News windows and copying
A copier multiplies whatever you do — including mistakes of timing. If your firm requires you to be flat around a scheduled release and your leader account takes one trade inside that window, every follower in the group takes it too. One trade, N simultaneous breaches. This is the single sharpest edge of copying on prop accounts.
What the firms actually restrict
Verified 2026-08-12 against each firm's own pages; sources in the policy matrix.
| Firm | News rule |
|---|---|
| Apex Trader Funding | Allowed — but one direction only during the event, no resting orders on both sides, no chasing |
| Topstep | No blackout; entering with your full maximum position size into a major release is prohibited conduct |
| MyFundedFutures | Rapid + Pro sim-funded: flat, including working orders, from 2 min before to 2 min after Tier-1 events (FOMC, Employment Report, CPI; EIA for energy, ag reports for ag). Evals and Flex plans: allowed |
| TakeProfitTrader | Funded (PRO/PRO+): flat and no working orders 1 min before, during, and 1 min after FOMC, NFP, CPI — plus Crude Inventories on Crude Oil, bond auctions on the 10-Year and 30-Year. Tests: unrestricted |
| Bulenox | None published |
| Leeloo Trading | No blackout; both-sides "catch the move" tactics banned |
| Tradeify | None, on any tier |
| Earn2Trade | Evals unrestricted (copiers are banned there anyway) |
| Elite Trader Funding | None at any tier |
| Lucid Trading | LucidDaily: trading red-folder news is a hard breach. Flex, Pro, Direct: allowed |
Two details deserve emphasis. First, "flat" at MyFundedFutures and TakeProfitTrader includes working orders — a resting limit sitting through the window breaches even if it never fills. Second, Apex's one-direction rule interacts safely with copying (all your accounts are same-direction by rule anyway), but a reverse-copy setup would violate it on the spot.
The routine before a release
- Check the calendar. The Economic Calendar page shows the week's releases with impact filters, in your timezone or Chicago time.
- Know each follower's rule — the strictest wins. If one follower sits at a firm with a flat-window, the whole group plans around that window.
- Pause before the window. Use Pause all followers on the Trade Desk, or stop the group's copying entirely. Paused followers ignore new leader fills.
- Verify flat where flat is required. Close positions and cancel resting orders on the restricted accounts — a working order is enough to breach at some firms.
- Resume after. Un-pause once the window has passed and you have checked positions match.
If there are instruments you never want copied around their own release cycles (CL into EIA inventories, ZN into auctions), the instrument block-list removes them from copying entirely.
Quick answers
Does MirrorFill pause copying around news automatically?
No. The Economic Calendar shows you the schedule, and Pause all followers is one click, but the decision and the timing are yours.
My follower's firm has a news window but my leader's firm doesn't. What happens?
The leader trades legally; the follower breaches. Group rules follow the strictest member — pause the restricted follower, or the whole group, before the window.
Is a resting order really a breach?
At MyFundedFutures and TakeProfitTrader, yes — their windows require no working orders, not just no positions. Cancel resting orders, don't just go flat.