What a trailing drawdown actually is
It is a floor that follows you up. You start with a fixed amount of room — $2,000 on a Topstep 50K, $2,500 on a Bulenox 50K — and every dollar you make lifts the floor behind you. The room never grows: it only moves. What changes from one firm to the next is when it moves.
End-of-day trailing
The floor only recalculates once the session closes. During the day you can be $800 up on an open trade, give it all back, and the floor will not have moved an inch. Only your closing balance counts.
This suits traders who scale out of winners, hold through pullbacks, or let a runner breathe. Your unrealised profit is not a liability.
Intraday trailing
The floor follows every tick of unrealised profit. Go $800 up on an open position and the floor rises by $800 — right then. Give it back and that room is gone for good, even though your balance ended the day unchanged.
This is the rule that catches people who have never read it: they finish a flat day and discover the account is $800 closer to death. It is not a penalty for losing, it is a penalty for not taking profit.
Static drawdown
The floor never moves. Whatever you make above the starting balance is yours to give back down to the original line. It is the most forgiving of the three and the rarest.
Which firms use which
| Drawdown type | Firms |
|---|---|
| End-of-day trailing | Earn2Trade, Elite Trader Funding, FundedNext Futures, Lucid, MyFundedFutures, Take Profit Trader, Topstep, Tradeify |
| Intraday trailing | Alpha Futures, Apex, Bulenox, FundedNext CFD, Leeloo |
| Static (no trailing) | Alpha Capital, E8 Markets, FTMO, FXIFY, FundingPips, The5ers |
The rule sets Propbook ships as presets, checked against each firm's public pages. Firms change their terms without notice — confirm before you buy, and every value stays editable in the app.
Working out your real room
Take your current balance, subtract the floor, and that is what you have. On an intraday-trailing account, do the same with your peak unrealised balance, not your closing one — that is the figure the firm is using. Propbook does this for you on every account after each day you log, and warns you on Telegram before the room runs out.
FAQ
What is a trailing drawdown?
A loss line that follows your balance upward. Make money and the floor rises behind you; the room between your balance and that floor is all you have left to lose.
What is the difference between intraday and end-of-day trailing?
Intraday trailing follows every tick of unrealised profit, so an open winner you give back tightens the floor immediately. End-of-day trailing only moves when the session closes, so the same give-back costs you nothing.
Which is better?
End-of-day is more forgiving if you scale out or hold through pullbacks. Intraday is harsher but often comes with cheaper evaluations or larger sizes. Neither is better in the abstract — it depends on how you exit.
Does the trailing ever stop?
On most futures firms, yes: once the floor reaches your starting balance it locks there, so your capital is protected but your profit above it is not. Check the exact stop point in your own contract.
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