Daily drawdown protection
How daily drawdown protection blocks new trades once a configured equity loss threshold is hit for the day.
Max daily drawdown is set from the account card's Trading Inputs panel as Max daily drawdown %, not an EA input — the value reaches the EA on its next poll after you save, no reattaching required. When enabled, the EA uses the day's starting balance as the reference point and blocks new trade execution if equity loss for the day exceeds that percentage. Existing positions are left to their SL/TP or trailing stop; DD protection does not force-close.
The EA checks this before executing queued manual or webhook trades, so dashboard-submitted trades cannot bypass it.
Balance in, equity out
The two sides of the comparison are deliberately different:
drawdown % = (starting balance − current equity) / starting balance × 100The baseline is the balance at the start of the day. The current figure is equity, which includes floating profit and loss on open positions. An open trade that is 2% down counts against the limit before it is closed, which is what makes the protection useful for a prop-firm daily loss rule.
It ships at 0.0 for a new account, which means disabled. Nothing is checked until you set it above zero and save.
What gets blocked, and what does not
Only new buy and sell signals are refused. Everything else is deliberately exempt:
| Action | Blocked once the limit is hit |
|---|---|
buy, sell | Yes |
close, closeall, closebuy, closesell | No |
modify, modifybuy, modifysell | No |
| Trailing stops on open positions | No, they keep running |
The exemptions are the point. Hitting your daily limit must never stop you from closing a position or moving a stop, so the close and modify paths return before the drawdown check is reached.
The blocked trade is reported back to the dashboard as failed, with the reason Daily drawdown limit reached (X.X%). Trade blocked., so a signal that appears to have vanished can be traced to the limit rather than to a connection problem.
When the day resets
The EA compares the current day of the month against the day it recorded, using your broker's server time rather than your local time. When the number changes, the baseline is re-captured at the current balance.
Two consequences are worth planning around:
Your broker's day, not yours. A broker on a different server timezone rolls over at a different wall-clock moment than your prop firm's stated reset. Check the two line up before relying on this to satisfy a specific firm's daily loss rule.
Restarting the EA re-captures the baseline. The starting balance is taken fresh whenever the EA loads, including mid-day. If you have already lost 3% and you reattach the EA, the day starts again from the lower balance and that 3% is forgotten. Reattaching after a loss effectively resets the protection.
It is checked on arrival, not continuously
The drawdown figure is evaluated when a new buy or sell signal arrives, and at no other time. The EA does not poll your equity in the background, and there is no alert, chart label, or dashboard indicator that says you are currently over the limit.
In practice this means the protection is a gate on new positions rather than a monitor. You find out you are over the line when the next signal is refused.
What it does not do
- It does not close anything. Open positions run to their own stop, take profit, or trailing stop.
- It does not stop you trading manually in MT5. The EA gates the signals it receives; it has no way to prevent an order you place yourself in the terminal.
- It is per terminal, not per portfolio. Each EA instance measures the account it is attached to. Routing one signal to three accounts gives you three independent limits, not a combined one.