Trailing Drawdown Calculator
See exactly how your loss limit moves. This interactive tool models every Elite Trader Funding drawdown type side by side. Edit your trading days and watch the same trades pass on one plan and breach on another.
The drawdown is the maximum your account can lose before the evaluation ends. What trips traders up is not the size of the drawdown. It is how the floor moves. Get that wrong and a winning week can still fail you. This calculator makes the movement visible.
- What it shows
- How your loss limit moves
- Live Trailing (100K)
- $3,000 drawdown
- End of Day (100K)
- $3,500 + $2,200 daily
- Static (max size)
- 50K · $2,000 drawdown
- Safety net
- Max drawdown + $100
What a trailing drawdown actually is
A trailing drawdown is a maximum loss limit that follows your account up. Rather than a fixed stop-out number, the floor sits a set dollar amount below a high-water mark and ratchets up as you make new highs. Crucially, it never moves back down, so a high you reach and then give back can leave the floor stranded above where you started the day.
Two questions decide how a drawdown behaves, and every prop-firm plan is just a different answer to them: what high-water mark does the floor trail, and does it trail at all? ETF answers those three ways, and a fourth plan, Direct to Funded, skips the evaluation entirely while using one of them.
Live Trailing (1-Step)
The floor trails your highest unrealized profit, including open positions. A spike on an open trade pushes the floor up, and it never comes back down. The most aggressive style on the market, and the one traders blow most.
Give back open profit and you can breach before you ever close.
View 1-Step detailsEnd of Day (EOD)
The floor only ratchets up on realized closing highs, so intraday spikes are ignored. In exchange it carries a hard daily loss limit that fails the account the moment a single session loses too much.
One oversized losing session can fail you on the daily limit.
View End of Day detailsStatic
The floor is set once, at account creation, and never moves. Every dollar of profit becomes permanent breathing room. It is the closest a funded account gets to trading a real cash account.
Only way to breach is losing down to the fixed floor.
View Static detailsDirect to Funded (DTF)
Skip the evaluation entirely and start in a funded account. DTF uses an End of Day floor on the 10K and 50K and a Static floor on the 100K, with no daily loss limit. Once realized profit clears the safety net, the floor locks at your starting balance + $100 and payouts unlock.
No daily loss limit; floor locks once you clear the safety net.
View DTF detailsTry it yourself
Edit your daily profit and loss below and switch between Live Trailing, End of Day, Static, and Direct to Funded. The bottom box on each day is the intraday spike, or how far above its close the account ran on open positions before settling. That spike is exactly what a live trailing floor chases and an end-of-day floor ignores. Watch the red floor line change shape as you switch plans on the same trades.
Top box: the day’s realized profit or loss. Bottom box: how far above its close the account ran intraday on open trades, the spike a live trailing floor chases. Leave it at 0 for a clean day.
Your live trailing floor rose every time your intraday high made a new peak (up to $106,300) and never fell back. You kept your closes above it and hit the $106,000 target on Day 6.
| Day | P&L | Balance | Intraday high | Live trailing floor | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Day 1 | +$900 | $100,900 | $100,900 | $97,900 | ✓ |
| Day 2 | +$1,300 | $102,200 | $102,200 | $99,200 | ✓ |
| Day 3 | +$700 | $102,900 | $105,100 | $102,100 | ✓ |
| Day 4 | +$1,400 | $104,300 | $104,300 | $102,100 | ✓ |
| Day 5 | +$900 | $105,200 | $105,200 | $102,200 | ✓ |
| Day 6 | +$1,100 | $106,300 | $106,300 | $103,300 | ✓ |
Illustrative day-resolution tool. Defaults reflect ETF's published plan sizes. Live Trailing (1-Step): 50K/$2,000, 100K/$3,000, 250K/$6,500; End of Day: 50K/$2,000 ($1,100 daily), 100K/$3,500 ($2,200 daily); Static: 10K/$500, 25K/$1,000, 50K/$2,000; Direct to Funded: 10K/$1,500 (EOD), 50K/$5,000 (EOD), 100K/$5,000 (Static), no daily loss limit. Real accounts are evaluated tick-by-tick and may include rules this tool does not model. Your account's exact thresholds are shown in your Trader Dashboard.
How to read the calculator
The green line is your account value at each day's close. The red dashed line is your drawdown floor: touch it and the evaluation ends. The grey dotted line marks your starting balance, the amber line is your profit target (the safety net on Direct to Funded), and on End of Day an orange dashed line marks the daily loss limit. A legend under the chart names whichever lines are in play.
Floor chases intraday highs
The floor steps up to chase your highest intraday high (the faint grey line) and never steps back down. A big spike you give back can leave the floor above a perfectly normal closing balance.
Daily limit can fail you alone
The floor only steps up on a new realized closing high, so intraday spikes do nothing to it. Load One bad day and watch the green line dip under the orange daily-loss-limit line while staying above the red one.
A floor that never moves
The floor is a flat line. Profit piles up as pure cushion and the only way to breach is to lose your way down to the fixed number.
Floor locks automatically
No evaluation and no daily loss limit. The 10K and 50K use an End of Day floor and the 100K a Static floor; once you bank the safety net (max drawdown + $100) the floor locks automatically at your starting balance + $100.
Lock the floor at the safety net
Tick this in the calculator to see the trailing floor freeze at your starting balance + $100 once you have banked your max drawdown + $100 in realized profit.
Live Trailing vs Static: the two extremes
End of Day sits between them, but the clearest way to feel the difference is to compare the most aggressive floor with the one that never moves.
| Rule | Live Trailing | Static |
|---|---|---|
| When the floor moves | Up with every new intraday high, continuously. | Never. It is fixed at account creation. |
| Does profit become cushion? | No. The floor follows you, so the cushion stays the same. | Yes. Every dollar of profit is permanent margin for error. |
| Open (unrealized) profit | Counts. A spike you give back can fail the account. | Ignored. Only your closing balance versus the fixed floor. |
| Best for which trader | Experts who hit targets fast without giving back open profit. | Tight risk managers who scale into winners. |
Which ETF plan uses which drawdown
Each evaluation type answers the drawdown question differently. If a plan's floor behavior does not match how you trade, the calculator above will show you why before you ever buy.
| Rule | Plans | Account sizes |
|---|---|---|
| Live Trailing (unrealized) | 1-Step, Fast Track | 50K / 100K / 250K |
| End of Day trailing + daily limit | End of Day, Diamond Hands | 50K / 100K |
| Static (non-trailing) | Static Drawdown | 10K / 25K / 50K |
| EOD or Static, no evaluation | Direct to Funded | 10K / 50K / 100K |
Read the full rules on the 1-Step, End of Day, and Static Drawdown, and Direct to Funded pages, or see how payouts work once you pass on the Active Trade Days page.
Frequently asked questions
Choose the floor that fits how you trade.
Now that you can see how each drawdown moves, pick the evaluation that matches your style, and trade against a floor you actually understand.
Browse evaluationsAccount sizes and risk parameters are subject to change.
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