Introduction
Welcome to our Alpha Futures Review. Over the past few weeks, I have been trading with Alpha Futures and looking into every aspect of the service they offer to traders so that I can provide the information you need to decide whether they are the right prop firm for you.
Overview
Alpha Futures, a UK-based firm led by CEO Ben Chaffee, aims to broaden access to futures trading beyond the US market. Though new to the futures prop firm space, Alpha Futures is backed by solid experience, being the sister company to the well-regarded Alpha Capital Group.
Alpha Futures has a well-designed website that is full of useful information, and they have an active presence on social media where they focus on educating their audience about their product and futures trading in general. While the company is still building its reputation, it benefits from the strong foundations of Alpha Capital Group, which, despite occasional public missteps, has maintained a generally positive standing in the industry.
Funding Program
Pricing
At Alpha Futures the funding program evaluation is paid as a monthly subscription. There are 3 account sizes to choose from:
- $50K – $79 per month
- $100K – $159 per month
- $150K – $239 per month
The evaluation subscription fee is paid monthly until the evaluation is passed, and the trader can reset the evaluation at any time by paying the subscription fee again. If the account is in drawdown when the monthly subscription fee is paid the account will automatically reset, and if the account is in profit when the monthly subscription fee is paid then the account does not reset.
Once a trader passes the evaluation there is a one-time activation fee of $149 to activate the live ‘Qualified’ account. This fee applies to all account sizes.
The trader can have as many evaluation accounts as they like, but can only have a maximum of 3 live ‘Qualified’ accounts totaling a maximum of $450K.
Evaluation Rules
The profit target to pass the evaluation is 6% with 3 minimum trading days. There is no daily loss limit during the evaluation, and trades must be closed at the end of the trading day (4:59 PM EST).
The maximum loss limit (MLL) is 4% and it trails the account balance at the end of the trading day. Using the $50K evaluation as an example, the MLL starts at $48,000. If the account balance is $50,500 at the end of the day, the MLL on the following day will be $48,500 (which is $2000 from the account balance high) and will not fall below this level. Once the MLL reaches the initial starting balance it won’t continue to trail. Meaning, if your end-of-day balance reaches $52,000 (+4%) your MLL will now be $50,000 and will remain there for as long as the account remains active.
There is a 50% consistency rule on the evaluation, which means that during the evaluation, profits from one single trading day cannot be larger than 50% of the total profits made. The evaluation cannot be passed until the most profitable trading day makes up for 50% or less of the overall profit on the account. This means that it does not make sense to make more than 50% of the profit target in a single trading day during the evaluation.
The maximum position sizes are 5 contracts for the $50K evaluation, 10 contracts for the $100K evaluation, and 15 contracts for the $150K evaluation.
Qualified Account Rules
Once an evaluation is passed and an activation fee is paid the trader is given a ‘Qualified’ account.
The Qualified account has the same 4% trailing drawdown rules as the evaluation account and has a 2% daily loss limit where if the trader loses 2% in a day then the account is locked and cannot be traded again until the following day.
The maximum funding allocation for Qualified accounts is $450K.
News Trading Restrictions
During the evaluation phase, the trader can trade through news without any restrictions.
Once on a qualified account, the trader cannot execute any orders within 2 minutes before and after a high-impact news release.
There is an economic calendar on the trader dashboard that shows the scheduled news events and their severity, and high-impact news events will show on the charts for the contracts they affect.
If a trader accidentally executes orders during a high-impact news event the trade will be voided and their payout request will be denied, forcing them to wait until the next payout cycle before they can request a payout. Repeated violations of the news trading rule may result in the trader’s account being breached.
Scaling Plan
At Alpha Futures the scaling plan is a little different. Rather than increasing the account size and maximum loss limit, to scale up their position sizes traders must build a profit buffer in their account.
- With less than $1500 profit in the account traders can place a maximum position size of 2 contracts on the $50K account, and 3 contracts on the $100K & 150K accounts.
- With $1500-2000 profit in the account, the number of tradeable contracts increases to 3 on the 50K, and 4 contracts on the 100K and 150K accounts.
- At $2000-3000 profit in the account the trader can trade 5 contracts on the 50K, 100K, and 150K accounts. 5 contracts is the maximum allowed position size on the 50K account.
- With $3000-4500 profit in the account, the trader can trade 10 contracts on both the 100K & 150K accounts. 10 contracts is the maximum allowed position size on the 100K account.
- With more than $4500 profit in the account, the trader can trade 15 contracts on the 150K account. 15 contracts is the maximum allowed position size on the 150K account.
This scaling plan offers huge potential to traders who have the patience to build a profit buffer in their Qualified account.
Trading Platform
At Alpha Futures traders use a platform called Alpha Ticks, which is a third-party platform made by Project X.
With integrated TradingView charts, Alpha Ticks is packed with features. The chart layout can show up to 8 separate chart windows, and has a suite of built-in indicators and the usual TradingView drawing tools. There are also Depth of Market and Time & Sales windows.
The platform shows the trading account balance, maximum loss limit, realized daily PnL, and unrealized daily PnL. There are personal risk settings that can be used to liquidate positions, and block further trading for the day should a personal daily loss limit or profit target be reached – These are excellent tools to help with risk management and consistency.
There is also a built-in copy trader, which traders can use to copy trades across their Alpha Futures trading accounts.
I’ve been trading on this platform every day for a few weeks, and my experience has been excellent with instant execution and very little slippage.
Overall this is a superb trading platform, which is full of useful features.
H2: Account Dashboard
The trader dashboard is clean and well-designed, with lots of useful information.
Trading Conditions
At Alpha Futures traders can trade products from the CME Group, which includes futures contracts for popular stock indices, currencies, commodities, interest rates, and metals.
There is no commission on trades, but there are regulatory fees to be paid for each position. For example, for NQ, which is the Mini NASDAQ futures contract, the round trip cost per contract is $2.80, and for a contract on MNQ, which is the micro NASDAQ futures contract, is $0.74.
As for spreads, I trade MNQ which is the Micro Nasdaq futures contract and the spread is normally 2-3 ticks, which is very good.
Overall there’s a good selection of futures contracts to trade, with very low costs. Futures the prices are centralized, so there cannot be any price manipulation on the broker side and there is very little slippage provided you’re trading liquid contracts.
Payouts
There is a 40% consistency rule on qualified accounts, which means that the profits from one trading day cannot amount to more than 40% of the overall profit when a payout request is made.
There are no limits or thresholds that must be met for withdrawals, but Alpha Futures reward consistency. Traders can earn up to a 90% profit split with a tiered system:
- Payouts 1 and 2: 70% profit split
- Payouts 3 and 4: 80% profit split
- Payouts 5+: 90% profit split
The minimum payout request is $200.
Traders may request payouts from their dashboard every 14 days from the first trade placed on their Qualified Account as long as the 40% consistency rule is satisfied. Payouts will be processed in 48 hours or less.
Withdrawals contribute towards the Maximum Loss Limit. For example, let’s say the trader has grown their $50k account to $55,000, and their MLL is $50,000. If they want to, the trader may withdraw all $5,000 of their profit and receive the profit split depending on how many payouts they have received up to this point. However, the account balance will now be $50,000 which would breach MLL and effectively close the account.
Alpha Futures encourages traders to focus on longevity and pay themselves as they profit, rather than trying to catch one big day or week and then close out the account.
Customer Support
Alpha Futures offers support via email and live chat.
I contacted their support on live chat a few times to clarify their rules and received a very fast, friendly, and accurate response on each occasion.
Community & Content
Alpha Futures are a very new firm, but they’ve hit the ground running on social media.
They are very active on X & YouTube with regular posts, shorts, and videos introducing traders to their product and educating them on trading futures.
The Discord group is also off to a good start. It’s not very active yet but support there quickly responds to queries.
Overall this is a strong showing from Alpha Futures, they have built solid foundations that they can build on going forward and appear to be saying and doing all of the right things.
Alpha Futures Review – Conclusion
If you’re new to futures trading, as I was, then the rules might seem a little odd to you. The evaluation fee is paid as a monthly subscription until passed. The max drawdown limit is lower than with most CFD firms and it trails until it sets at the initial account balance, which can be a little daunting at first.
Manage your risk well and build a buffer, and you will find that there is a huge amount of profit to be made from a relatively small evaluation fee. The pricing is very low considering the potential profit that can be generated, and because futures contracts are traded on a centralized exchange the price feed is consistent for all futures traders and there can be no broker manipulation. The spreads are extremely good, and the execution has been instant for me on every entry and exit.
The trading platform is one of the best I’ve used anywhere, with TradingView charts and some great built-in tools for managing risk, position sizing, and copying trades between your Alpha Futures accounts.
Overall I’m impressed with Alpha Futures, and I expect them to quickly become one of the top futures firms in the industry.
