News Trading Rule in Prop Firms: Firm-by-Firm Comparison

Trading an NFP or an FOMC print is not only a question of having an edge: it is a question of knowing whether your firm lets you do it and what happens if you break the rule. And there is no standard here. In the same market, at the same minute, a FundedNext trader can sit through the release with no restriction at all while a MyFundedFutures trader loses the account over a limit order left forgotten in the book.

This guide covers, firm by firm, what each of the 11 futures prop firms we track allows: in evaluation, in the funded account, with what blackout window and with what real consequence.

What has changed: MyFundedFutures has tightened how it enforces its news rule. The usual outcome used to be a warning plus the removal of that trade's profits. Now a violation on a funded account can cost you the account outright. If you trade MFF and you were working from the old standard, this is the part of the article you want.

Why do news rules exist?

Rules around trading economic releases exist to protect funding firms from extreme volatility, slippage and the irregular fills that show up during macro events such as CPI, NFP or FOMC.

There is an added technical reason that almost nobody explains: these accounts are simulated. During a high-impact release, the simulation engine does not replicate what would have happened in the live market — fills that would not exist live, spreads the simulator does not reproduce — and that is where the firm takes on a risk it cannot hedge. MyFundedFutures spells it out in its own policy: "As News Trading is not simulated 1:1 with live markets, it is not allowed".

The three rule models

Every firm falls into one of these three approaches:

1. No restriction: you trade the release like any other candle. This is the model at Bulenox, Earn2Trade, FundedNext, Funded Futures Family and Tradeify.
2. Blackout window: you must be flat (no positions and no pending orders) for X minutes before and after the release. This is the model at MyFundedFutures, TakeProfit Trader, TradeDay and Top One Futures.
3. Hard ban: trading the event is an outright breach. Only LucidDaily applies this, and only on the funded account.

And there is a fourth angle that cuts across all of them: some firms let you trade news but ban how you trade it. Apex, for instance, has no blackout window, yet it prohibits the non-directional bracket — leaving orders on both sides of the market to see which way the number lands. That is not news trading, that is gambling, and it costs you the account just the same.

The restriction almost always depends on the stage: what is allowed in evaluation is usually restricted in the funded account. It is the most repeated pattern in the industry.

What is TIER 1 news?

When a firm bans or limits TIER 1 news, it is almost always talking about the same releases.

1. Monetary policy (the big ones)

• FOMC Interest Rate Decision
• FOMC Statement and press conference
• FOMC Minutes

2. US employment

• Non-Farm Payrolls (NFP)
• Unemployment Rate
• Average Hourly Earnings
• (These are normally treated as a single Employment Report)

3. Inflation

• CPI and Core CPI
• (At some firms, PCE and Core PCE as well)

4. Energy and agricultural reports (only if you trade those products)

• Crude Oil Inventories (EIA)
• Natural Gas Storage Report
• USDA crop production reports

One detail that surprises a lot of traders: energy and agricultural restrictions usually apply only to the affected product. A crude oil inventory report blocks CL/MCL, but it does not stop you trading NQ.

Comparison table: the news rule firm by firm

Data verified on 21 August 2026 against each firm's official documentation. If a firm changes its terms, this post gets updated.

The ones that put nothing in your way

FundedNext is the extreme case on the permissive side, and it uses that as a selling point: you can open, close or hold positions during any event, scheduled or not — NFP, CPI, FOMC, GDP or a geopolitical headline — with no blackout windows and no haircut on profits made during the release. The only limitation of this kind is that you cannot trade a product when its price is within 2% of the CME daily limit.

Funded Futures Family allows news on every plan and in both stages, Tier 1 events included. The telling detail is in how they word it: "You are no longer required to flatten positions before or after Tier 1 news events". That "no longer" is the clue that they used to require it — this is a rule they removed, not one they never had. What they do make clear is that gaps, slippage and quote delays during the release are your problem, not theirs.

Tradeify does not even have a guideline on news: "We do not have any rules against or guidelines around trading news events". Free rein, with two warnings — never use the Daily Loss Limit as a stop during a release, because the automatic protection may not fire in time — and one caveat that can bite you: on funded accounts the microscalping rule still stands (more than 50% of your trades and more than 50% of your profit must come from trades held longer than 10 seconds).

Bulenox puts it on its own website with no hedging: "Trade straight through the economic calendar. CPI, FOMC, NFP — no blackout windows, no forced position closing, no penalties. The only limits are your drawdown and your position size". No windows, no forced flattening, no penalties.

Earn2Trade confirms it for each stage separately. In the evaluation: "You are allowed to trade during news events — there are no restrictions on trading around economic announcements". And in the rule list for funded accounts (LiveSim and Live), "News Trading Permitted" appears explicitly.

Apex Trader Funding lets you trade the release with your normal strategy: "Trading during news is allowed for your normal trading strategy". What it bans, in the same sentence, is chasing the market and placing orders on both sides to get lucky with the outcome of the release. It is a ban on method, not on timing — and the penalty for prohibited practices at Apex is forfeiting the account and all associated balances.

Lucid Trading only restricts LucidDaily. On LucidFlex, LucidPro and LucidDirect you can enter and exit around scheduled or unscheduled news events without it being a breach.

Top One Futures applies no news rule on Instant or IGNITE accounts.

The ones that do block you: the detail that matters

My Funded Futures

This is the firm with the most elaborate policy of the group, and the one that takes down the most accounts.

• In evaluation: you can trade Tier 1 without a problem, on every plan.
• In the funded account: trading Tier 1 is banned on Rapid, Rapid EOD and Pro. You must have no positions and no orders in the book — resting limits included — from 2 minutes before to 2 minutes after. If the number prints at 8:30, you are flat by 8:28:00 at the latest and you do not come back until 8:32:00.
• The Builder plan is the exception: its official 25K and 50K guides state that news trading is "fully unrestricted" in both the evaluation and the sim funded stage, and that you may open and hold positions through any scheduled news event without limitation. A dedicated FAQ entry repeats it.
• The rule almost nobody knows about: the standard protocol of ±2 minutes with no positions and no orders applies to any data release, not just Tier 1 ones, and on every account.
• Always banned: straddles, strangles and any structure built to exploit the volatility burst, plus "masking" news trades as a standard strategy.
• When two MFF documents disagree, your plan's guide wins: the general news policy dates from 2023 and never mentions Builder; the per-plan guides are from 2026 and are the ones that spell out what each plan allows. Builder is exactly that case — exempt in its own guide, absent from the general policy.

Tier 1 events at MFF: FOMC (meetings and minutes), Employment Report and CPI for everyone; EIA if you trade energy; agricultural reports if you trade grains.

Watch this one: what changed is not the rule, it is what happens when you break it. The outcome many traders took for granted — a warning and the removal of that trade's profit — no longer describes what is happening: MFF has moved to closing the account. And the rulebook backs it up: its prohibited practices document states that "profits generated from prohibited trading practices will be confiscated" and that the firm reserves the right to terminate the agreement immediately. If you trade MFF funded, treat the ±2 minute window as a life-or-death rule, not a slap on the wrist.

TakeProfit Trader

The evaluation is free: you can trade any release without restriction. The rule shows up when you move to PRO, PRO+ and PRO+ Development.

There you must be out of all positions and with no open orders one minute before, during and one minute after these three events:

• FOMC statements and announcements, Wednesdays at 2:00 PM ET
• Non-Farm Payroll (NFP), monthly, Fridays at 8:30 AM ET
• CPI

And here is the nuance that sets TakeProfit apart from almost everyone else: FOMC minutes and Fed speakers are allowed. At MyFundedFutures and TradeDay the minutes are Tier 1 and they block you; here they do not.

On top of that, two product-specific blocks: crude oil inventories block crude, and bond auctions block the 10-Year Note and the 30-Year Bond. The reference calendar the firm points to is the red folder USD news on Forex Factory, plus its own calendar inside the member area.

TradeDay

It is the only firm on the list that also restricts in evaluation, and the only one that leaves you no room for error: the platform flattens your positions 2 minutes before every Tier 1 release and reopens the market 2 minutes after. It is not a rule you have to keep, it is an automatism.

The firm says it literally: "We do not fail traders for accidental breaches of these guidelines, but traders found to be ignoring these guidelines and abusing the policy will lose their account". An accidental trade does not fail you; systematically ignoring the policy does.

Its Tier 1 list, with times and affected products (US Central Time):

Top One Futures (Elite Access and Elite Daily)

It only applies on the funded account; the evaluation is free. The window runs 2 minutes before and 2 minutes after high-impact events — the ones marked red on the calendar the firm uses. Low and medium impact events are not restricted.

The nuance that sets it apart from all the others: you may hold a position open if you opened it before the window. What you cannot do, within those four minutes, is open a trade, close it, place pending orders, set a stop or a limit, or modify the stop loss or take profit. It is the exact opposite of MFF or TakeProfit, where what they demand is precisely that you be flat.

And here is the trap nobody sees coming: the policy states that if a trade is closed by any means, manual or automatic, inside the window, it is a violation. In other words: if your stop loss triggers on its own during the release, the rule has been broken all the same. Holding a position through an NFP with a stop in place is, literally, betting that nobody touches it for four minutes.

The consequence is softer than at MFF: profits from the offending trade may be removed, the payout request may be denied and the account may be flagged for review. The firm clarifies that a violation does not automatically trigger a hard breach unless abuse is detected.

The restricted events are FOMC announcements, rate decisions, NFP, CPI releases and major central bank statements.

LucidDaily

The only hard ban on the list. On a funded LucidDaily account, trading red folder news is a hard breach: you lose the account.

The restriction has a very precise definition, and it is worth reading closely because it narrows things down a lot: it only applies when both conditions are true at once — impact High and currency USD. A high-impact European release does not block you.

Inside the window, which runs from 1 minute before to 1 minute after, you must be flat: you may not open new positions and you may not hold the ones you already had. On the LucidDaily evaluation it is allowed, and on LucidFlex, LucidPro and LucidDirect there is no news rule in either stage.

The two extremes, side by side

If your strategy lives off macro releases, that table is literally the buying decision. And if you do not live off them but you trade at 8:30 New York time, it still matters: most accounts lost to this rule do not belong to news traders, they belong to ordinary traders who had an order left behind.

The five mistakes that cost you the account

1. Leaving a limit order in the book. This is mistake number one. Firms with a window are not asking you to "not trade", they are asking you to be flat: no position and no pending orders. A limit placed two hours earlier and forgotten counts as a violation at MFF.
2. Closing the position inside the window. At Top One you can hold what you already had open, but closing it within those four minutes is a violation — and it counts just the same if your stop loss closes it automatically. Bailing out when you notice the clock can be worse than doing nothing.
3. Assuming that what worked in the evaluation works when funded. This is the dominant pattern in the industry: MFF, TakeProfit, Top One and LucidDaily allow in evaluation exactly what they ban afterwards. The account you break is the one that was already paying you.
4. Using the Daily Loss Limit as a stop during a release. Tradeify warns about it explicitly: in a volatility spike the automatic protection may not fill where you expect.
5. Not checking your firm's calendar. Each one publishes its own, and they do not always agree on what counts as high impact. The calendar that matters is your firm's, not whatever news site you use.

How to trade news without breaking rules

• Pick the firm to fit your strategy, not the other way round. If you trade releases, the firms with no window (FundedNext, FFF, Bulenox, Earn2Trade, Tradeify, Apex) remove the problem at the root.
• Cancel orders, not just positions, five minutes before any relevant release. Five, not two: the buffer is free.
• Check which stage you are in before trading a release. If you have just passed the evaluation, your rules changed this week.
• If you trade energy or grains, check whether the restriction is product-specific. At most firms it is, and that leaves the indices open.
• Document the exact time. If there is a dispute over a trade at the edge of the window, the platform record is what counts.

Frequently asked questions

Which firm allows news trading with no restriction at all?

Bulenox, Earn2Trade, Funded Futures Family, FundedNext and Tradeify apply no news rule in either stage. Apex has no blackout window either, although it does ban trading the release with orders on both sides of the market.

Can I leave a limit order sitting during an NFP?

It depends on the firm. At the ones with a blackout window (MFF, TakeProfit) you cannot: the requirement is to be flat, and a pending order in the book is a violation even if it never fills.

Do they close the account on the first offence?

At MyFundedFutures, a violation on a funded account can cost you the account and the profits. At Top One the first consequence is the removal of that trade's profit and the denial of the payout. At TradeDay an accidental trade does not fail the account, but repeated abuse does.

Is the rule the same in evaluation and in the funded account?

Almost never. The usual pattern is a free evaluation and a restricted funded stage. The exception is TradeDay, which applies the automatic blackout in both stages.

What if the release moves the market and I hit my drawdown?

That is not a news rule violation: it is a normal drawdown breach, and no firm forgives it for being release day. If you trade with intraday trailing, a spike can liquidate you even if price comes right back. It is all laid out in the complete drawdown guide.

Where each data point comes from

Everything in this article is checked against each firm's official documentation, not against third-party reviews. These are the sources, in case you want to verify them yourself:

• Apex Trader Funding — the Prohibited Activities section of the help center
• Bulenox — official website copy on news trading
• Earn2Trade — articles on evaluation restrictions and on funded account rules
• Funded Futures Family — News Trading Policy in the help center
• FundedNext Futures — Are there any news trading rules for FundedNext Futures?
• Lucid Trading — Other Activities and LucidDaily Funded Account
• My Funded Futures — News Trading Policy and Fair Play and Prohibited Trading Practices
• TakeProfit Trader — PRO Account Rules
• Top One Futures — Elite ACCESS – News Trading Rule and Elite Daily V2 – News Trading Rule
• TradeDay — Can I trade news or data releases? and Why do we ban Tier 1 news and data release trading?
• Tradeify — Rules: News Trading

Rules change without notice and every firm insists it is the trader's responsibility to stay current on the calendar and the exact release times. If you are going to risk a funded account on a release, confirm the rule in your dashboard before you enter.

The key point

Before trading during a release, check the specific rules for your plan and your stage. What is allowed in evaluation may be restricted in the funded account, and within the same firm there can be exempt plans and banned plans — MyFundedFutures and Lucid Trading are the clearest example.

To compare the rules of every firm plan by plan, there is the prop firm comparison tool, which pulls from the same database as this table. And if you want to understand the other two rules that take down the most accounts, here they are: the consistency rule and the drawdown guide.