Funded trading programs, like the Gauntlet Mini ™, are an excellent opportunity for retail and individual traders. They provide the opportunity to get a trading account full of capital, trade responsibly, and reap the rewards. Other than that, funded trading accounts provide experience and learning opportunities. It’s a chance to make money doing something you love without having to risk any of your capital.
However, the truth is that not all funded trader programs are created equal. This guide will go through the best offer on the market, Earn2Trade’s Gauntlet Mini ™ program. What is the Gauntlet Mini ™? How can it help you kickstart your professional trading career from the comfort of your home? Find out here.
Last updated on March 5, 2024
What is The Gauntlet Mini?
The Gauntlet Mini ™ is an intraday futures trading exam. On successful completion, you receive an offer for a funded trading account from Earn2Trade’s partner proprietary trading firm.
The program is designed to evaluate your trading profile and performance over a period of at least 10 days. The evaluation is based on a set of rules that require you to reach a specific profit target. The exact amount depends on your initial account size. The rules also include predefined limits on the daily and total losses, trading outside of market hours, and the number of contracts. Also, while there is a minimum number of days required to pass, there is no end time limit.
The program’s goal is to find those who really know their game and aren’t one-time wonders. These are the traders with sustainable and flexible trading strategies combined with a long-term view. They are traders who manage to show they can navigate all types of markets without relying on luck.
The Gauntlet Mini ™ is a fast track to bringing you together with a proprietary trading firm. It’s ideal for traders who have the skills but lack the capital to kick off their professional trading careers.
What Can You Trade?
The Gauntlet Mini ™ is a futures trading program. Specifically, you can trade CME futures on four exchanges, including the CME, CBOT, NYMEX, and COMEX.
The CME Group is the world’s leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace. They offer hundreds of different futures contracts for you to choose from. You are free to buy and sell the most popular and liquid futures instruments and apply your best-preferred trading strategies.
Agriculture, energy, FX, metals, etc. You can explore various categories and trade both popular and niche futures contracts with no hesitation.
What Are The Account Sizes?
Traders have individual needs and goals, which is why the Gauntlet Mini ™ is designed with flexibility and personalization in mind.
The Gauntlet Mini ™ is divided into four account types. They differ in terms of the virtual starting capital, profit goals, monthly subscription price, and others.
The program has proven to offer one of the most flexible and affordable ways to get involved in futures trading. It has helped hundreds of traders unleash their true potential
Traders who pass within the first month can get a funded trading account offer for as little as $170. That is, for the cost of a one-month subscription for the Gauntlet Mini ™’s starting plan.
If you’re more confident and plan to trade on a larger scale, you can choose from accounts with virtual starting capital of up to $200,000. These accounts come with a profit goal ranging from $6,000 to $11,000 to pass.
In a nutshell, the Gauntlet Mini ™ can offer you an account tailored to your needs and goals. Whether you are just starting out or have several years of experience, there is an account to match your needs.
How Long Does it Take For You to Get Funded?
After completing the Gauntlet Mini ™, you will hear back from us within two business days to let you know about the next steps.
Usually, you should expect to receive an offer within no more than one business week after successfully completing the program. Once you receive, sign, and return the contract to our proprietary trading partner, you’ll be ready to go.
Considering that the Gauntlet Mini ™ takes a minimum of 10 days to complete and about a week to take care of the necessary documentation after successfully passing the evaluation, this means you might be able to fast-track your way to becoming a professional trader in less than a month!
Otherwise, bear in mind that the Gauntlet Mini ™ program doesn’t have a fixed end date. You are under no pressure and can go through the course material and the trading examination at your own pace.
What Are The Risks of a Funded Trading Account?
The idea behind funded trading accounts is to minimize the potential risks for both the trader and the firm funding them.
However, despite all the benefits, there are still some risks for both parties. Let’s take a look at find out what you and the prop firm have at stake. Here are your risks when signing a contract for a funded trading account:
The Risks of a Funded Trading Account for the Trader
The main risk of a funded trading account is if the trader cracks under the pressure of real-life trading and fails to maintain proper risk management.
In theory, trading with real money shouldn’t be any different from trading during the evaluation program. However, there is one critical distinction. It’s a fact there is no safety net here. This can often turn out mentally exhausting for beginners.
Realizing that you are now a real trader might put additional pressure on the individual. Traders who are more prone to getting emotional might be drawn into a downward spiral. If they lose more money than they are allowed to, it can result in their accounts being terminated.
To avoid such unpleasant scenarios, we suggest you take your time to dive into the educational material. You will have access to it throughout the Gauntlet Mini ™ program. Make sure to master it and spend enough time in the trading simulator. Once you start feeling confident, you’re ready for the real world. Some traders even chose to delay activating their funded trading account to give themselves some time to get ready.
More often than not, traders fail the funded trading account program not because they don’t have good strategies or lack the skills but because they panic and let their emotions take control.
For traders, funded trading accounts are risk-free by design. The only potential threat might come if you fail to protect your capital and produce excessive losses. In these cases, you will see your contract terminated.
Even in the worst-case scenario, you still won’t be risking your own capital or lose any money. You can also still apply and retake the Gauntlet Mini ™ program from the start. Once you clear your head and feel ready, you can try again and get back into professional trading.
The Risks of a Funded Trading Account for the Prop Firm
The major risk the prop trading firm bears is funding a trader who fails to live up to their potential. To avoid having their entire capital lost in case the trader struggles, prop trading firms have specific loss limits in place for each account.
Prop firms want to invest only in traders capable of replicating their performance during the evaluation. To help traders accomplish this, Earn2Trade has adopted an approach that values consistency and cautious trading over more aggressive strategies.
The prop firm looks to select traders who can perform reliably and avoid funding traders with a high-risk-high-return approach.
Why is The Gauntlet Mini The Best Funded Trader Program?
Becoming a professional trader on your own often requires significant capital and taking hefty risks with it. Trader funding programs can help bring down those barriers and empowers your career as a professional trader. This opportunity is so tempting that companies have to filter out candidates to ensure only competent traders get funded.
The Gauntlet Mini ™ stands out among these programs because it provides a simple, transparent, and fair ruleset. Sometimes trader evaluation programs fall into the trap of becoming so overly complicated that they filter out promising traders. Often this comes in the form of barriers like two-stage evaluations that the Gauntlet Mini ™ doesn’t use.
Furthermore, Earn2Trade has its roots in being a trader education company. All of their learning material is accessible by traders who take the evaluation. This helps ensure you are fully prepared to get into the market and be successful while trading with real money.
Enrolling in the Gauntlet Mini ™ also comes with various perks, including access to trading software and a free Journalytix license. The cost of your first data feed is also included in the price.
Among the key characteristics that have established the Gauntlet Mini ™ as the best funded trader program is its favorable offer for the trader. Unlike other programs, Earn2Trade’s program ensures the funded trading account owner retains 80% of their profits for any account size.
In a bid to make the program even more affordable, Earn2Trade offers periodical promotions on the Gauntlet Mini ™. Look out for active promotional campaigns to get the best deal for a funded trader program.
What is Included With The Gauntlet Mini?
Enrolling for the Gauntlet Mini ™ comes with a plethora of additional perks. Let’s take a look at each of them to find out what they add:
A free trading simulator
Enrolling in the Gauntlet Mini ™ gives you access to first-class trading software completely for free for the period of the evaluation program. The supported platforms and terms include:
- NinjaTrader® (free during the Gauntlet Mini ™ evaluation)
- Finamark (free during the Gauntlet Mini ™, including a 90-day live-trading license)
- R Trader & R Trader Pro (free)
- Overcharts (60 days free for new users)
The free trading simulator grants you access to the platforms without paying for that and without restrictions on the supported features and functionalities.
The first data feed you will be using for your trading is also included. This means you won’t have to pay any out-of-pocket data fees during your examination period if you have a non-professional CME status (those with “professional” status on the CME will have to pay $135/month/exchange).
You can also use a variety of other supported trading platforms. The full list is available here.
Free Journalytix License
Journalytix is among the best trade journaling solutions on the market. It allows you to keep track of your preferred trading strategy and its performance over time. The application brings you access to all types of advanced trade analytics to help you find patterns in your trading data.
These include real-time trade news feeds, statistics, economic releases, historical performance analytics, trade execution assistance, and more. It also allows you to export trading data to Microsoft Excel for a complimentary analysis.
With the Gauntlet Mini ™ subscription, you can get it for free for the period of your examination.
Full access to the Beginner Crash Course
The Gauntlet Mini ™ subscription brings you full access to Earn2Trade’s in-depth Beginner Crash Course. Designed as a 62-lesson trading course, including over 100 hours of additional content in the form of webinars, it brings you everything you need to enter the trading world fully prepared and confident. Unlike many other educational materials, the Beginner Crash Course focuses on the most essential trading topics. No fluff and straight to the point.
Access to the course lasts throughout the duration of your subscription period. This means you can learn and revise the content as long as needed until you master every trading fundamental our seasoned trading veterans have to teach you.
A guaranteed funded offer after successful completion
The terms are as clear as it gets: complete the Gauntlet Mini ™ successfully and receive a funding offer.
Funded trading accounts are available to residents of almost all regions worldwide. However, some restrictions are based on sanctions or other reasons (check the full list of prohibited countries here).
How Does the Gauntlet Mini Profit Split Work?
After you become a funded trader, you will start earning real profits that you can withdraw. The profits are subject to a so-called “profit split” between the trader and the proprietary trading firm. Upon the terms of the offer, the profits are subject to an 80/20 profit split in the trader’s favor.
This means you will retain 80% of the profits while trading on behalf of the proprietary trading firm. The firm itself retains the remaining 20%.
This profit split setup is among the most generous in the industry. Some offer a 50/50 or 60/40 split, putting the trader in a much more unfavorable position. Others who also offer 80/20 splits may do it at the expense of higher monthly subscription fees for their programs.
With Earn2Trade, everything is clear and transparent: qualify for a funded trading account offer and retain 80% of your profits across all accounts. As simple as that.
How Does Gauntlet Mini Guarantee Funding For Traders Who Pass?
One of our goals at Earn2Trade is to provide traders with the best possible offer for traders. We do it by implementing a strict but fair ruleset that encourages responsible risk management habits in traders. Simply put, passing the Gauntlet Mini ™ is proof that traders who successfully complete the evaluation can protect our partner prop trading firms’ capital from unnecessary risk.
Because proprietary trading firms have to bear the brunt of the risk in a funded trader relationship, many of them (understandably) have harsh requirements for funding. Being confident in the competence of traders who get funded goes a long way in providing traders with a more favorable offer.
Another benefit of working closely with our partners is that Earn2Trade can help traders transition seamlessly from passing the evaluation to trading on your funded trading account.
Over the years, this service has allowed thousands of individuals to kick off their trading careers in the best possible way.
If you want further guarantees about Earn2Trade’s Gauntlet Mini ™ program and our users’ experience with us, please get familiar with their reviews on Trustpilot and the various success stories on YouTube.
Ready to Kickstart Your New Career?
The Gauntlet Mini ™ is your shortest path to a professional trading career. If you’re serious about making it on the financial markets, then there is no better place to give it a go than Earn2Trade’s evaluation programs.
With reasonable monthly subscription fees and many perks featured in the package, you can ensure that you are about to kickstart your trading career within a few months or even less and at terms unrivaled in the industry.
Hundreds of individuals have already chosen the Gauntlet Mini ™ as their stepping stone into the prop trading world, so if this is what you are into, then look no further!
FAQ
If you sign up for the Gauntlet Mini ™ program, you will have to adhere to some rules. Those include a 10-day minimum trading period, daily loss limits, a maximum number of open positions, end-of-day drawdown requirements, the maintain consistency rule, trading within market hours, and more.
You can find the full list with the Gauntlet Mini ™ rules here. For additional information, you can also check out our complete guide on becoming a funded trader here.
After you get funded, you will be free to start trading actively for as long as you don’t break the rules of your offer. You will pocket 80% of the profits you make while making sure you stay within your drawdown limit to avoid blowing your capital. Make sure you minimize your losses, build consistent profits (even if they are small), and keep thinking long-term.
Everything you need to know about what happens after you get funded is listed in this article or this YouTube video.
