How to Pass a Prop Firm Evaluation Without Blowing Your Account
The top three mistakes that wash out 80% of evaluation traders, plus a checklist for the first ten trading days.
Why most traders blow their eval in the first week
Daily-loss breaches account for more failed evaluations than every other rule combined. The 3% daily cap on a 100K account is $3,000. Enough to feel manageable until you take three losers back to back on a Monday morning.
The three patterns that kill evaluations
1. Revenge sizing. You take a stop, double size on the next entry to "get it back," and breach the daily cap on a single trade. The fix: pre-define your max risk per day before the session opens, and stop trading the moment you hit 50% of it. Two more losers won't blow you; one revenge trade will.
2. Over-leverage at high impact news. Opus allows up to 3:1 on BTC/ETH and 30:1 on FX majors. That doesn't mean you should use it during CPI prints or FOMC. Spread widening alone can stop you out before your entry fills.
3. Ignoring the consistency rule. The 50% consistency cap means no single day can produce more than half of your eval's total profit target. Hit 80% of the target on day one with one big trade, and you've boxed yourself into needing every subsequent day to be a small winner.
A simple checklist for days 1-10
- Max risk per trade: 0.5% of starting balance
- Max risk per day: 1.5% of starting balance
- No new entries inside 5 minutes of a tier-1 news release
- Stop after two consecutive losers and walk away for 30 minutes
- End every day under 50% of the profit target
Boring works. The traders who pass do not look like the traders on YouTube.