EAs and Copy Trading at Prop Firms: Rules and Risks
When prop firms allow expert advisors and copy trading, and which practices lead to account closure and denied payouts.
The general picture
Firms differ widely: some allow EAs fully, some with conditions, some ban them on funded accounts.
Commonly banned practices
- Arbitrage and latency exploitation bots.
- Hedging across two accounts or firms to guarantee a pass.
- Copying identical trades across accounts of different people.
- Off-the-shelf bots used by thousands with the same settings.
Copying between your own accounts
Many firms allow copying between your own accounts up to a maximum total allocation. Check the cap before opening several accounts.