Intraday Trailing Drawdown

Intraday trailing drawdown, also called live or real-time trailing drawdown, follows your account equity tick by tick. Every new equity high drags the breach level up behind it by the same distance, including highs reached inside an open trade you never banked.

A worked example: a $50,000 account with a $2,500 trailing drawdown starts with its breach level at $47,500. If your equity touches $51,000, the breach level moves to $48,500. It only ever moves up. On most accounts it stops trailing once it reaches the starting balance: when equity hits $52,500, the breach level locks at $50,000 and stays there however high the account climbs.

This punishes letting winners breathe: if price runs $1,500 in your favor and comes back, your breach level rose $1,500 while your balance did not. That is the main difference from an end-of-day drawdown, which only moves on your closing balance.

Traders on intraday trailing accounts typically take profits mechanically, size down after a new high rather than up, and set their own per-trade risk well inside the drawdown. Firms use it because it limits how much open profit a trader can give back.