Alpha Futures vs ROMER

How Alpha Futures works

Alpha Futures sells evaluations on CME Group futures, the products listed on CME, CBOT, NYMEX and COMEX, including the MBT and MET micro crypto contracts (what you can trade). You choose an account type and a size, then trade in a simulator until you hit the profit target without breaching the Maximum Loss Limit. Pass, and you move to a Qualified account, where you can request “performance fees up to 4 times per month, after every 5 winning trading days of $200 profit or more” (how it works).

A Standard 50K evaluation costs $129 a month, with a $3,000 profit target, a $2,000 maximum loss and no activation fee (Standard overview). The Zero 50K costs $139 a month and has no consistency rule during the evaluation, which Alpha sells as a “ONE DAY PASS” (Zero overview). The drawdown is end-of-day trailing on every account, and “Once the Maximum Loss Limit reaches the initial starting balance, it won’t continue to trail” (MLL). Having traded intraday-trailing accounts ourselves, we think that’s one of the fairer designs.

Alpha is also open about what the funded account is. Its site says “All Alpha Futures accounts operate inside a simulated trading environment. Traders earn a performance fee based on simulated profits.” Qualified accounts pay a 90% split. Above that sits a route to real money: Alpha’s risk and Alpha Prime teams watch Qualified traders and call some of them up to live capital, where the Live Program pays 80% and Alpha Prime pays 60% (path to live). The how-it-works page says that review starts once an account reaches “+$40,000 in payable balance, or after 5 payout cycles”.

Bots, HFT and servers at Alpha Futures

Alpha’s prohibited trading practices page leaves no room for a fully automated strategy. “The use of AI, bots, and other automated trading mechanisms is strictly prohibited across all account types.” Semi-automation is fine, such as an indicator that prints buy and sell signals, provided you place, monitor and manage the trade yourself. Beyond that, “any other type of full automation is strictly forbidden.”

The HFT rule reaches manual traders too. Alpha restricts automated systems built for HFT, “particularly those resulting in over 100 trades per day”, and adds that the Alpha Futures and Alpha Prime teams “are not interested in working with strategies taking 100+ trades per day, automated or not.” Tick or micro scalping, which the page defines as “trades less than 10 ticks AND less than 2 minutes”, is a problem when it shows up as a clear pattern in your profit. Excessive order stacking is out as well, because it “is taking advantage of the sim environment”.

The reason sits at the top of the same page: some practices “can exploit the simulated environment, but lose when transferred to live markets.” That’s a fair point about simulators, and other futures firms, Topstep and MyFundedFutures among them, give the same reason.

Alpha is relaxed about servers. “The use of VPS is permitted in your trading”, although a VPN used to hide or change your IP address isn’t. With automation banned, a VPS there can keep your platform and signal indicators running, and you still place every order yourself.

How ROMER differs

ROMER is our funded-trader program for algorithmic and high-frequency traders. Everything below describes planned terms that may change.

We allow bots, algos and HFT at every stage. Exchange message limits apply, and we monitor every order, because manipulative trading such as spoofing isn’t allowed. Your algo runs on our hardware inside the exchange’s data centre, so you don’t need a VPS or servers of your own. Our latency design target is under 1 microsecond, against roughly 30 milliseconds for a home connection to a simulator. Both figures are illustrative.

Stage 1 is a simulated evaluation of at least 3 trading days. In Stage 2, which we call Verification, your algo has to pass again on at least 10 fresh trading days. Fills are still simulated, and the stage is there to show the Stage 1 result wasn’t luck. After that, the best algos trade our own capital on the real exchange, and you keep 80% of real profits. Traders are independent contractors paid a share of profits, and funding isn’t guaranteed. Alpha’s Qualified accounts are simulated, and a funded ROMER algo would send real orders. That sim-funded versus live-funded difference matters more than the headline percentage.

Planned pricing is $149 a month for Starter ($25K), $249 a month for Pro ($50K) and $399 a month for Elite ($100K), with no activation fee, and the fee covers running your algo on our hardware in the exchange’s data centre. The planned rules are a 6% profit target, a 4% trailing maximum loss and a 2% daily loss limit.

Which one to pick

If you trade futures by hand and hold trades for more than a couple of minutes, Alpha Futures is the practical choice. Its Standard 50K evaluation costs $129 a month, and you can pass a Zero evaluation in a single day. Our Stage 1 minimum of 3 trading days matches the top of Alpha’s evaluation minimums of one to three days. Verification adds at least 10 more, so an algo needs at least 13 trading days before it can be considered for funding. We think the Verification stage is worth the wait, but it’s still time you’d spend.

If your edge comes from automation, or from trading more than 100 times a day, Alpha’s rules don’t allow it at any stage, and the firm says so openly. That’s the kind of strategy ROMER is built for.