Step 1 · Account and rule set
The four total-loss mechanisms, the daily-loss severities, the contract limit, and what the model systematically understates.
Step 1 decides which mechanism everything else is computed against.
Why a grid and not a provider list
A mechanism carries no numeric field of its own. The moment it carries "3 percent drawdown, 6 percent target" because one provider happens to set it that way, it is a preset under a neutral name, and the axis is worthless.
The sentence that survives is the more valuable one: "trailing on daily close beats static from factor 0.8 on your portfolio" still holds even if a provider changes its rule tomorrow.
The model search still leads from a brand name to the mechanism documented for that model, along with the sentence it follows from. Account size and limits stay your input, because a model name does not tell us which configuration you bought.
The four total-loss mechanisms
| Mechanism | Behaviour |
|---|---|
| Static | The threshold sits fixed at starting balance minus total loss and never moves. |
| Trailing, frozen | The threshold follows the high-water mark but stops once it reaches a defined point. |
| Trailing, no freeze | The threshold follows the high-water mark permanently. |
| Trailing, continuously checked | Like trailing without freeze, but the high-water mark updates continuously and not only at daily close. |
Account size only matters under one mechanism
With a frozen threshold it freezes at a level measured from the starting balance. The buffer is an amount and not a share, which is why account size is a real input there.
Under the other three, every threshold scales with the risk factor. Account size is then only the unit the numbers are displayed in and does not change the result.
The contract limit
Several sources name only the endpoints of a series, e.g. "25k 2 minis up to 150k 10 minis". Nothing sits in between, and nothing is shown in between either. A value between two documented account sizes is not estimated.
The ratio of micros to minis is also not 10 to 1 everywhere. Some sources say "micros up to the same count", others state 5/5, 10/10, 15/15. Where a source does not name the micro count, none is shown and nothing is extrapolated.
Scaling is not one thing
Sources use "scaling" for three different things, and only one of them is a risk:
- Contract stepping. The permitted position size grows with the account balance. A stepping plan can kill an account that would have survived without it, because the position grows exactly when the buffer is smallest.
- Account growth. The account grows, the position does not. Warning here would be a false statement.
- No stepping plan. The limit is fixed from the first trade.
What the model understates
Several points push in the same direction, and the interface names them at the number:
- Where it is not documented whether the threshold tracks the equity high or the closed balance, the closed balance is used. That is the friendlier of the two readings.
- Where the check cadence is not documented, intraday is assumed.
- Commissions, slippage and financing costs are not modelled.
All of these push the same way. The result is therefore too favourable, not imprecise in both directions.