULSD) | HO | NYMEX | $1.98 | $3.96 |
| New York Harbor (RBOB Gasoline) | RB | NYMEX | $1.98 | $3.96 |
- Variety of different account sizes gives you flexibility.
- Scaling plan offered.
- Know what to expect in terms of risk management with fixed drawdown challenges.
- Free trial.
- End-of-day drawdown gives you more control.
- Low minimum withdrawals give you convenient access to your profits.
- Reasonably priced evaluations.
- Flexible trading hours mean you can trade when it suits you.
- Not a huge amount of information available about the firm.
- Only an 80% profit share at the start, with a 90% share available after three to six months.
- Somewhat restrictive payout rules.
Phoenix Trader Funding provides lots of attractive features for aspiring futures traders, like flexibility over account sizes, very reasonable pricing, a free trial and scaling plans. Fixed drawdowns and daily transparency measures help traders feel confident about managing risk, and low minimum withdrawal requirements – as well as flexible trading hours – mean that the firm can accommodate a range of trading preferences.
Nonetheless, there are a couple of drawbacks that are worth bearing in mind. Phoenix Trader Funding was established only recently, and their rules for payouts (like limits on frequency and maximum amounts), while showing a firm commitment to appropriate risk management, may be somewhat restrictive.
All in all, Phoenix Trader Funding can serve as a valuable gateway for traders looking for access to funding.
