Every evaluation has a floor: an equity level that, once touched, ends the account. What changes from firm to firm, and from program to program, is whether that floor moves.
That single difference decides more outcomes than the profit target does, and it is usually explained in one line of the terms.
Static: the floor is set once and stays there
A static floor is calculated from your starting balance and never moves. On a $10,000 account with an 8% maximum loss, the floor sits at $9,200 on day one and sits at $9,200 forever.
Make $3,000 and the floor is still $9,200. Your room to breathe grows with every profitable day, because the ceiling rises while the floor stays put.
Trailing: the floor climbs behind you
A trailing floor is calculated from the highest equity your account has reached. As you make money, it follows you up. It never comes back down.
The consequence is the one that surprises people: after a good run, giving back part of that profit can end the account even though you are still ahead of where you started.
A static floor punishes losing money. A trailing floor punishes giving money back. They are not the same rule, and they do not reward the same behaviour.
The same trader, the same trades, two models
Two $10,000 accounts, traded identically. The first sits under a static floor 8% below its starting balance. The second sits under a trailing floor 6% below the highest end-of-day equity it has reached.
| End of day | Equity | Static floor | Trailing floor | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Start | $10,000 | $9,200 | $9,400 | Both fine |
| Day 1 | $10,400 | $9,200 | $9,800 | Both fine |
| Day 2 | $10,800 | $9,200 | $10,200 | Both fine |
| Day 3 | $10,300 | $9,200 | $10,200 | Trailing within $100 |
| Day 4 | $10,150 | $9,200 | $10,200 | Trailing account closed |
On day four the trader is $150 up on the starting balance. The static account has $950 of room left and is trading normally. The trailing account is gone.
Nothing went wrong with the strategy. The account was closed by a rule about the shape of the equity curve, not about its direction.
Two details that decide everything
Not all trailing rules are the same, and the differences are larger than the headline percentage. Two questions are worth asking any firm before buying.
- Does the floor trail intraday highs, or end-of-day highs? Intraday is far harsher: a spike you never closed at still raises the floor permanently. End-of-day only counts equity at the daily snapshot, so an unrealised peak that fades before the close costs you nothing.
- Is the distance a percentage of the initial balance, or of the current high? A percentage of the high widens as you profit; a percentage of the initial balance stays a fixed number of dollars. The second is easier to plan against, because your loss window never changes size.
How it should change what you do
- Under a trailing floor, protect the high water mark. Every new peak permanently tightens your room. Scaling out into strength is worth more here than it is under a static floor.
- Under a static floor, the early days are the dangerous ones. Your room only grows as you profit, so the account is most fragile when it is newest.
- Never run the same position size under both. Sizing that is comfortable against a fixed floor can be reckless against a floor that climbs.
- Know your current floor before every session. Under a trailing model it is not the number you memorised last week.
Which of ours uses which
We publish this on the programs page, next to every other rule, rather than leaving it in the terms, because it is the single rule most likely to decide whether an account survives.
| Program | Maximum loss | Model |
|---|---|---|
| The Builder, 2-Step | 8% | Static |
| The Sprinter, 1-Step | 6% | Static |
| The Starter, Instant | 6% | Static |
The Starter is funded from day one with no profit target, which is why it carries the tightest limits of the three. Tight, but fixed: the floor never climbs behind you. That trade-off is deliberate and it is stated before you pay, not discovered afterwards.
The check that takes five seconds
Before buying any evaluation anywhere, find the words “static” or “trailing” in the rules. If neither word appears, or the rules are not readable without an account, you have learned something more useful than the answer.
