How to Pass Your First Prop Firm Evaluation

Copy these from the rulebook, not from a review. Each one changes the plan.

• Profit target. The amount that ends the evaluation. Note whether it is one step or two, and whether open profit counts.
• Max loss and daily loss. The account-ending floor, and the smaller stop that ends the session. They are different numbers. Hitting the daily stop should leave the account alive.
• Trailing versus static. A static floor does not move. A trailing floor steps up after new equity highs and then stays there. Trailing versus static drawdowns is the long version. The glossary entry for trailing drawdown is the short one.
• Consistency rule. A cap on how much of the result can come from one day, or one trade. The consistency rule, decoded is the math. It is also the rule people discover after the best day of the evaluation.
• Minimum days. Some programs require a count of active days. Some do not. Write the number down, including what counts as a day.
• News rules. A blackout is a window, not a mood. News trading rules says what to look up in the firm's own text.

If a clause is ambiguous, the ambiguity belongs to the firm until you have it in writing. Do not fill the gap with a forum answer. The consistency-rule research is an example of reading primary rulebooks instead of summaries. Use that habit on the program in front of you.

Size off the money you can lose, not off the account label. Risk management, first principles puts the firm's floor first, then the cushion you have left. Position sizing math turns a fraction of that cushion into contracts, shares, or lots.

A trailing floor tightens the cushion after a new high. The same position that fit yesterday can be too large today, even though the account is up. Recalculate when the floor moves. Do not wait for the next morning's review if the trail updated at the close.

Pick the fraction before the open and write it in the plan. The point of a pre-committed fraction is that a green morning does not get to argue for a larger one. If you want a different fraction, change it between sessions, not during one.

How to approach an evaluation is the tactical version of this section. A trading plan that matches the rulebook is where the session, the loss limit, and the trades you will not take get written down. Use both. The sketch below is the shape, not a substitute.

1. The day before: confirm the floor, the daily stop, the products you are allowed to trade, and whether tomorrow is a news day that the rulebook restricts.
2. Before the open: one sentence on what you will trade, and the stop in money. If you cannot say the stop in the account's currency, you do not have a size yet.
3. During the session: the daily stop is a stop. When it is hit, the platform closes. Flattening and walking away is the whole job of that rule.
4. After a winner that is large relative to the target: read the consistency clause before the next trade. A second trade taken to "press it" can be the trade that makes the day unusable for a payout later.
5. After the close: one journal note. What the plan said, what you did, and whether the floor moved. How top traders journal is the longer habit. One honest line beats a blank page.

Stop for the day when any of these is true: the daily loss is hit, you have taken the trades the plan allowed, or you are trading because the target feels close. Proximity to the target is not a setup. The psychology of trading other people's money is the chapter on that urge.

These are patterns in the rulebook, not a census of traders. No pass rate sits behind them.

• Sizing off the account label. The drawdown is the budget. The headline balance is not.
• Ignoring the trail. A new high that is not followed by a smaller size is a larger bet than the one you planned.
• One day doing too much of the work. The consistency rule does not care that the day felt skilled.
• Trading the news window. The restriction is on the clock. A good price inside the window is still a breach if the rule says so.
• Averaging a loser to get back to even. The daily stop exists so that this trade does not become the account.
• Switching programs mid-evaluation to escape a rule. The fee is gone. The new rulebook is a new test, not a continuation.

A pass is a change of rulebook, not a graduation. Read the funded schedule the same way you read the evaluation: drawdown, daily stop, consistency, news, and the payout calendar. Payout mechanics follows a request from the first click to the wire, including the rules that delay or deny it. The profit split is the share of a payout, and it is not the same number on every account the firm sells.

Keep the same fraction of the funded drawdown until you have traded the funded rules for a while. The temptation on day one of a funded account is to treat the pass as evidence that the size was too small. The pass is evidence that the size fit the test you just took. The next test may be stricter.

If the funded account uses a trailing floor and the evaluation used a static one, rebuild the size from the new floor before the first funded trade. Do not import the old position.

Choose the rulebook you can trade, then the firm. How to choose a prop firm without getting burned is the question list. Red flags is the short list that should send you to the closed-firm archive and to Compare, not into a checkout.

Match the program to the session you already trade. A futures evaluation is a different instrument problem from an equity evaluation. The market hubs cover futures, equities and options, and tape reading. Platforms and software are in Tools.

When you are comparing two live rulebooks, use the directory and Compare rather than a screenshot of a discount. Prices move. The clauses above are the comparison that still matters after the price changes.