The FTMO challenge has two account types: normal and aggressive. At first glance, it’s tough to tell what the differences between the two actually are, so in this post, we’ll break down FTMO’s aggressive vs normal accounts and see whether one is better than the other.
What’s the difference between FTMO Aggressive and Normal?
The key difference between FTMO’s Aggressive and Normal trading are the loss limits and profit targets, which are doubled in Aggressive. There’s no difference in profit split, and the Aggressive account is only meant for traders who go into larger drawdowns. Essentially, aggressive or normal is just the FTMO risk mode you opt for when starting an account.
FTMO Normal Rule Overview
The FTMO Normal challenge is quite straightforward.
It’s a two phase challenge with a profit target of 10% in phase I and 5% in phase II.
In both phases, you must avoid a maximum daily drawdown of 5% and a maximum equity drawdown of 10%.
That gives you quite a bit of flexibility in your trading and lets you take bigger positions for potentially bigger gains.
FTMO Aggressive Rule Overview
The FTMO Aggressive challenge has double the targets and loss limits as the Normal challenge.
Like the Normal challenge, the Aggressive challenge is also completed in two phases.
In Phase I, you must make a profit of 20% and avoid a daily loss of 10% and a maximum loss of 20%.
In Phase II, you must make a profit of 10% and avoid a daily loss of 10% and a maximum loss of 20%.
Is there a difference in profit split?
There’s no difference in profit split between the normal and aggressive accounts once you’re an FTMO trader. Both accounts will get you a profit split of 80-20 and will scale up to 90-10 as your account size gets bigger.
Why would you opt for an aggressive account?
If there’s no difference in profit split, why would you as a trader even opt for the aggressive account? You’d normally opt for a normal risk setup, so why take on the burden of making an extra 10%?
Additionally, most traders will rarely be able to get out of a drawdown deeper than 10% unless you’re watching the charts like a hawk and taking super-aggressive entries multiple times per day.
The real benefit of the aggressive account is if you’re trading using an EA. Many EAs are profitable in the long run but tend to go into drawdowns greater than the 5% allowed by the normal account rules.
If you’re using an EA that can go into a roughly 10% drawdown before pulling back up, then the aggressive account is a good option to consider.
Of course, the EA must also be able to hit the higher 20% profit target too!
Conclusion
While there’s not much benefit to most traders in choosing the Aggressive challenge over the Normal challenge, some very specific trading styles that go into deep drawdowns may be able to pass the challenge in the Aggressive mode rather than the Normal mode.