Alpha Futures denied my payout and removed my profits because my trades lasted under 2 minutes — traders should know this
want to share my experience with Alpha Futures because I think anyone trading a short-term/scalping strategy with them should be aware of this before purchasing an account.
Alpha denied my payout, removed the profits from my account, and reset the account after accusing me of prohibited trading / tick scalping.
The issue is that I do not believe what I was doing fits the normal definition of tick scalping.
I trade primarily the NY Open, I don't take an excessive number of trades per day, and I trade a maximum of 3 MNQ. My strategy is based on market structure and price action, with targets that can be 30–100+ NQ points. Many of the trades they flagged captured hundreds of ticks.
My trades are sometimes short because when NQ moves aggressively after an entry, my target can be reached quickly. I also protect trades quickly when the setup doesn't develop as expected.
After questioning their decision and asking them to explain exactly what was wrong with my trading, Alpha responded:
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This is the part I believe traders need to know.
If the actual issue is that having many trades lasting less than 2 minutes is prohibited regardless of how many points/ticks those trades capture, then Alpha should make that extremely clear to traders.
There is another issue that makes this situation even harder for me to understand.
I was running 5 accounts using copy trading. Four of those accounts were able to receive their payouts without this issue. This account was denied.
So I have asked Alpha a very simple question:
How can essentially the same copied trading strategy be acceptable for payouts on the other accounts, but prohibited trading on this one?
I also specifically asked whether Alpha has a rule that my trades cannot last less than 2 minutes, because if that is effectively the rule, traders deserve to know it before spending money on accounts.
This isn't about a couple of 5–10 second trades trying to exploit simulated fills. My profitable trades can capture substantial market moves, and my profitability isn't based on repeatedly collecting a few ticks.
I gave Alpha the opportunity to explain why trades capturing significant moves would supposedly not translate to a real market simply because they lasted less than two minutes.
Their latest response instead explicitly focused on the 2-minute duration.
I'm posting this so other traders can make their own decision.
If you trade NQ/MNQ and your strategy regularly produces trades lasting less than 2 minutes, I strongly recommend getting written clarification from Alpha Futures before trading funded accounts.
I have the CSV/trade history and the emails from Alpha and can provide screenshots.
I'm also genuinely interested in hearing from other Alpha Futures traders:
Has anyone else had a payout denied specifically because a significant percentage of their trades lasted less than 2 minutes, even when those trades captured large moves?