Blue Guardian 2-Step $100K vs FTMO Challenge 1-Step $100K

A daily loss limit caps how much an account may lose within a single trading day. It is the rule that ends the largest share of evaluations, usually before the overall loss rule is ever approached. The limit is expressed as a share of account size, but what matters more than its size is the reference point it is measured against. Two conventions are common. In the first, the limit is anchored to the balance recorded at the start of the trading day, so intraday gains do not raise the allowance and intraday losses do not lower it until the next day begins. In the second, it is anchored to the highest equity reached during the day, meaning an unrealised profit that is later given back consumes part of the allowance even if the account never falls below where it opened. The same sequence of trades can pass under one convention and breach under the other. Full explanation →

A trailing drawdown level moves in one direction only. It follows the account upward as the reference figure it tracks makes new highs, and it stays where it is when the account falls. A losing day does not pull the level back down; the room between the current balance and the level simply shrinks. This is what people mean when they call it a ratchet. The consequence is that a run of gains followed by a return to the starting balance can leave an account close to breach even though it has not lost anything relative to where it began. Full explanation →

Leverage on an evaluation account expresses the maximum notional position size a trader may hold relative to the account's nominal balance. It is a ratio: for every unit of stated balance, the platform permits a position of some multiple of that unit. It functions as a ceiling imposed by the account settings, not an instruction or a default trade size. A trader operating far below the ceiling is unaffected by where the ceiling sits; the figure only becomes binding at the point an order would exceed it, at which stage the platform rejects or truncates the order. Full explanation →

An evaluation is a simulated test of whether a participant can reach a stated gain on a demo balance without breaching the loss limits attached to that balance. The structure exists because the firm cannot observe the participant's method directly; it can only observe outcomes against fixed constraints. A phase is therefore a bounded window in which two things are measured at once: whether the profit target is met, and whether the daily and overall drawdown limits stay intact throughout. A phase ends in one of three ways — target reached, limit breached, or, where a time constraint applies, the window closes. Full explanation →