Trailing vs static drawdown
Almost every "pass rate" you see quoted online is computed against a static drawdown — a loss floor fixed below your starting balance. It's the easy version of the math, and it's wrong for the firms most futures traders actually use.
Top Step, Apex, MyFundedFutures and Tradeify use a trailing (or trailing-then-lock) floor: the loss limit follows your account's high-water mark upward. Every dollar of unrealised gain raises the bar you must stay above, so a normal pullback after an intraday spike can breach you while you're still net positive.
We validated the size of this effect on the Top Step 50K combine. For a zero-edge trader (50% win rate, 1:1 reward-to-risk), a barrier-stopped Monte Carlo reproduces the classic ~40% static-floor pass rate — and just ~26% under the real trailing-then-lock rule. That 14-point gap is pure geometry: same trader, same market, harder floor.
The uncomfortable corollary: under trailing rules, risk-sizing tricks barely move the number. Variance is roughly invariant to how you slice position size once the floor is trailing — only a real, measured edge moves the pass rate. That's the whole thesis of The Desk: we can't sell you edge, but we can show you the honest odds and the execution math before you pay a challenge fee.
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