We tested the strategies sold for passing prop evaluations.
None of them beat costs.
Search for how to pass a funded futures account and the same setups come back: the 15-minute opening-range breakout, the ICT Silver Bullet, VWAP band fades, EMA crosses, the news straddle. Each is sold with a win rate. We took the 13 most-repeated ones, wrote each rule down exactly, and tested it on NQ and ES micro contracts from January 2019 – September 2026.
0 of 26 strategy-and-market combinations passed. 5 of the 13 lost money reliably on at least one market. The two that looked positive did no better than the same trades taken in a random direction.
How we tested
- Rules first. Every entry, stop, target, cost and pass mark was written down and locked before a single result existed. Nothing was tuned afterwards.
- Real costs. $1.50 per micro round turn plus one tick of slippage on every market and stop order (four ticks entering news trades). Everything flat by 15:55 ET, the way a prop account trades.
- Two periods. A result had to be positive in 2019–2023 and in 2024–2026, and strong enough overall (a t-statistic of 3 or more) to survive testing 26 combinations at once.
- A coin-flip twin. Every trade was also taken in a random direction — same time, same entry, same stop and target. If the strategy cannot beat its twin, the setup is not what made the money.
The scorecard
Net result per trade on one micro contract (MNQ or MES), after costs, over the whole sample. The t-statistic shows how far from zero the result is: around ±2 is weak evidence, 3 or more is strong.
| Strategy as sold | NQ · $/trade (t) | ES · $/trade (t) | What the test found |
|---|---|---|---|
| 15-minute opening-range breakout, 2× range target 1m close beyond the 09:30–09:45 range, no chase, stop at the far side, target twice the range | NO EDGE SHOWN +$5.18 (1.01) | NO EDGE SHOWN +$0.29 (0.11) | Slightly positive on NQ, but the same trades taken in a random direction made $4.00. That is NQ's rise, not the setup. |
| Opening-range breakout, let it run Same entry, stop at the range midpoint, hold to 15:55 | REFUTED +$0.68 (0.16) | REFUTED −$0.24 (-0.10) | Positive in 2019–2023, negative since 2024 on both. |
| Initial-balance extension 5m close beyond the 09:30–10:30 range, stop at its midpoint, hold to 15:55 | REFUTED +$4.85 (0.98) | REFUTED −$0.55 (-0.22) | The NQ result comes from 2019–2023 only; it has been flat since. |
| Initial-balance failed-extension fade A 5m close well beyond the range that closes back inside within 30 minutes, faded to the midpoint | REFUTED +$1.19 (0.29) | REFUTED −$6.02 (-3.21) | Reliably negative on ES. |
| Range fade after 10:00 Limit order at the 09:30–10:00 high or low on first touch, target the midpoint | REFUTED −$4.11 (-1.53) | REFUTED −$4.70 (-3.60) | Negative on both, in both periods. |
| ICT Silver Bullet, New York 10:00–11:00 (sold as 77% at 1:2) Liquidity sweep → market-structure shift → fair-value-gap entry at 50%, 2R target, skip release days | NO EDGE SHOWN +$1.80 (0.53) | REFUTED −$3.58 (-1.87) | Wins 36% on NQ and 32% on ES, not 77%. NQ is statistically indistinguishable from zero. |
| ICT Silver Bullet, 3R target Identical, 3R target | NO EDGE SHOWN +$2.86 (0.73) | REFUTED −$4.52 (-2.05) | A wider target does not change the verdict. |
| ICT Silver Bullet, London 03:00–04:00 Same pattern against the Asia-session high and low | REFUTED −$0.65 (-0.28) | REFUTED −$4.91 (-3.39) | Negative on both. |
| VWAP ±2σ band fade Fade a close back inside the 2σ band, target VWAP, stop 12 NQ / 4 ES ticks beyond the tag as the method is taught | REFUTED −$2.32 (-2.48) | REFUTED −$5.03 (-10.78) | The tight stop is hit about 72% of the time. It loses before costs, too. |
| VWAP trend-day pullback First touch of VWAP after 10:30 on a day that held one side of VWAP all first hour | TOO FEW TRADES +$11.61 (1.17) | TOO FEW TRADES −$8.15 (-1.88) | Too few qualifying days to validate; positive on NQ, negative on ES. |
| EMA 9/21 crossover 5-minute cross, stop at the prior 5-bar swing, 2R target, up to 3 trades a day | REFUTED +$2.12 (0.60) | REFUTED −$2.41 (-1.25) | NQ profit from 2019–2023 reversed after 2024. |
| News straddle (CPI, payrolls, FOMC) Buy-stop and sell-stop 40 NQ / 10 ES points away two minutes before the release, 2× target | TOO FEW TRADES −$38.80 (-6.51) | TOO FEW TRADES −$32.86 (-9.44) | The worst of the set. Wins 17–21% when a 2:1 payoff needs 33%, and loses before costs. |
| Post-release spike fade Fade a large move 15 minutes after the release back toward the pre-release price | TOO FEW TRADES +$13.00 (1.06) | TOO FEW TRADES −$2.93 (-0.46) | About 100 events per market — too few to call either way. |
These results are based on simulated or hypothetical performance results that have certain inherent limitations. Unlike the results shown in an actual performance record, these results do not represent actual trading. Also, because these trades have not actually been executed, these results may have under- or over-compensated for the impact, if any, of certain market factors, such as lack of liquidity. Simulated or hypothetical trading programs in general are also subject to the fact that they are designed with the benefit of hindsight. No representation is being made that any account will or is likely to achieve profits or losses similar to these being shown.
“Refuted” means negative in at least one period. “No edge shown” means positive in both periods but nowhere near strong enough to separate from chance. “Too few trades” means fewer than 100 in a period. ICT is a discretionary method; we tested one explicit, reproducible reading of it, and other readings exist.
The coin-flip test
The 15-minute breakout made +$5.18 a trade on NQ. Taken in a random direction with the same stop and target, the same trades made +$4.00. NQ rose through most of these years, and any trade with a target twice its stop collects some of that rise whichever way it points. A strategy has to beat its own coin flip before it has an edge. None of these did by a margin that means anything.
The account tricks do not create payouts
Much of what is sold as “how funded traders make money” is not a setup at all: cap your best day, stop after two losses, start on micros and step up to minis. We ran every stream through simulated 50K evaluations — trailing drawdown, profit target, consistency and payout rules — starting a new account on every trading day, first with trades whose direction was a coin flip.
| Account | 1 micro, no rules | Micro → mini ladder | Best-day cap | Stop after 2 losses or +$300 | All three |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Topstep-style 50K, 2019–2023 | 1.0% | 0.8% | 1.0% | 0.9% | 0.9% |
| Topstep-style 50K, 2024–2026 | 2.2% | 1.4% | 2.2% | 2.0% | 1.4% |
| Apex-style 50K, 2019–2023 | 0.1% | 0.9% | 0.1% | 0.1% | 0.9% |
| Apex-style 50K, 2024–2026 | 0.1% | 2.2% | 0.1% | 0.1% | 2.1% |
These results are based on simulated or hypothetical performance results that have certain inherent limitations. Unlike the results shown in an actual performance record, these results do not represent actual trading. Also, because these trades have not actually been executed, these results may have under- or over-compensated for the impact, if any, of certain market factors, such as lack of liquidity. Simulated or hypothetical trading programs in general are also subject to the fact that they are designed with the benefit of hindsight. No representation is being made that any account will or is likely to achieve profits or losses similar to these being shown.
The best-day cap and the two-loss stop change nothing you can measure. They protect the account; they do not make it pay. Stepping up to minis helps on an Apex-style account and hurts on a Topstep-style one, where a big day breaks the consistency rule. And no combination of setup and rules made money in both periods once evaluation fees were paid.
What actually decides who passes: size
At one micro per trade, almost nobody reaches a $3,000 target inside 60 trading days. Trade bigger and pass rates climb into double digits, up to about 22% — the same range as Topstep's own published 2025 figure of 16.8%. Now compare the real strategies with their coin flips:
| Size per trade | Topstep-style: strategy | coin flip | Apex-style: strategy | coin flip |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 micro | 3.1% | 3.0% | 3.5% | 3.1% |
| 5 micros | 12.5% | 10.9% | 14.5% | 15.2% |
| 20 micros | 8.6% | 7.8% | 22.0% | 21.6% |
These results are based on simulated or hypothetical performance results that have certain inherent limitations. Unlike the results shown in an actual performance record, these results do not represent actual trading. Also, because these trades have not actually been executed, these results may have under- or over-compensated for the impact, if any, of certain market factors, such as lack of liquidity. Simulated or hypothetical trading programs in general are also subject to the fact that they are designed with the benefit of hindsight. No representation is being made that any account will or is likely to achieve profits or losses similar to these being shown.
The columns match. Size moves the pass rate; the setup does not. Expected value per attempt at list-price fees stayed negative at every size — at 20 micros, about $43 a try on the Topstep-style account and $207 on the Apex-style one, strategy or coin flip alike. Of the 520 combinations we checked, 4 made money in both periods at list prices — and 3 of those 4 were coin flips. That is what chance produces across that many tries.
The reason is structural. An evaluation is a ticket: you pay a fixed fee, your loss is capped by the drawdown, and the payout sits above the target. Bigger size means bigger swings, and bigger swings reach the target — or the drawdown — sooner. That is why every playbook says to step up to minis and copy the trade across twenty accounts. Those moves buy more tickets. They do not buy an edge.
The size comparison was added after the pre-registered tests, to check the simulator against published pass rates; treat it as a sensitivity, not a locked verdict.
What to take from this
- None of the most-sold intraday setups beat costs on NQ or ES micros, and the ones that look positive do not beat a coin flip.
- A screenshot win rate is not a test. Ask for the rule, the costs, the period, and what a random entry did.
- Passing is driven by size against the drawdown. That makes the size-for-the-streak arithmetic the part that decides whether you survive.
- Discipline rules keep an account alive. They are worth following for that reason — not because they create profit.
More on the rules that end accounts, where the range lives, and every other rule we tested: the discipline desk for prop-firm traders →
Method and limits
Data: CME Globex one-minute bars for the most-traded NQ and ES contract, January 2019 – September 2026; results are for micro contracts. Entries fill at the next minute's open; stops and targets are checked on one-minute highs and lows, and when both could have been hit in the same minute the stop is assumed first. Release times come from our economic-event archive. Evaluation rules are modelled on Topstep's and Apex Trader Funding's published 50K plans as we read them on September 16, 2026 — trailing drawdown, $3,000 target, consistency and payout conditions, and fees — and are approximations; both firms change their terms, and your firm's current rulebook governs. Futures Playbook is not affiliated with Topstep or Apex Trader Funding. The strategies are described as they are commonly marketed on public web pages; we do not name individual sellers, and our reading of a rule may differ from any one seller's version.
Education about risk and evidence — not a recommendation to buy or sell any contract, and not advice about your account or circumstances. Futures involve substantial risk of loss. All results on this page are hypothetical and simulated. Read the full risk disclosure.
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