Two traders breach the same account on the same day. One lost too much in a single session; the other slowly bled below a line that had been trailing up behind them for weeks. Same outcome, completely different mistakes.
Prop accounts enforce two separate limits, and they fail you for opposite reasons. Confusing them is one of the most common ways evaluations end early. Here’s exactly what each measures and how to stay clear of both at once.
What the daily loss limit measures
The daily loss limit is a single-session cap. It asks one question: how much has the account dropped today? Cross that number before the day resets and you’re done, regardless of how healthy your overall balance is.
Two details matter and both vary by firm, so confirm them directly:
- The reference point. Some firms measure the day’s loss from your starting balance at the session open; others from the highest equity you touched during the day. The second is stricter — give back a big open profit and the drawdown counts from the peak, not from where you started.
- Whether open positions count. On many accounts the limit watches unrealized equity in real time, so a trade that’s deep in the red can trip the limit before you ever close it.
The daily limit punishes intensity — too much risk crammed into one session.
What overall max drawdown measures
The max drawdown is the floor under the entire account, measured across the whole evaluation or funded period, not reset each day. It’s the total your balance is allowed to fall before the account is dead.
The wrinkle is that on many futures accounts this floor trails. As your balance makes new highs, the drawdown line follows it up — often until it locks at your starting balance or a set profit level. That means a run of green days quietly raises the bar you have to stay above. Trailing drawdown explains the mechanics in detail, and it catches out traders who think a big profit buffer makes them safe. It doesn’t — the floor moved up with them.
The max drawdown punishes erosion — many small losses, or one deep one, chipping the account below its lifetime floor.
How the two interact on a bad day
Here’s where people get hurt: the two limits are active simultaneously, and the tighter one on any given day is the one that ends you.
Early in an evaluation, before you’ve built a buffer, your max drawdown and your daily limit can sit very close together. A single rough session can hit both at once. Later, after a strong run has trailed the max-drawdown floor up close behind your balance, the overall limit becomes the binding one — even a couple of ordinary red days can breach it.
So the answer to “which limit should I watch?” is both, and the closer one first. Before every session, know two numbers:
- How far you can fall today before the daily limit.
- How far you can fall total before the trailing floor.
Whichever is smaller is your real risk budget for the day. A drawdown calculator such as the prop-firm drawdown calculator makes this concrete, showing how the trailing floor sits relative to your current balance.
Setting personal stops inside both
The firm’s limits are where you fail. Your personal stops should sit comfortably inside them so you never trade right up against the wall.
- A daily stop at a fraction of the firm’s daily limit. Hit it and you’re flat for the day — no exceptions, no “one more setup.”
- A per-trade risk small enough that a normal losing streak can’t reach either limit. Size to the smaller of your two remaining budgets, not the account’s nominal size.
- A cushion on the trailing floor — treat the max-drawdown line as if it were higher than it is, so slippage or a gap never surprises you into a breach.
The problem is that personal stops rely on discipline exactly when discipline is weakest — mid-drawdown, frustrated, chasing. This is where enforcement beats willpower: Shibiki pushes hard risk limits down to a broker-side layer, so when you hit your daily stop the platform stops you, rather than trusting you to close the tab. The rule holds on the day you’d otherwise break it.
A worked example across a losing streak
Picture a five-day stretch where nothing goes right. Say your firm’s daily limit and overall floor start close together, and you’ve set a personal daily stop at roughly half the firm’s daily number.
| Day | What happens | Which limit is closest |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Small loss, hit personal daily stop, walk away | Daily — but you stopped early |
| 2 | Two losers, stop again before the firm’s limit | Daily |
| 3 | Flat-ish, one scratch trade | Neither pressing |
| 4 | Another red day, personal stop again | Overall floor now closer |
| 5 | Cumulative losses near the trailing floor | Overall drawdown |
The lesson: no single day breached the firm’s daily limit, because the personal stop caught each one. But the accumulation crept toward the overall floor — which is why by day four you widen your attention from “how’s today going” to “how much account do I have left, total.” Respecting the daily limit keeps you in the game; respecting the max drawdown keeps the game worth playing.
Related: Trailing drawdown · Prop-firm drawdown calculator · Topstep