Can you trade news at a futures prop firm?

Mostly yes in the eval, often with a blackout window once you're funded. Bulenox and Tradeify allow news trading freely and Apex allows it in one direction. Topstep caps your size from 5 minutes before to 5 minutes after Tier 1 releases, and several funded accounts make you stay flat for 1 to 2 minutes around red-folder events.

By FundedSim Desk

The rules, firm by firm

News rules are one of the few places where the eval and the funded account really split. Most firms let you trade CPI or NFP while you're proving yourself, then tighten up once there's a payout on the line. Here's where each firm we track stands.

Two of these deserve a closer look because the wording trips people up.

Apex doesn't ban news. Its prohibited-activities page says trading during news is fine "for your normal trading strategy". What it bans is the coin flip: a buy stop above and a sell stop below the candle, or piling in after the move has already run. Same rule in the eval and the PA.

Alpha Futures is the only firm here that lets you hold through the release on a restricted account. You just can't open or close anything inside the 4-minute window. Break it and the profits from that trade are voided and the payout is denied; the first offence is a warning, a repeat is a breach.

What counts as a news event

Every firm with a window uses the same handful of releases, though they name them differently: Topstep calls them Tier 1, MyFundedFutures T1, and Alpha Futures and Take Profit Trader point you to the red-folder USD events on ForexFactory.

MyFundedFutures adds the FOMC minutes and, for energy and ag traders, the EIA and agricultural reports. Take Profit Trader explicitly lets you trade Fed speakers and the FOMC minutes. If your firm says "red folder", check the calendar the morning of, because the folder colour is set by the calendar site, not the firm.

A blackout window, minute by minute

Say it's CPI day and you're on a MyFundedFutures Rapid sim funded account. The number drops at 8:30 AM ET.

• 8:27. You're long 2 MES with a stop and a target working. Fine for now.
• 8:28. The window opens. You need to be flat and have no working orders. That includes the stop and the target. Close the position and cancel the bracket.
• 8:30. The print. Price rips 20 points. You watch.
• 8:32. Window closes. You can trade again.

Same morning on a Topstep 50K Combine works differently. From 7:25 to 7:35 AM CT you can't open a new mini at all and you can open at most 3 micros. A position you opened before 7:25 can stay on. Pending orders won't fill inside the window, but orders that reduce your position, like your stop, are accepted. Topstep also says it's prohibited to deliberately carry your full maximum size into a scheduled major release.

On Take Profit Trader PRO the rule is the strict version: no open positions and no open orders one minute before, during and one minute after the event.

Why the funded account gets stricter

In the eval, a wild fill only costs you your own fee. On a funded account the firm is on the hook for a payout, and a news spike is where a sim fill and a real fill drift furthest apart. A blackout window is the firm's way of not paying out on fills nobody could have gotten live. It's not personal, but it does mean a strategy that passed the eval on CPI mornings may not be allowed once you're funded. Check the funded rules before you build the habit.

Slippage: the cost nobody lists

Even where news is allowed, the release is the moment your stop is least likely to fill where you put it. Tradeify's own news page warns that orders "may execute far from expected prices" and tells you never to use the daily loss limit as a stop loss.

That matters more on a prop account than on your own. On a 50K with a $2,000 trailing drawdown, a stop placed $400 away that fills $700 away doesn't just cost $300 more. If your floor was $600 below you, that fill ends the account. The drawdown is enforced on the fill you got, not the one you planned.

A news-day plan that keeps the account alive

1. Check the calendar before the open. Note every red-folder or Tier 1 time and convert it to your platform's time zone. CPI at 8:30 ET is 7:30 CT.
2. Know which account you're on. Eval and funded can have different rules at the same firm. Rapid funded at MyFundedFutures and Builder funded don't match.
3. Decide in advance: out, small or normal. "Out" means flat with no orders before the window. "Small" means micros sized so the worst plausible slip still leaves you above the floor.
4. No brackets on both sides. Two-sided entries are banned at Apex and straddles are banned at MyFundedFutures.
5. Write it in the journal. If news days are where your account takes its worst hits, that's a pattern you'll want to see in numbers. Our trading journal guide covers what to log.

Practice it

The simulator runs Apex and Topstep evaluation rules on your trades, including the drawdown, the daily loss limit and each firm's close time. It doesn't block trades inside a news window, so mark the window on your chart and treat it as your own rule while you practice. If your trades from CPI and FOMC mornings are the ones dragging your floor up and down, you'll see it on the chart before it costs you a paid eval.

Questions people actually ask

Do prop firms allow news trading?

Most futures firms do in the evaluation. On funded accounts it splits: Bulenox, Tradeify and Apex allow it, Topstep limits size, and Take Profit Trader PRO, MyFundedFutures Rapid and Pro, LucidDaily and Alpha Futures' Zero, Standard and Direct accounts have short blackout windows.

Can you trade news on Topstep?

Yes, with limits. From 5 minutes before to 5 minutes after CPI, NFP, PPI and the FOMC decision and press conference, you can't open new mini positions and micros are capped at 3, 6 or 9 contracts on the 50K, 100K and 150K. Positions opened before the window can stay on.

Can I trade during news on Take Profit Trader?

In the Test, yes. On a PRO account you must be flat with no open orders from one minute before to one minute after FOMC statements, NFP and CPI.

Can you trade news on Apex Trader Funding?

Yes, as part of your normal strategy. Apex prohibits placing orders on both sides of a release or chasing the move to gamble on the outcome.

Can you trade news on Lucid Flex?

Yes. Lucid allows news trading on Flex, Pro and Direct. LucidDaily is the exception: being in a trade from one minute before to one minute after high-impact USD news is a hard breach.

Can you trade news on MyFundedFutures?

On evaluations and Builder accounts, yes, though straddles, strangles and masking news trades are prohibited. Rapid and Pro sim funded accounts can't hold positions or orders from 2 minutes before to 2 minutes after T1 news.

Which prop firm is best for news trading?

If news is your edge, look at firms without a funded-account window: Bulenox and Tradeify allow it with no restrictions, and Apex allows it in one direction. Then compare the drawdown, because a slipped fill hurts more on a tight floor.

How do I avoid breaking a news rule?

Check the calendar before the open, set an alarm two minutes before each window, and be flat with every order cancelled, stops included, if your account has a blackout.

Blow it here, not on a paid eval

Run the same rules on your own trades in the simulator. Free, no card, and a blown account costs you nothing but pride.

Start practicing

Keep going

• The daily loss limit: what it stops, and what it doesn't
• Trailing drawdown, explained with numbers you'll actually see
• Futures trading hours, and the earlier deadline your prop firm sets
• Order types and slippage: why your stop isn't a promise
• Topstep Trading Combine: rules, costs and the drawdown that ends most accounts
• A trading journal that changes how you trade