Your strategy chooses the trades, but your firm's rulebook keeps the account alive.
Before paying for an EA or a challenge, check EA use, news trading, account type and loss limits.
An EA does not know your firm's rules unless you check them for it.
Why do good trades still break the rules?
The rule judges when and how you traded, not the result.
A trade can open inside a restricted news window, close in profit, and still be a breach.
Your firm writes its rules, not the EA's author. Rules differ between firms and sit across several pages.
They can change over time. EA and news conditions are easy to skip while you focus on targets.
Your firm may not allow the EA you chose at all.
Confirm that your firm allows your EA
Ask whether your firm allows expert advisors. Also ask whether purchased or third-party EAs differ from EAs you wrote yourself.
An EA that is not allowed can cost you the account, whatever its trades did.
An allowed EA can still breach a rule when news arrives.
Check the news trading rules
Ask whether your firm limits trading close to high-impact economic news.
Opening near news means entering during a restricted period. Holding through news means keeping an earlier position open during the event.
An EA follows its own entry conditions, not your firm's news calendar, so it can open a trade inside a restricted window.
Your account type and your firm's rules decide whether several or opposite positions can stay open.
Confirm your account type
A hedging account can hold several positions on one symbol, including opposite positions.
An account using one combined position per symbol merges activity into that position.
Confirm which account your firm provides. Ask whether several or opposite positions are allowed at all.
Check loss limits and holding rules
Your daily loss limit is the permitted loss within one trading day. Ask whether it uses balance or equity.
Floating loss is the current loss on an open trade.
Your overall loss limit is the permitted total loss. Ask whether your firm measures it from balance or equity.
Ask whether you may hold trades overnight or over the weekend.
An EA can keep a trade open overnight or over the weekend unless it is set not to.
Loss and holding limits are not the only conditions that can end a challenge.
Check the other common rules
- Ask whether copy-trading rules allow trades matching another account's trades. Ask separately about identical-trade rules. Any purchased EA can run on other buyers' accounts too. Its trades can then match theirs, so identical-trade rules can apply.
- Ask about minimum trading days, meaning how many days must include at least one trade.
- Ask what your firm's consistency rules measure. Some firms check that no single day makes too large a share of your total result.
An answer given by phone or chat is hard to prove later.
Ask in writing and keep the answer
- Write your questions down, one per check.
- Send them to your firm's support in writing.
- Keep the reply with its date.
- Recheck when your firm changes its rules.
Your firm's rules decide what counts as a breach, so confirm them before you pay.
Then compare the product page with those answers.
Read the product page against your rules
On the EA's product page, look for whether it says:
- How the EA behaves around news.
- Whether it has its own loss-limit settings.
Where the page is silent, ask the seller before you pay.
Gold Storm PRO is an Expert Advisor for MetaTrader 5 that trades XAUUSD.
Planning to run Gold Storm PRO on a prop account? Do these checks with your firm first, then read its product page against your firm's rules.
