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What Is Considered Manipulative or Prohibited Trading Behavior?

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Written by Lucas Vanhaeren
Updated over 3 weeks ago

At Xpert Funding, we reward traders who demonstrate skill, control, and consistency. To maintain fairness and the stability of our ecosystem, certain trading behaviors known as toxic trading are strictly prohibited.

These practices distort performance metrics and undermine the purpose of a funded trading evaluation.

Engaging in toxic or manipulative activity will result in immediate account termination, profit removal, and a permanent ban from all Xpert Funding programs.


1. Over-Leverage & Margin Abuse

Using excessive position sizes that exceed 75% of available margin or attempting to open trades that risk an instant breach is strictly forbidden.
This includes:

  • Opening oversized positions to inflate gains

  • Using stacking methods that bypass drawdown rules

  • Ignoring account size limits for exposure

Keep your risk per trade moderate and never exceed your available margin. Proper leverage management is a key metric of professionalism.



2. Gambling & Revenge Trading

Trading based on emotion rather than strategy such as chasing losses, doubling positions after a drawdown, or removing stop losses impulsively is considered toxic.

While occasional losses are part of trading, revenge trading breaks the foundation of risk control and leads to inconsistent behavior.

💡 Traders should always act according to a defined plan, not emotion. Xpert Funding tracks behavior patterns to ensure consistency over time.



3. Reverse Trading or Hedging Between Firms

Placing opposite positions on multiple accounts or firms to secure guaranteed outcomes (known as reverse trading) is strictly prohibited.

Examples include:

  • Buying EUR/USD on one prop firm and selling it on another

  • Using multiple accounts to offset exposure for one side’s benefit

This violates fair trading conditions and results in immediate account termination across all linked accounts.



4. Arbitrage & Feed Manipulation

All forms of arbitrage latency, price feed, or platform execution manipulation are not allowed. This includes exploiting differences between brokers, servers, or price feeds to secure non-market-based profits.

Common violations include:

  • Latency arbitrage between platforms

  • Trading illiquid symbols during feed delays

  • Using copied or manipulated data streams


Xpert Funding’s systems automatically detect latency and execution irregularities in real time.



5. High-Frequency Scalping & Tick Exploitation

While scalping is allowed, high-frequency trading (HFT) or tick-based exploitation is not.


Toxic HFT includes placing dozens of trades within seconds to exploit execution delays or synthetic price gaps.

Our platform allows fair scalping under normal market conditions but prohibits automation that mimics bot-driven, millisecond-level strategies.

Manual scalping and short-term intraday trading are welcome provided they respect realistic market execution speeds.



6. Poor Money & Risk Management

Constantly trading near breach levels, ignoring stop-loss placement (especially in Instant Funding Pro accounts where it’s mandatory), or risking a large portion of equity on one idea signals poor discipline.

Repeated patterns of overexposure, frequent margin calls, or breaching drawdown limits may result in temporary suspension or closure.

Consistent risk management shows professional maturity a key factor in scaling opportunities.



7. Behavioral Exploits & Abnormal Patterns

Behaviors such as trading during non-liquid hours to exploit price gaps, stacking correlated assets unrealistically, or attempting to manipulate payout rules all fall under behavioral abuse.

Examples include:

  • Entering 20+ micro-positions in the same direction to game daily loss logic

  • Trading only during rollover or low-volume sessions to trigger artificial volatility

  • Repeatedly breaching soft rules to manipulate timing or payouts

Every account is monitored for fair flow genuine trading data helps improve our firm’s ecosystem for all traders.



8. One-Sided Bets

Opening large, concentrated positions on a single instrument without proper risk management is strictly prohibited. This rule targets behavior that resembles gambling or “revenge trading” where traders add excessively to one losing or profitable setup without a defined plan

What’s Not Allowed:

  1. Adding to a losing trade hoping for a reversal (“doubling down”)

  2. Overexposing a single pair, setup, or direction beyond risk tolerance

  3. Repeatedly compounding one trade without clear technical or strategic logic

  4. Using “martingale” or “grid” recovery systems

Example:

If you’re trading USD/JPY and the position moves against you, continuously adding to the losing side expecting a turnaround without a structured plan is considered reckless and violates Xpert Funding’s trading standards.



Consequences of Toxic Trading

Traders found engaging in toxic behavior may face:

  • Permanent account termination

  • Profit removal for flagged trades

  • Suspension from all programs

  • Reduced leverage or restricted access

  • Loss of payout eligibility

Each case is reviewed by Xpert Funding’s Risk & Compliance Team to ensure accuracy and fairness.

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