Intraday Drawdown
A trailing drawdown that follows your peak unrealized equity tick by tick — the strictest variant, and the one that most rewards disciplined profit-taking.
An intraday trailing drawdown updates your loss floor in real time, tracking your highest unrealized equity, tick by tick. If a trade goes $2,000 in your favor and you give it all back, the floor still rose by $2,000. Profit you never banked still tightened your leash — permanently, because the floor never comes back down.
This is the strictest drawdown mechanic in prop trading, and the one that surprises the most traders. But it isn’t unbeatable — it’s a rule with a very clear, learnable counter-strategy, and traders who internalize it get funded while others are still confused about why their account closed while they were up money.
Watch it work on a $50,000 account with a $2,500 trailing drawdown (starting floor $47,500):
| Event | Equity | Peak seen | Intraday floor | Room left |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Start | $50,000 | $50,000 | $47,500 | $2,500 |
| Trade runs +$3,000 (open) | $53,000 | $53,000 | $50,500 | $2,500 |
| Trade reverses, closed +$200 | $50,200 | $53,000 | $50,500 | −$300 — breached |
The trader is up $200 on the day and the account is gone. Not because they lost money, but because they let $3,000 of open profit evaporate.
The counter-strategy is simple and it’s a genuinely good trading habit anyway:
- Bank your winners. Take partials or move to a hard stop once a trade is meaningfully green. Realized profit and unrealized profit cost you the same floor — so take the realized version.
- Never let a big winner round-trip. Under intraday rules, a giveback is a double hit: you lose the money and keep the raised floor.
- Know your peak, not just your balance. Your true room is peak minus floor, and your platform’s balance number won’t tell you that.
Master this and you’ve mastered the hardest rule in the industry. Read EOD vs Intraday Trailing Drawdown, and check which variant each firm uses in our directory before you buy.