The core trading hours for U.S. stock exchanges are Monday to Friday from 9:30 to 16:00 EST. All positions must be closed by 15:55 EST as you are not allowed to carry positions overnight. Extended hours trading is not available in the PTQ. Synchronize your system time here.

Check the NYSE website for observed holidays.

The criteria for tradable stocks are:

– Listed on NYSE, AMEX or Nasdaq

– Current and average trading volume > 500,000

– Market capitalization > $2 billion

– Float > 100 million

That’s a total of 1052 stocks as of April 1, 2021 (check FinVizfor up-to-date screener results).

NOTE: Leveraged ETFs and shorting stocks on the hard-to-borrow list are restricted for PTQ participants and therefore excluded from your performance evaluation!

WHY?

The main purpose and huge advantage of trading stocks is to isolate trading ideas within sectors and industries, so please consider trading challenges for futures at these remote futures prop trading firms if you want to trade equity indices and/or commodities. Regarding HTB-stocks, we cannot accurately integrate the availability of short locates and associated costs in the simulated trading environment.

What is it?

In the PTQ20, for example, the rolling period of 20 trading days means that only the last 20 trading days flow into your evaluation. Let’s say you completed Day 25. This means that your performance from Days 6-25 are evaluated.

So at the end of each day beyond Day 20, the current day is added to the evaluation period and the previous Day 1 drops out.

How does this help you?

The rolling period is intended to help you form solid and consistent risk management habits. This also eliminates the moral hazard of account resets.

A trading day is defined as trading volume greater than $10,000 of notional volume.

In the PTQ, you will use the Medved Trader with real-time NASDAQ Level 2 market data, which is a lightning fast and easy to use full-featured trading platform designed with active traders in mind. It includes hundreds of indicators incl. volume profile, volume delta, alerts, watchlists as well as Level II monitoring, chart trading, and hotkeys.

Chart types include Heikin Ashi, Renko, tick-, volume- and range candles.

Request a free demo here to get familiar with the platform’s functionality.

In the LTA, you will trade with a broker white label version of Medved Trader with virtually the same functionality.

The available order types in the PTQ are Market and Limit only. Stop orders are not available in the simulated trading environment.

What does this mean for my risk management?

This means that you need to use mental stops and close your positions manually!

Full order type functionality is available in the LTA.

Preparation is the key to your success.

If you still struggle to understand (or never heard of) how algo order flow affects price formation across all asset classes, we recommend that you sign up for the CEED.accelerator + CEED.equity.trader Add-On Combo to increase your chances of passing the PTQ.

Alternatively, you can join the CEED.incubator prop trader trainee program for a guaranteed funded account at the end of the trainee period with initial buying power of $10,000.

After completing your sign-up, you will receive an email with instructions on how to set up the trading software and the market data feed. The trading software has a free period of 1 month while the linked real-time market data feed for paper trading accounts is free of charge for 3 months.

The buying power is set to $10,000 in the PTQ.

The profit target is $500/$750 (5%/7.5%) of the simulated account balance of $10,000 in the PTQ 20/40, respectively.

You need to meet the target in combination with a minimum Sortino ratio of 1, which highlights the downside risk of your daily returns.

The Sortino ratio measures the risk-adjusted return of an investment or strategy focusing on the downside risk.

What does it mean for the PTQ?

The higher the Sortino ratio, the lower the downside risk of daily returns. This is why we want to encourage traders to manage their daily risk prudently to qualify for higher levels of buying power in their live account.

The suggested soft daily loss limit is less than $100 including commissions and fees, but you should actively avoid this scenario and close position(s) ahead of time to avoid unnecessary slippage

Please also remember to minimize the size of your negative trading days because the downside risk of your daily returns flows into the calculation of the Sortino ratio.

Click here for a sample Sortino ratio calculator.

If you exceed the hard daily loss limit of $150, your account will NO longer be eligible to qualify for a live account. There are no resets or additional attempts at the PTQ.

There is no maximum total drawdown in the PTQ. However, the maximum drawdown during an eligible evaluation period must not exceed $500. Since the evaluation time is a rolling period, no resets are necessary.

You can take as much time as you need. The evaluation of your performance is based on a rolling period.

In the PTQ 20/40, you need to meet the profit target of $500/$750 with the corresponding Sortino ratio and the trading volume requirements for a minimum period of 20/40 trading days or one/two month(s).

Since the fee for the PTQ is charged monthly for 30 calendar days, this means that you need to extend your PTQ for another month if you failed to meet the criteria in your first 20/40 trading days and want to continue toward your goal.

Minimum # of trades and share-/$-volume

One round-trip trade is the opening and closing of a trade that meets minimum share size requirements of $1,000 notional trade value.

Transaction costs are calculated at $0.01 per share to include commissions plus exchange fees and account for potential inaccuracies of simulated order execution. Also note that the trading platform(s) will only show you gross profit before commissions and fees. You will be able to track your net P/L after fees in your membership area.

After passing the PTQ, you will be assigned a live-trading account with buying power, commissions and payout according to the Sortino ratio of your daily trading returns. At this point, you also need to complete module 08 before receiving live trading credentials.

Your initial buying power in the live account depends on your performance in the PTQ. The higher the Sortino Ratio of your returns the more buying power you will get:

Sortino ratio for BP in LTA

See the following link for a sample performance:

Software and market data fees will be deducted from your equity balance in the live account:

– $29/month software fee is waived for trading volume greater than 50k shares/month

Market data fees range from $20-120/month depending on the selected exchanges.

Your initial commission rate in the LTA depends on the Sortino ratio in the PTQ:

Sortino ratio for initial commission rate in LTA

Total transaction costs are commission plus/minus exchange fees/rebates. Over time, your commission decreases by $0.00025 per share ($0,25 per 1000 shares) for every 750k in trading volume to as low as $0.002 per share ($2,00 per 1000 shares). Minimum monthly volume criteria apply.

The initial daily loss limit (DLL) including commissions and fees is $100. This limit will increase as your account equity and buying power increases.

The weekly loss limit including commissions and fees remains constant at 3-times the DLL.

Note: Once the loss limit is reached, the account is in close only status. You should actively avoid this scenario and close position(s) ahead of time to avoid unnecessary slippage.

The initial max. drawdown in the LTA is $500 for regular CEED.funding participants and $1,000 for CEED.incubator trainee traders.

Live-trading will be suspended …

• – for one day if the daily loss is exceeded two days in a row,
• – for the rest of the week if the weekly loss limit is reached,
• – indefinitely if you hit the max drawdown.

Upon consultation with the risk manager, the trading suspension may be lifted, your max drawdown may be extended or you need to go back to CEED.funding to re-qualify.

Your initial profit split in the live account depends on your performance in the PTQ.

Sortino ratio for initial profit split in LTA

Over time, your profit split increases by 5% for every $20,000 in cumulative net profits up to 85%.

Your share of net trading profits are paid out within 14 days after the end of every calendar month.

The maximum daily profit included in the evaluation of your performance is $250 (which is 50%/33% of the profit target in the PTQ20/40) to remove statistical outliers from your trading results. Of course, there’s no profit cap in the LTA.

The possible reasons for disqualification from CEED.funding are:

– having an open position at the market’s close (i.e. carry position overnight),

– exceeding the hard daily loss limit of $150,

– fail to submit your transactions at the end of each trading day via email as per the given instructions,

– any type of gaming the rules or systematic exploitation of inaccuracies in the paper trading order execution engine, and

– an obvious style shift after reaching the targets before the end of a qualifying rolling evaluation period.

Remember that we need to evaluate your overall trading skills, which is why you are expected to keep trading in a consistent style for the entire qualification period and also in the LTA.

CEED.funding is not available to U.S. residents for regulatory reasons.