The short version
- Traders are ranked by percentage return, so a small account and a large account compete on equal terms.
- Results come from the broker account itself. There are no screenshots to upload and nothing to report by hand.
- We have read-only access. We cannot place trades or move money.
- Only accounts that are new, opened through our link, can enter, and each person can enter once.
How your return is calculated
Return % = profit made during the competition ÷ starting balance.
- Starting balance is your balance when the competition starts. If you join later, or deposit after it started, it is your first deposit.
- Everything before the start is ignored, so everyone starts the competition at 0%.
- Deposits and withdrawals do not count as performance. Adding money does not raise your return and taking money out does not lower it.
- Only trades opened and closed inside the competition window count.
Worked example. You start with $1,000 and your closed trades make $120. Your return is $120 ÷ $1,000 = 12.0%. If you then deposit $500, your return is still 12.0%, because the deposit is not performance. A $250,000 account that makes 5% ranks below this one, whatever the dollars.
Where the numbers come from
- You connect your MT4 or MT5 account. We read your closed trades, balance changes and account details from the broker server and recalculate your return automatically.
- The connection is read-only. We never place, change or close trades and we cannot withdraw funds.
- Your leaderboard row updates as your trades close. Because the figures come from the broker, you cannot edit them yourself.
Which trades count
- At least 1.00 lot traded in total (all counted trades together) to qualify for the ranking.
- Any trade held under 10 seconds counts as tick scalping and disqualifies the entry. There is no minimum or maximum lot size.
- Forex pairs, gold, silver, US30, SPX500, NAS100, DAX, BTC and ETH count. Other instruments stay in your journal but are left out of the score.
- Keep at least $500 deposited (deposits minus withdrawals). If your balance falls below $50 the entry ends; you have 3 entries per competition.
- Manual trading only for now. Trades opened by an Expert Advisor or other automation are detected from the trade data, shown as such, and left out of your ranking.
Fair-play checks
- New account, opened through our link. We check this against our partner data: the broker account number, the date it was registered and whether it came through our link. This stops people from entering an old account with a long track record, or picking the best of several accounts after the fact.
- One person, one account, one entry per month. A broker account can qualify once, for one person, for good.
- Entry deadline. Entries close at a fixed time announced for each edition. Later sign-ups join the next edition.
- Disqualification. Hedging against other entrants, price-feed or latency abuse, copying signals to inflate results, multiple accounts, bonus manipulation and any other attempt to manipulate the contest lead to disqualification. The full list is in the rules.
Ties and final results
- Ties are broken by return first, then by number of trades.
- When an edition closes, the final standings are stored and locked. The top 10 win prizes.
- Organiser actions on a competition, such as excluding an entrant, editing an edition or changing a payout, are written to an audit log.
Prize payment
- Prizes are paid within 14 days of the final results, or of passing the identity check if that comes later.
- Prizes of $1,000 or more need an identity check first.
- Every payout is recorded with a reference before it is marked as paid.
Questions or a result that looks wrong
Write to support@forextradingcup.com with your trader name and the edition. We check the account data and reply with what we found.
Full terms are on the rules page. Trading involves risk and past results do not predict future results.