Shark Futures enforces specific rules to maintain fair trading conditions, protect account integrity, and ensure long-term sustainability across all programs. While we support a wide range of trading styles, certain practices are prohibited because they introduce excessive risk, manipulation, or unfair advantages.
Violations may result in payout denial, account termination, or permanent bans.
What Is Allowed (Important Updates)
News Trading is now fully allowed across all Shark Futures accounts.
Traders may:
Open new positions during news events
Hold positions through economic releases
Trade volatility during high-impact announcements
Important note:
Trading during news can involve higher volatility, slippage, and spreads. These are market conditions outside Shark Futures control. Traders are responsible for managing risk appropriately.
Copy Trading & Trade Replication
Copy trading is allowed under the following conditions:
Allowed:
Using Shark Futures internal copy trading tools
Using external trade copiers to manage your own Shark Futures accounts
Running the same strategy across multiple accounts
Copying trades across firms as long as it is not used for hedging or offsetting risk
Not Allowed:
Copy trading used to hedge positions (e.g., long on Shark Futures, short elsewhere)
Coordinated trading between multiple people
Using copy trading to manipulate payout rules, risk limits, or account metrics
Copy trading must be used for strategy execution, not risk neutralization or abuse.
Prohibited Trading Practices
1. News Straddling & Manipulative News Exploits
While news trading is allowed, manipulative news straddling is not.
Prohibited behavior includes:
Placing opposing buy and sell orders simultaneously to trap volatility
Using bracket orders designed to guarantee fills on both sides
Structuring trades purely to exploit simulated fill mechanics
Directional trading during news is allowed. Manipulative structures are not.
2. Improper Hedging
Hedging designed to manipulate risk or performance metrics is prohibited.
Not allowed:
Long and short positions on the same instrument at the same time
Hedging across multiple Shark Futures accounts
Cross-prop hedging (e.g., long at Shark Futures, short at another firm)
All trades must reflect genuine market exposure.
3. Arbitrage Exploits
Shark Futures accounts are not intended for arbitrage strategies.
Prohibited:
Latency arbitrage
Exchange arbitrage on identical instruments
Statistical arbitrage designed to exploit feed or execution differences
4. Algorithmic & High-Frequency Trading (HFT)
Automated trading is restricted unless explicitly approved by SHARK Futures.
Prohibited behavior:
Sub-second order placement or cancellation
Tick-scalping strategies
Spoofing or layering orders
Latency-driven execution algorithms
Order splitting across identical or near-identical timestamps to circumvent position limits
Any strategy specifically designed to exploit challenge rules rather than reflect genuine trading skill
Manual, discretionary trading is always permitted.
Anomalous Performance Review:
SHARK Futures reserves the right to conduct a manual review of any account displaying statistically anomalous performance. This includes, but is not limited to:
Win rates of 100% or near-100% over 20 or more trades
Duplicate or near-duplicate order entries at identical timestamps
Profit patterns that appear algorithmically optimised to meet challenge targets
Any trading behaviour inconsistent with genuine discretionary trading
Accounts flagged under this clause may be denied progression to the funded phase or have payouts withheld pending review. SHARK Futures' decision in such cases is final.
In addition to existing HFT prohibitions, the following are explicitly flagged as automated trading indicators:
Multiple positions opened at the exact same price and exact same timestamp
Sequential or near-sequential order IDs placed within milliseconds of each other
Identical position sizes, entry prices, and exit prices repeated across separate, unrelated trading sessions
Trading activity occurring with mechanical regularity outside normal human reaction times (e.g., consistent sub-second order placement)
SHARK Futures reserves the right to request a live trading verification call or screen-share session with any trader whose account is flagged under this clause. Failure to comply within 48 hours may result in account suspension pending investigation.
5. IP Address Irregularities & Location Abuse
We monitor IP usage to prevent fraud and account sharing.
Potentially flagged behavior:
Constant location hopping
Simultaneous logins from different regions
Multiple users accessing the same account
VPNs and VPS tools are allowed, but abuse may result in review.
6. Account Sharing & Collaboration
Accounts are single-user only.
Prohibited:
Sharing login credentials
Allowing others to trade your account
Coordinated trading across multiple people
Each trader is responsible for their own account activity.
7. Disproportionate Risk-to-Target Ratio ("Lucky Shot" Trading)
Prohibited behavior:
Risking an amount on a single trade that is disproportionately large relative to the trader's account size, average position size, or remaining drawdown buffer, in an apparent attempt to hit the profit target or reach payout eligibility in one trade
Taking a single trade where the realized profit accounts for more than 50% of the total profit needed to pass an evaluation or qualify for a payout
Using maximum available leverage with no stop-loss, take-profit, or defined risk management plan, where the trading history shows no consistent strategy
SHARK Futures reserves the right to deem any trade or trading day that disproportionately drives an account's overall result as inconsistent with genuine, sustainable trading skill, and may withhold payout, reset, or close the account accordingly.
8. Lack of Risk Management Discipline
Prohibited behavior:
Trading without stop-loss protection on a consistent basis, particularly where this results in repeated large drawdowns (e.g. drawdowns exceeding 30% of account equity on individual trades or sessions)
A pattern of "all-or-nothing" trades that risk a significant portion of the daily or maximum drawdown limit on a single position
Increasing position size dramatically after a losing streak in an apparent attempt to recover losses in one trade (martingale-style recovery without an underlying defined strategy)
This rule does not apply to traders who can demonstrate a consistent, pre-defined strategy with appropriate risk controls, even if that strategy involves higher per-trade risk by design (e.g., disclosed scalping or trend strategies, as permitted under standard rules).
9. Statistical Improbability Threshold
In addition to the existing 100% win-rate clause, the following are also subject to manual review:
Win rates exceeding 90% over 15 or more trades with no clear, explainable strategy
An average winning trade-to-losing trade ratio that is statistically inconsistent with the trader's stated strategy or instrument volatility
Profit curves that show unnaturally smooth, linear growth inconsistent with normal market variance (a hallmark of automated or curve-fitted strategies)
Trades opened and closed at identical or near-identical prices across separate, unrelated trading sessions
Consequences of Violations
Violations may result in:
Immediate account restriction or termination
Denial of payout requests
Permanent ban from Shark Futures programs
Further action in cases of fraud or abuse
Final Notes
Shark Futures supports:
News trading
Copy trading
Multiple account management
A wide range of discretionary trading styles
What we do not support is manipulation, hedging abuse, or system gaming.
If you are ever unsure whether a strategy is permitted, contact support before deploying it.
Overleveraging or overexposure.. in a manner inconsistent with market-standard risk management practices that a reasonable person would apply when trading with their own capital.
Gambling tendencies or 'Account Rolling', taking max leverage positions with no plan, no stop loss, and hitting max loss on the account then buying more accounts and repeating the process until a trade hits.