VanquishTrader Puts 20% Off Its Options Plans Behind VANQ, With No Closing Date and a Real Time Trailing Loss Limit
VanquishTrader is running 20% off its options trading plans under the code VANQ, and the banner carrying it gives no closing date beyond the words “ends soon”. The discount is the least interesting thing in the announcement. On an account where the loss limit trails in real time against the highest unrealized balance of the trading day, and where the only permitted instruments are long calls and long puts, the rule set decides whether the fee is worth paying at all, and VanquishTrader publishes that rule set in full on the same page as the code.
What VANQ Covers, and the Date the Firm Has Not Published
The banner across the top of vanquishtrader.com reads 20% off options trading plans with the code VANQ, followed by “ends soon”. There is no date, no time and no time zone. A discount with no published end is not a deadline, it is a mood, and traders should not treat it as pressure to buy today.
It also cuts the other way. A code with no published end can be withdrawn without notice and without any broken promise, because no promise was made. If the fee saving is the deciding factor in a purchase, that purchase was marginal to begin with.
The firm describes itself as the first prop firm to offer options trading, and it publishes a set of figures about its own scale: more than $10 million paid out to traders, more than 20,000 active users, a 4.1 Trustpilot rating and a 15 minute average payout time. Those are the firm’s own numbers and none of them is audited. The 15 minute figure in particular is an average, not a guarantee, and VanquishTrader does not publish the distribution behind it.
Account sizes run $10,000, $50,000, $75,000, $100,000 and $150,000, across two plan families called Options and Advanced Options. A reset costs $49.
The Rule That Decides Whether the Discount Is Worth Anything
The loss limit on the evaluation phase is 5%, which is $500 on a $10,000 account, and VanquishTrader states that it is measured from the unrealized equity peak. The drawdown type is listed as intraday trailing, and the firm’s own explanation is that the loss limit trails in real time with the highest unrealized balance during the trading day.
Read that carefully if you trade long premium. It means the reference point for a breach is not the balance a trader started the day with, and not the balance after closing a position. It is the highest point the open position touched while it was open. A long call that runs up and then gives the move back can therefore breach the account without the trader ever having closed a losing trade. Long options move faster and further than the underlying, which is the entire reason people buy them, and an intraday trailing drawdown measured on unrealized equity is the single most hostile way to risk-manage that behaviour.
This is not a criticism of VanquishTrader for publishing it. The firm states the mechanic clearly and in plain language, on the same page as the price, which is better practice than several larger firms manage. It is a warning that the 20% saving reduces the cost of the attempt and does nothing to the probability of passing it. Traders who have not sat inside a real-time trailing limit on an options book should assume the rule will cost them more than the fee ever could. JoinProp’s explainer on how drawdown works in prop trading covers why the measurement point matters more than the percentage.
The SPX, XSP and VIX Restrictions Are Still There
The current rule page keeps the instrument restrictions this firm introduced in July. SPX, XSP and VIX can be traded only as long single-leg calls or puts. No spreads. No selling to open.
That is the direct legacy of the exploit review JoinProp covered at the time, when VanquishTrader delisted those three products and closed accounts it said had exploited its simulator, before reopening long options on them with spreads still frozen. Three months on, the restriction has not been relaxed, and anyone buying an account on the strength of a 20% code should know that the index products most options traders reach for first are available in one direction and one structure only.
Across both plan families the permissions are the same: long calls and long puts. There is no margin, no time limit and no overnight positions, and all trades must be closed by 3:59pm Eastern or they are automatically liquidated as a market order. Every position, in other words, has to resolve the same day it is opened, and the firm closes it at market if the trader does not.
What the Two Phases Actually Require
Phase one, the evaluation, carries a 10% profit target, which is $1,000 on a $10,000 account, a minimum of 10 trades, a 30% consistency requirement calculated as best trade divided by total profits, and the 5% intraday trailing loss limit described above. There is no maximum on the number of trades.
Phase two, performance, drops the profit target entirely. There is no target and no minimum trade count. The consistency requirement stays at 30%. The loss limit stays at 5% and continues to trail until a buffer is reached, and VanquishTrader states plainly that accounts can breach the loss limit intraday. The minimum payout is $250 and the payout frequency is daily.
The 30% consistency figure is worth sitting with, because it applies per trade rather than per day. A single options trade that accounts for more than 30% of total profit blocks the payout until the rest of the account catches up. On a long premium strategy, where a small number of trades produce most of the return, that is a structural tension rather than an edge case. It is the reason a trader can be profitable on this account and still not be paid.
What This Means for the Broader Prop Industry
Options prop is a small corner of this industry and it is growing, and the firms in it are doing something the forex and futures firms have mostly stopped doing: publishing the whole rule set beside the price. VanquishTrader’s page states the drawdown measurement point, the consistency formula, the instrument restrictions, the forced liquidation time and the reset cost without being asked. That is the standard the rest of the field should be held to.
The reason it matters more here than elsewhere is that options change the meaning of every risk rule they touch. A 5% trailing limit on a leveraged forex account is a familiar constraint. The same 5% on a long options position, measured against the highest unrealized print of the day, is a different product entirely, and a trader who carries intuitions over from one to the other will breach without understanding why. Firms expanding into options need to say so in those terms rather than reusing the rule language of a currency challenge, and traders need to read the measurement point before the percentage.
The discount question is simpler. A 20% code with no published end date, on a product whose binding constraint is a real-time trailing limit, is not a reason to buy. If the rules fit the strategy, the account is worth buying at full price, and the code is a bonus. If they do not, 20% off is 80% of a wasted fee. The useful exercise before any purchase here is to take the account size being considered, work out what 5% of it is in dollars, and ask honestly whether a single long option position could print that much open profit and give it back inside one session. For most sizes on this list, the answer is yes.
JoinProp will update this story if VanquishTrader publishes a closing date for VANQ, relaxes the SPX, XSP and VIX restrictions, or changes the measurement point on its loss limit.
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