My second funded account ran beautifully up to $110,000. Feeling clever, I let a few losers breathe, confident my floor was still $90,000. It was not. The firm used a trailing overall drawdown, and my floor had quietly followed my profits up to $99,000. I found out when the account was gone. Ten percent of headroom had become four, and I had traded as if nothing changed.
In this article
The Max Overall Drawdown Calculator above exists so you never trade blind like that. Enter your balances and limits, and it shows your real floor, your room above it, and which of your two limits is actually the one that can stop you today.
Static versus trailing: the two ways firms draw the line
A static overall drawdown never moves. On a $100,000 account with 10%, your floor is $90,000 on day one and on day one hundred. Simple, forgiving, and increasingly rare.
A trailing drawdown follows your highest balance upward and never comes back down. Run the account to $110,000 and the floor rises to $99,000. Give back $5,000 and the floor stays at $99,000. Your cushion shrinks exactly when you feel safest. Here is the same account under both rules, with equity at $103,000:
| Static 10% | Trailing 10% | |
|---|---|---|
| Floor calculation | $100,000 × 0.90 | $110,000 × 0.90 |
| Floor | $90,000 | $99,000 |
| Room at $103,000 equity | $13,000 | $4,000 |
| What it feels like | Comfortable | One bad day from done |
The difference between $13,000 of room and $4,000 of room is the difference between a strategy and a coin flip. If your firm trails, your wins raise the floor under you. Respect that. The full comparison lives in static vs trailing drawdown.
The floor maths
Three small formulas run the whole thing. First the overall floor, which depends on your firm’s type:
Then the number that actually governs your day. You always have two limits, daily and overall, and the tighter one wins:
| Variable | What it is | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Initial Balance | Your starting balance | $100,000 |
| Highest Balance | The peak, for trailing firms | $110,000 |
| Drawdown % | The firm’s overall limit | 10% |
| Daily Floor | Start-of-day equity minus the daily limit | $98,000 |
| Working Floor | The higher of the two floors | $99,000 |
Write the working floor on a sticky note. It is the only number on the screen that can end your account today.
Why the working floor is the number that actually stops you
Traders usually watch the wrong floor. Early in the day the daily limit binds tighter; after a winning streak the trailing overall floor takes over. Take the worked example: overall floor $99,000, start-of-day equity $103,000, daily limit 5% of the $100,000 initial. The daily floor is $98,000, so the working floor is $99,000 and you have $4,000 of room.
| Check | Calculation | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Overall floor (trailing) | $110,000 × 0.90 | $99,000 |
| Daily floor | $103,000 − ($100,000 × 5%) | $98,000 |
| Working floor | max($99,000, $98,000) | $99,000 |
| Room at $103,000 equity | $103,000 − $99,000 | $4,000 |
My habit now: I recompute this every morning before the first trade, and I size the day from the room I actually have, not the room I remember having last week. Two losing trades at my normal risk must never reach the working floor. If they can, my risk is wrong for the day. A neutral reference for the concept is the Investopedia maximum drawdown guide.
Using the Max Overall Drawdown Calculator step by step
Fill the fields at the top of this page, then press Calculate.
| Input field | What to enter | Sample figure |
|---|---|---|
| Initial balance ($) | Your starting balance | 100000 |
| Overall drawdown (%) | The firm’s overall limit | 10 |
| Overall drawdown type | Static or trailing, from the rulebook | Trailing |
| Highest balance reached ($) | The account peak (trailing only) | 110000 |
| Current equity ($) | Balance plus floating P/L | 103000 |
| Daily loss limit (%) | Optional, from the rulebook | 5 |
| Start-of-day equity ($) | Equity at the daily reset | 103000 |
The results show the overall floor, your room above it, the daily floor and the working floor, which is the tighter of the two. The bar shows your equity’s position between the working floor and the start of the day, and the status line tells you plainly whether you are comfortable, in caution or in danger. Pair it with the Prop Firm Consistency Rule Calculator before requesting a payout, and the Drawdown Recovery Gain Calculator if you ever need to climb back. Everything runs in your browser and nothing is stored.
Questions traders ask about overall drawdown
What is the difference between daily and overall drawdown?
The daily limit resets every day and measures one bad session. The overall limit never resets and measures the account’s whole life, usually 8% to 10% from the start or the peak. You must respect both at once, and the calculator’s working floor shows which one binds today.
Does a trailing drawdown ever move back down?
No, and that is the trap. It ratchets up with your highest balance and stays there when you give profits back. After a winning streak your cushion is thinner than it feels. I recompute the floor every morning during good runs, not just bad ones.
Does floating profit count toward the trailing high?
On most firms the trail follows closed balance or the highest recorded equity, depending on the rulebook, and open drawdown counts against you either way. Assume the stricter version until you have read your firm’s exact wording. Never let a floating loss ride on an assumption.
Which floor do I watch when both rules apply?
The higher one, always. That is the working floor in the calculator: the maximum of the overall floor and the daily floor. Whichever sits higher is the level that ends the account, so size your day from that number, not from the friendlier one.
What happens when I hit the overall floor?
On most firms it is instant and final: the account is closed, no warning trade, no appeal. Some firms soft-breach on evaluation and hard-breach when funded, so check the FTMO trading rules page as an example of how firms phrase it, then confirm your own firm’s version. Treat the floor as a cliff, not a line.
