These four are prohibited essentially industry-wide. Knowing why matters, because each has a legitimate cousin that traders wrongly avoid.
1. Latency and tick arbitrage
Exploiting the delay between a firm's price feed and the underlying market — taking a position on a price that is already stale. It is prohibited because the profit comes from the feed, not the market.
The legitimate cousin: fast execution. Trading quickly on a real signal is not arbitrage. The distinction is whether your edge would survive on a zero-latency feed.
2. Cross-account hedging
Opening opposing positions in the same instrument across two accounts so that whichever direction the market takes, one account passes. Prohibited because it converts a coin flip into a guaranteed pass at the firm's expense.
The legitimate cousin: hedging within a single account, where permitted, to manage an existing position's risk.
3. Group or coordinated trading
The multi-person version of the above. Risk systems detect it through cross-account correlation, and it voids every account involved.
The legitimate cousin: trading a public strategy that others also trade. Similar entries alone are not coordination — deliberately opposing entries are.
4. Exploiting a pricing or platform error
Trading against an obviously wrong quote or a platform fault rather than reporting it. Every firm reserves the right to void these.
What FundedAxe permits
Everything else, with three additions to the ban list first: FundedAxe also prohibits HFT and tick-scalping bots, copy trading between accounts (including your own), and account sharing. Allowed news trading, allowed weekend holding, EAs allowed. Two limits are worth knowing up front: a minimum hold time of three minutes on evaluations — thirty seconds on Instant and Pay After Pass funded accounts — and a published consistency threshold on some paths. The full list is in FundedAxe rules explained.
Ask before you deploy
Support will confirm in writing whether a specific technique is permitted.
Frequently asked questions
What strategies are banned at prop firms?
Latency and tick arbitrage, hedging the same instrument across accounts, coordinated trading between traders, and exploiting pricing or platform errors. All four profit from a flaw in the simulation rather than a market view.
Is hedging allowed at prop firms?
Hedging within a single account is often permitted. Hedging the same instrument across two accounts to guarantee one passes is prohibited everywhere and voids both accounts.
FundedAxe evaluations and funded accounts are simulated. Traders do not trade real client capital; rewards are paid on simulated performance under the terms of the FundedAxe trader agreement.