City Traders Imperium Review: Funded Account a Scam?
Welcome to the City Traders Imperium review. City Traders Imperium (CTI) is an educational and prop trading firm operating much like Trend Trading DNA except that their website is easier to navigate and the presentation is quite professional. We have to admit and give them some rating for this kind of thing.
The company offers funded trader accounts, managed trading accounts, copy trading and mentoring .
The company has claimed that 90% of City Traders Imperium students are profitable. They even proclaim to have funded hundreds of traders globally. These stats are obviously impossible to verify and could as well be mere fabrication. We’ll not give them credit for this.
Company marketing materials also proclaim that the people working for City Traders Imperium have 27 years of professional trading experience.
If this is the case, we should be able to verify their claims easily. We look at the age of the website and the professional backgrounds of the people who operate it.
According to who.is, City Traders Imperium’s website was created in September 2018. They’re allegedly operating out of London.
CTI lists Daniel Martin and Martin Najat as CEO and professional traders of this company. They appear to be the only people running the site.
They want their audience to believe that this company was created based on honesty, discipline and self-belief.
Also, with regards to trading experience, City Traders Imperium’s Daniel Martin claims to have traded professionally for 20 years. We would wish to view his professional track record but this is not possible since no LinkedIn account or statement sharing platform bearing the name Daniel Martin was provided.
Martin Najat is allegedly a student of Daniel Martin and a full time trader claiming to build a strong team of “profitable traders”.
Company’s myfxbook.com account is registered in the name of Martin Najat. We’ll talk about this later on in our City Traders Imperium review.
City Traders Imperium review
We begin this City Traders Imperium by reviewing their most popular trading product…… funded trader accounts.
There are 3 plans under which traders can apply for a funded trading account and qualify for up to $20,000.
They are listed as follows:
[tabs][tab title=”$70,000 Forex Funded Trader”]
- Evaluation Account Size $17,500
- Profit Split 50/50
- Evaluation Pass Criteria
- Target 7% | ($1,225)
- Max Drawdown 4% | ($700)
- Max Exposure 0.85 Lots
- Growth 2x every 10% (After Evaluation)
- One-Off Fee: £550
[/tab] [tab title=”$50,000 Forex Funded Trader”]
- Evaluation Account Size $12,500
- Profit Split 50/50
- Evaluation Pass Criteria
- Target 6% | ($750)
- Max Drawdown 4% | ($500)
- Max Exposure 0.60 Lots
- Growth 2x every 10% (After Evaluation)
- One-Off Fee: £400
[/tab] [tab title=”$20,000 Forex Funded Trader”]
- Evaluation Account Size $5,000
- Profit Split 50/50
- Evaluation Pass Criteria
- Target 6% | ($300)
- Max Drawdown 4% | ($200)
- Max Exposure 0.25 Lots
- Growth 2x every 10% (After Evaluation)
- One-Off Fee: £200
[/tab][/tabs]
The company claims that these are live evaluation funded accounts with achievable profit target, no risks, freedom of trading with any style and payment of profit every month even when profit target has not been achieved.
City Traders Imperium has not mentioned which brokers they partner with. However, the company’s marketing materials suggest that City Traders Imperium is providing MT4 software for download and can control trades directly from a trader’s MT4 account.
For one to have direct admin access to a trading account where they can freeze funds, restrict trading and perform all other kinds of actions, they must essentially be operating professional brokerages facility.
This is a claim that the company has vehemently denied in their marketing materials. It would have been a honorable thing to provide details of which brokers they use if City Traders Imperium Ltd is not the broker in this situation.
In addition to this, City Traders Imperium also offers partnerships with companies that want a white label solution for funded trading accounts.
Because the sales page suggests that this company is offering brokerage services, the question of their regulatory status arises.
Since City Traders Imperium is based in the UK, they should perhaps be regulated by the FCA because this is then main financial watchdog regulating brokers in this jurisdiction.
Another claim that we find too good to be true is that this company is offering funded trader accounts with no restrictions.
The truth is that rules must apply in every funded trader program. There’s no welcoming every Tom, Dick and Harry and giving them a live account to trade as they’ll automatically hit the max draw down and get disqualified.
Here are the rules set by City Traders Imperium:
- There must be 45 trades in total
- Maximum draw down is 4%
- Multiple trades on one currency pair is considered one trade
- Period of evaluation is 1 year (this is quite generous)
- You cannot use copy trading.
You have to read the fine print to understand other rules not listed in our City Traders Imperium review.
City Traders Imperium Copy Trading service
They claim to be the number 1 copy trading service in the UK. They offer Standard and VIP accounts respectively.
Copy Trading requires a monthly subscription fee of £99 and a profit share of 40% and 50% respectively.This service is supposedly providing lucrative ROI and a verified track record. Thankfully, the company has provided their myfxbook.com for our analysis.
Mentoring of traders
City Traders Imperium Ltd is providing a 12 month online mentoring program where students learn trading strategies, risk management as well as the psychology of trading.
In addition to this, the company is running what they call CTI Inner-circle program. Students who become part of the inner-circle program are offered an intensive Forex trading course that skyrocket their success.
According to the sales page, this is the quickest way to become the company’s top 10 traders.
Trading results
The vendor is providing us with their verified third party trading results from myfxbook.com.
Monthly returns for this trading account belonging to City Traders Imperium is just 1.80%. Draw down is 6.22%.
Overall gain is 9.34% while absolute gain is 5.36%. Usually when there’s disparity of this nature, it means that the company is crediting their trading account rather than accumulating profits from trading.
It is one way of manipulating results of a real account from myfxbook.com.
With this kind of manipulation, one would create the impression of a profitable trader when the vendor is boosting their equity curve through deposits.
Also, trading on this account stopped in January 22 this year. This account is no longer being traded yet City Traders Imperium does claim they are active traders.
It is hard to trust their claim of being profitable full time traders because this has not been demonstrated well in the company’s myfxbook account.
Furthermore, this account’s draw down is 6%. Remember their funded trader program requires a maximum draw down of 4%.
If the company is not able to achieve those results, do you think any ordinary person will do it?
Conclusion
In the beginning, City Traders Imperium was creating a very positive impression. However, we began to encounter claims that could not be verified.
Claims such as “90% of their traders are successful” cannot be verified. We also need an explanation as to why their real account is no longer being traded.
Besides this, we have no truth concerning the profitability of the trading educators with regards to their trading activities.
There are only 2 reviews on the FPA forum from people who suggest that they had a pleasing experience with this funded trading program.
These reviews were published in November 2018 same month. From there, no reviews were ever published. We find this weird.
And of course reviews have appeared on the Trust Pilot website, which we all know is the Mecca of fake reviews.
Majority of the reviews about City Traders Imperium are rating it 5 stars. A close look at the reviews indicate that most of them were published in the same month. This is suspicious.
We thank you for reading the City Traders Imperium review. We find it difficult recommending the services of this company.
Just like Blufx or Audacity Capital, we will stick with our usual verdict. If a trading educator comes to you claiming to be a professional trader, don’t believe them unless they show you a track record indicating that they are trading for a living and are profitable.
Martin Najat
Hello There,
This is Martin Najat, one of City Traders Imperium Directors. This article is total BS and misleading.
Your company’s or “Writer” of this article has never been in touch with us, never been a customer, or even tried to verify these claims by contacting us directly and asking for clarification whenever there was something that is not clear. This write of this article is 100% misinformed.
If you have any questions or in doubt, you can always email us on info@citytradersimperium.com or visit our website citytradersimperium.com and we are more than happy to respond to all your questions.
Jensen Sinaban Otto
Any Update on this? I am planning to take the CTI funding program.
sohail afzal
Hey there,
I was planning to join CTI funded program but I found your article which was quite in detail but than you got a reply from CTI, it was a surprise for me.
Did you get any feedback from CTI?
It would be very helpful for people like me who are looking for funded program
dark blood
A bit skeptical myself. been around since 2018, yet no youtube reviews, information, etc aside from videos from their own youtube channel. couple dozen 5/5 reviews which are typical cookie cutter reviews. My only conclusions are that there are 0 people trading with them, or their max ( lot size ) makes it nearly impossibly to achieve 10% in a year, especially considering their commission fees being $9/lot… so no ones really completed it.
Fiiyat
CTI review
Believe nothing, question everything.
If this is deleted, I will post it again as this is my honest review.
I have traded for CTI for a while now. Just like any other “trading scheme” out there they will make you feel as if you are really benefiting from their relationship but sadly you’re not.
Their system is negative equity, it is designed to make you lose in the long term. When you have a continuous profit target of 10% and a Trailing drawdown of 4% you will fail at some point, usually sooner than later.
My proof? Take a look at those that have began the challenges, those that have passed by chance because honestly the odds are so heavily against you. Where are they now? A tiny % of people pass the evaluation and CTI make sure that they post these “winning traders” on their site to try to show you that it is possible. But how many of those traders make it through the next round and the next and the next.
Yes you guessed it NONE. Unless CTI are ready to show otherwise.(They can’t 🙂 )
CTI is like a casino, the house always wins. They will put things in place that cause them to win in the long term while most of their “traders” fail in the long term. They know they have a failure rate of 95%+ so happily they take the one time fees and kiss you on your way. When you’re not successful they will sell you some motivational words, saying “focus on your psychology” “follow your plan” etc etc to encourage you to try again and pay the 1-time fee again. All the while selling something they themselves could not even pass. We have seen this time and time again, celebrities endorsing food/drink and cosmetic products they have in reality never used just to make sales using sweet words. This is the same.
The reason I said their “own” challenge is because it’s not really their own. The capital in the accounts, is not theirs. Their parameters, are not theirs. They are just like any white label reseller, trying to sell the same thing another is selling to make money.
But they will never tell you all of this.
You have people that have been claiming to be “portfolio managers” for several months now but again with schemes like this it’s unlikely for you to stay on the same level, you either go forward or you fail. These people that claim to be “portfolio managers” have failed and lost the accounts. If you want proof contact me. CTI won’t tell you they have a failure rate of over 95%. They claim they have successful traders who are “private” trust me this is a lie.
All these apparent “Portfolio Managers” where are they today? Failed that’s right so we don’t hear of them and CTI don’t talk about them.
Another great question to ask is about the Head Traders, the founders that claim to be professionals with rags to riches stories and heart warming trading journey stories.
But are they just selling these funded accounts that they sadly and evidently cannot pass themselves? YES
They promise that they do not make a dime from people paying the 1-time fees but this is just an out right lie, I have worked as staff in a different prop firm previously. So they shouldn’t bother trying to lie to me. Also CTI as a registered UK business would be pointless if they didn’t rake in cash from one-time fees as they don’t make money any other way.
They may not make allot from the 1-time fees but the difference between the Drawdown on each failed account and the 1-time fee paid is what they pocket.
Claims of being “successful traders” are well know in this game. Claims that are always never backed. A common practice of prop firms is to sell other things in order to make their own independent money, aside from the profit they share with their “investors”. A community was recently rolled out by their founders and particularly by someone who claims to be a “portfolio
Manager” to traders but has confessed to failing the “portfolio manager” level and starting again and failing.
He is the chief of marketing at CTI…
Why else would they roll out this big community, no other reason than to make money and I understand, if it doesn’t make money it doesn’t make sense. But profiting off the fact that you’re selling a lie is low but expected from most, it has gone on for centuries.
To cut a long story short, their are so many snake oil sales men out her now adays you can’t even tell what’s real or what’s fake.
With their constant lying promises.
All I can advise anyone about to start here is require proof, how many people have reached the Millionaire Trader tier, how many people fail the challenge, of those that do pass how many stay on or go onto fail the next stage.
Props to them “no pun intended :)” but again just know what it is you’re getting into, if they wanted you to succeed and trade consistently over the long term they wouldn’t have a 4% relative drawdown with a 10% target. Which simply means the odds are against you.
Again, believe nothing and question everything.
anon
Uhmm… every prop firm has a maximum relative drawdown. I mean, would you let those who trade your money burn your account? The target is just for doubling your account. Even if you don’t reach the 10% target, they’ll still pay you at the end of the month. I guess you could try rereading their program again because it’s readily apparent that you don’t understand. The only thing I have to agree with the author of the article is with them not disclosing their broker.