How close am I to breaching?

Your distance to breach is your balance minus your max-loss floor: the dollars the account can lose before it fails. On a balance of $50,400 with a floor at $48,800, that's $1,600. On a trailing drawdown the floor rises with your highest balance, and a daily loss limit can be the nearer line.

Worked examples

Sample account · $50,000, $2,000 trailing max loss, $1,000 daily loss limit

The best close so far is $50,800, so the floor is $48,800.

Right now, down $400 today
Balance
$50,400
Highest close
$50,800
Floor
$48,800
Room
$1,600
Left today
$600
A week later, after a close at a new high
Balance
$51,300
Highest close
$51,300
Floor
$49,300
Room
$2,000
Left today
$1,000
A new high moved the floor up. The room is back to the full max loss.

Room is $50,400 − $48,800 = $1,600, 80% of the max loss. The daily limit has $600 left, so today the nearer line is the daily one.

Sample account · own money, $25,000 start, $5,000 max loss you set

No firm sets a floor on your own brokerage account. If you set one, the same subtraction applies.

Your own money, a floor you set
Balance
$24,100
Floor
$20,000
Room
$4,100
A floor you set doesn't trail: it stays where you put it.

$24,100 − $20,000 = $4,100 of room.

Computed by the same rule engine your real accounts use.

The subtraction

Room = balance − floor. The floor is the balance at which the account fails: on a static max loss it's the starting balance minus the limit; on a trailing one it's your highest balance minus the limit, until it stops rising. At many firms the floor is checked live, with open trades included, so an open loss can reach it before anything closes.

When room reaches zero, the account is breached. The share of the max loss still left lets you compare accounts of different sizes, which is how the Desk ranks them: nearest its line first.

Why the floor moves

A trailing floor follows your highest balance up and never comes back down. So a new high doesn't add room the way it feels like it should: the floor moves up behind it, and the room stays the size of the max loss. Give some of that high back and the room shrinks, even though the account is still up overall.

Which high counts depends on the rule: the best closing balance, or the best equity reached during the day with open trades included. Many trailing floors stop rising at a set point, often the starting balance; from there the room can grow.

Two lines, not one

If the account has a daily loss limit, there are two lines. The max-loss floor covers the account's whole life; the daily limit is counted from this morning. Whichever is closer is the one that matters today. Claridae shows both on every account: the room above the floor and what's left today.

How firms differ

Which balance the floor follows: the closing balance, or the highest equity during the day.
Whether the floor stops rising, and where: at the starting balance, a little above it, or never.
Whether a daily loss limit exists, and whether hitting it ends the day or the account.

Check your firm's current terms. Claridae's presets record each firm's version, dated, and you can edit any account's rules.

See it on a sample day

The live demo runs a sample trading day through the Desk, no sign-up.

Open the live demo