No Daily Loss Guard on evaluations — and why that is not good news
Alpha lists a Daily Loss Guard of $1,000 / $2,000 / $3,000, but their own Standard Account documentation says plainly: no Daily Loss Guard on evaluations. It applies to Qualified accounts only.
Traders read that as freedom. It is closer to the opposite. A daily loss limit is a circuit breaker — it stops you at a defined number and gives you tomorrow. Remove it and there is exactly one way to fail: hit the Maximum Loss Limit, which is permanent. The guard rail you lost was the one that ended a bad session; what is left is the one that ends the account.
Practically, that means on a Standard evaluation you should impose your own daily stop rather than sizing as though no limit exists. This calculator gives you the field to do it: enter a self-imposed daily figure and a realistic number of losing trades, and it sizes against your rule instead of a rule the firm is not enforcing.
The MLL is end-of-day — genuinely, not partially
Most futures props that advertise "trailing drawdown" trail your intraday equity high. Spike $800 into profit at 10am, give it back, and your threshold has already ratcheted up behind you — you are punished for an unrealised peak you never banked.
Alpha states the opposite directly: the MLL is calculated from the account balance high at the end of each trading day, not the intraday equity high, and none of their accounts use intraday trailing. That is a materially easier structure to trade. A green move that fades before the close costs you nothing in threshold terms.
Two caveats that matter more than the headline:
- The MLL stops trailing at your starting balance. On a 50k with a $2,000 MLL, once your end-of-day balance reaches $52,000 the MLL sits at $50,000 and never moves again. Every dollar past that point is genuinely yours in risk terms — the account can no longer trail you into a breach.
- Breach is on floating equity, not just closed balance. Alpha's rule states the account is liquidated if you break the MLL on floating equity or closed balance. So while the threshold only moves at end of day, an open trade can still hit it in real time. EOD trailing is not permission to hold a losing position through the number.
Worked example — MNQ on a 50k Standard evaluation
Starting balance $50,000. MLL $2,000, so the floor is $48,000. No Daily Loss Guard, because this is an evaluation.
Suppose you impose your own $500 daily stop and allow three losing trades. That is roughly $166 of risk per trade. On MNQ, one point is $2 and a tick is $0.50. A 20-point stop risks $40 per contract, so the risk budget allows four contracts.
Now check the cap. Standard 50k allows 5 minis or 50 micros. Four MNQ is inside it, so risk binds first — which is the correct order. If a tighter stop pushed the risk-derived number to 60 micros, the firm cap would bind at 50 and the calculator would floor you there rather than quietly return a number that breaches your account rules.
Worth noting against the MLL: four losing trades at $166 is $664, about a third of your entire $2,000 buffer, gone in one session. Sizing to the daily number without checking it against the total is how evaluations die in three days.
Contract caps by account size
- Standard 50k — 5 minis / 50 micros. MLL $2,000. Profit target $3,000.
- Standard 100k — 10 minis / 100 micros. MLL $3,000. Profit target $6,000.
- Standard 150k — 15 minis / 150 micros. MLL $4,500. Profit target $9,000.
Ten micros equal one mini for cap purposes, so a 50k account holding 30 micros has used three of its five minis. Consistency is 50% on evaluation and 40% once qualified — no single day may make too large a share of total profit, which is a sizing constraint as much as a payout one.
Open calculator
Presets carry the official MLL and contract caps as of the verification date above. The Daily Loss Guard figure is loaded so you can size against it on a Qualified account — on an evaluation, replace it with your own daily rule. Alpha also runs Zero, Advanced and Direct plans with different parameters; confirm your exact product before trading.
Common questions
Does Alpha Futures use intraday trailing drawdown?
No. Their documentation is explicit that the MLL is end-of-day trailing on all accounts and that none of their accounts use the intraday trailing drawdown common elsewhere. It is calculated from the end-of-day balance high, not the intraday equity high.
If there is no daily limit on evaluations, can I risk more per trade?
You can. Whether you should is a different question. Without a daily circuit breaker, a bad session runs until you stop it or the MLL does — and the MLL ends the account permanently rather than the day. Most traders who fail evaluations fail them in a single session, not gradually.
What happens when the MLL reaches my starting balance?
It stops trailing permanently. On a 50k with a $2,000 MLL, an end-of-day balance of $52,000 puts the MLL at $50,000 and it stays there for the life of the account. This is the point where the account stops being able to trail you into a breach.
How does this compare to Apex or Topstep?
Alpha's EOD-only trailing is friendlier than an intraday trail. Its caps sit between the two: 5 minis at 50k matches Topstep, while Tradeify is tighter at 4. See the firm comparison for the full table.