Trading Rules
HFT
High-frequency trading: automated strategies firing orders in milliseconds. Banned at virtually all retail prop firms, along with latency and fill-exploit strategies.
In plain English
HFT bans in prop firm terms target automation that exploits the simulation rather than trades a real edge: sub-second in-and-out orders, quote stuffing, latency arbitrage between data feeds, and bots that fish for sim fills that live markets would never grant.
The line firms draw is usually about speed and intent. Ordinary automated strategies are allowed at many firms if they trade at human-plausible speeds; the terms often require disclosure of automation.
- A bot that buys and sells within 300 milliseconds hundreds of times a day gets flagged as HFT even if profitable, and the payouts are denied under the fill-exploit clause.