Trailing drawdown calculator: where is your floor today?
Last reviewed: Oct 13, 2026
Enter your account's drawdown rules and your daily results. You'll see the floor after every day, how far you are from it, whether and when it locks, and the day you would have breached. It runs in your browser, with no signup.
Start from a firm (50K account)
Pick a firm to prefill its drawdown rules, or enter your own. Check your firm's current rules. Presets last reviewed Oct 13, 2026. Every field is editable.
0 stops the floor at your starting balance. Blank = never locks.
Daily P&L
One row per trading day, oldest first. The floor trails your closing balance, so only each day's final P&L matters. A blank row counts as a flat day.
| Day | P&L | Balance | Floor | To floor | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $50,650 | $48,650 | $2,000 | |||
| 2 | $51,070 | $49,070 | $2,000 | |||
| 3 | $50,770 | $49,070 | $1,700 | |||
| 4 | $51,670 | $49,670 | $2,000 | |||
| 5 | $52,770 | $50,000 | $2,770 | Floor locks | ||
| 6 | $52,320 | $50,000 | $2,320 | |||
| 7 | $53,020 | $50,000 | $3,020 | |||
| 8 | $51,820 | $50,000 | $1,820 | |||
| 9 | $52,320 | $50,000 | $2,320 | |||
| 10 | $53,170 | $50,000 | $3,170 |
Paste a column of daily P&L
The floor locks at $50,000 on day 5 and stops rising. You have $3,170 of room.
Status
Locked
Locked on day 5
Balance
$53,170
Floor
$50,000
Distance to floor
$3,170
Watch the floor automatically
Track this automatically. Tradervana watches your floor live and alerts you before a breach. Try Pro free for 14 days.
How the calculator works
The floor is your highest balance minus your max drawdown. On a $50,000 account with a $2,000 drawdown, the floor starts at $48,000. Make $1,000 and close at $51,000, and the floor moves to $49,000. Lose $800 the next day and it stays at $49,000, because the floor only ever moves up.
What counts as a new high depends on the trailing type. With end-of-day trailing it's your closing balance. With intraday trailing it's your highest equity at any point, so the calculator asks for the best open profit you reached each day. Once the floor reaches the lock level you enter, it stops rising. Your balance touching the floor is the breach.
Worked example
A $50,000 end-of-day account with a $2,000 drawdown that locks at the starting balance. Over seven days you make +$800, +$1,200, −$500, +$700, +$400, −$900 and +$1,100.
- Day 1 closes at $50,800 and the floor rises to $48,800.
- Day 2 closes at $52,000. The floor would be $50,000, which is the lock level, so it locks there for good.
- From day 3 on, the floor never moves again. Your tightest moment is day 3, closing at $51,500 with $1,500 of room, even though you're $1,500 up.
Now the intraday version of the same idea on a $2,500 drawdown. A trade runs to +$2,400 open, you close it for +$400, and your balance is $50,400. Because the floor followed the open profit, it's at $49,900, not $47,900. You have $500 of room, not $2,500. One normal losing day of −$500 touches the floor and ends the account. The same two days under end-of-day trailing leave you with $2,000 of room.
Common mistakes
- Measuring room from the starting balance. Your room is the distance to the floor, which rises with your highs, not the distance to where you began.
- Ignoring open profit on an intraday account. If the floor follows equity, profit you didn't close still raised it.
- Assuming it locks on the first profitable day. The floor only stops at the lock level, which can take a real run of profit to reach.
- Mixing up the daily loss limit and the max drawdown. They're separate rules with separate consequences. See daily loss limit vs. max loss limit.
- Trusting one firm's rules for another. Trailing type, lock level and breach wording all vary. Always check yours.
What this model doesn't cover
It works from daily results, so a dip below the floor during the day that recovers by the close won't show up. Firm-specific rules that change the floor (payout resets, scaling plans, and similar) aren't modeled, and presets are examples, not your firm's live rules. Treat the output as a planning estimate and confirm against your firm's own dashboard.
FAQ
What is a trailing drawdown?
It's a maximum-loss rule whose floor moves up as your account balance reaches new highs. The floor sits one max-drawdown below your highest balance, so profit raises it and losses never lower it. Your account is breached when the balance reaches the floor.
What's the difference between end-of-day and intraday trailing?
An end-of-day trailing drawdown only ratchets the floor up from your closing balance each day, so swings during the session don't count. An intraday trailing drawdown ratchets it from your highest equity at any moment, including open profit you later gave back. Intraday is far less forgiving for the same drawdown amount.
When does a trailing drawdown stop trailing?
Most firms freeze the floor once it reaches a set level, commonly your starting balance and at some firms a small buffer above it. After that the floor is fixed and the drawdown behaves like a static limit. Enter that level in the lock field. Leave it blank if your account never locks.
Does touching the floor breach the account, or only falling below it?
At most firms, reaching the floor ends the account. This calculator treats a balance equal to the floor as a breach. Confirm the exact wording in your firm's rules, because a few measure it differently.
How is the daily loss limit different from the max drawdown?
The daily loss limit caps how much you can lose in a single day and resets the next day. The trailing drawdown is a running limit measured against your highest balance. Firms treat a daily-loss hit differently (many stop trading for the day, some close the account), so the calculator flags those days without ending the account.
Is this the same math Tradervana uses?
Yes for the floor itself: the trailing floor, the lock and the breach test follow the same logic as Tradervana's live account tracking. The difference is the input. The calculator works from daily rows, while the app tracks every closed trade.
Firm presets are examples for illustration, last reviewed Oct 13, 2026, and may be out of date. Results are estimates from the inputs you enter, not financial advice. Futures trading involves substantial risk of loss.