The shape
Floor = peak − trail. If you set a lock, the floor stops at that lock. A later drop in balance does not lower the floor. The trailing drawdown calculator does this arithmetic and does not assume a firm.
Guide
Trailing drawdown explained
A trailing drawdown is a floor that follows the account’s high and does not step down when you give profits back. What counts as the high, and when the floor locks, is the firm’s rule.
Intraday or end of day
An intraday trail, as Apex’s article describes it, can move while a trade is open because the peak includes unrealized profit. An end-of-day trail, as Topstep, LucidFlex, and Tradeify describe theirs, updates from a closing balance and is still enforced during the next session. Touching the floor fails the account even if the close would have recovered.
Worked example, not a firm
Peak $51,000 and a $2,000 trail: the floor is $49,000. If the balance falls to $50,000, the floor stays $49,000. Use your firm’s article for the trail distance. A 50K Topstep Combine in their Maximum Loss Limit article uses $2,000. A 50K Apex intraday evaluation uses $2,000 as well. The lock levels are not the same. Read both pages.
Questions
Does the floor reset each morning?
Topstep’s limit locks at the starting balance. Apex’s intraday threshold does not reset daily. Tradeify’s evaluation accounts do not lock; funded accounts can. Those sentences are on the firm pages, each linked to the firm’s article.
Where do I type my own trail?
The trailing drawdown calculator. Type the peak and the distance from the firm’s dashboard.
Related
Start the 7-day trial. No card.
The guides are the bookkeeping. The journal is where a session gets tied.