Howdy Lark Traders. This is Lark Digest, the trading newsletter that’s more bullish than your 16-year-old crypto cousin.

On the menu:

• What just happened to Funded Engineer? 😬

• Is MetaQuotes shutting down brokers? 😲

• Weekend nuggets for the road 🚗

FUNDED ENGINEER ACCUSED OF FRAUD 🤔

Wednesday afternoon I awoke from a nap because my phone was going crazy.

No, it wasn’t the breaking news that Joe Biden called the president of Egypt the president of Mexico.

It was breaking news about Funded Engineer, one of the largest and fastest-growing firms in the industry.

So, what happened?

1/ FPFX shut them off. FPFX, one of the largest technology providers for firms, shut them off. This meant Funded Engineer could no longer monitor or issue accounts, payouts or anything in between.

The question is, why would they do that?

2/ Fraud via fake payouts. FPFX is accusing Funded Engineer of defrauding them and consumers by faking payouts. They did so (allegedly) via what’s called “wash trading”.

FPFX said:

“It appears that Funded Engineer personnel then logged into the client terminal and traded in a simulated environment for the sole purpose of achieving a profit in the account. If the trading activity failed to do so, Funded Engineer would simply create a new account and start over. FPFX Tech believes the trading activity served no purpose other than to defraud FPFX Tech and inflate Funded Engineer’s payout statistics.”

FPFX went on to say that they plan to file complaints with regulatory authorities.

Yikes.

So, how did Funded Engineer respond?

Own technology? What’s going on there?

Well, the owner of Funded Engineer recently started a second firm called Formed Funding, which is built off their own in-house tech.

Is this all just crazy timing or a wild coincidence?

We’ll let you decide on that one.

But here’s the Lark Report:

1/ Nobody is upset? We were shocked to see the response. Rather than reading the entire report, traders started to hop on the bandwagon of blaming the technology provider. Which brings us to…

2/ FPFX is NOT the problem. Many traders online turned into technology experts overnight, saying that FPFX is the problem. The fact is, though, they’re not. The issue is faking payouts and committing fraud. Any other technology provider with the same conditions as FPFX would have done the same.

3/ No comment on faking payouts. We have yet to see a comment from Funded Engineer about the allegations.

PROBLEMS WITH METAQUOTES?

If the Funded Engineer story and True Forex Funds suspending their services weren’t enough to get your stress hormones pumping, we’ve got another one for you.

Many in the industry yesterday were talking in code that something big was about to happen.

Well, it turns out they were right.

Rumblings started to form that Purple Trading, a widely used broker, was getting their Metaquotes license removed (like True Forex Funds).

This meant that traders who purchased an account connected to Purple Trading would be stuck and unable to trade.

*cue the headache and angry mob*

It started off with E8 Markets announcing the following:

This story is very much still developing and it’s possible that more will come out this weekend.

There is good news, though:

At Lark, none of this impacts us at all. Both Eightcap and ThinkMarkets have confirmed that it’s business as usual, and because of their long-term relationship with Metaquotes, they’re not concerned.

*cue the sigh of relief*

WEEKEND GOODIES 🚀 

Now, with the heavy stuff out of the way, let’s get you set up for the weekend.

Here are a few things I’ve been looking at to spice up your weekend.

1/ Becoming a global citizen. This was a phenomenal podcast that looked into how we can save taxes, which countries will treat you best and how to acquire multiple passports. Definitely worth a listen.

2/ Tucker interviews Putin. Okay, you’ve probably heard of this. His teaser video alone got over 100 million views. As of writing this, the interview isn’t yet out, but it’s sure to break the internet.

3/ Casey Neistat going around NYC in the new Apple Vision Pro.

4/ This great Bible quote on building wealth that I had never seen before. Also, Mitchell’s account is a must-follow for anyone interested in Bitcoin.

DIGESTIBLE MEMES 🍪 

ACTIVE GOODIES? 😏

Click HERE to sign up.