Option 1 trails the high, Option 2 adds a $2,200 day
Option 1 is an intraday trailing maximum of $3,000 on $100,000. Open profit ratchets the floor while the trade is still live, and a normal NQ pullback can stop the account out of a winner you never closed. Option 2 uses an end-of-day trail of $3,000 plus a hard daily loss of $2,200. The day is scored at the session, not at every tick, and you still cannot lose $2,200 today. FTMO's 2-step is neither of these. It is a $5,000 day and a static $10,000 from the initial balance.
People pick Option 1 because the contract limits look more generous. The primary failure on that pick is an unrealized spike, not a bad thesis. If you need the trade to breathe, Option 2 is the contract that matches the way you already hold. If you scalp and scratch quickly, Option 1's trail has less time to chase you.
A $6,000 target, one trading day, and a Wednesday payout
The profit target is 6%, or $6,000, and the minimum is one trading day. That speed is real, and it is also how traders size the first session as if the $3,000 trail were a suggestion. FTMO asks for $10,000 then $5,000 across four minimum days. Bulenox pays 100% of the first $10,000 and 90% after that, on Wednesdays once you have 10 active days and you satisfy a 40% best-day consistency rule on the Master account.
Forty percent of a payout balance is a green-day test FTMO does not publish. A single large NQ expansion can delay the Wednesday withdrawal even though the trail survived. The $395 you did not pay FTMO is not a cushion inside that 40% math. Create a Venasri login and keep the consistency ceiling in the same note as the trail.
Flat by 3:59 PM CT, news later, bots only if Rithmic agrees
Positions must be closed by 3:59 PM CT, ahead of the futures close near 4:59 PM CT. There is no overnight hold to compare with FTMO Swing. Evaluation news is permitted. Master accounts restrict bracket scalping into tier-1 releases. EAs are allowed on both options when they respect Rithmic modification limits. This is not an MT5 login.
FTMO's bot path is MT5, MT4, cTrader, or DXtrade, inside 2,000 requests, with a two-minute news block on Standard funded accounts. Bot controls should stay on the FTMO book. After the 3:59 PM CT flatten, that is the hour when FX tilt usually starts, because the futures screen just went dark and the gold chart is still moving.
Leave $400 under the trail and $400 under the day
Equity Guard on Option 2 should flatten near $1,800 of the $2,200 day, and you should also scratch if open equity has already given back enough to shove the end-of-day trail. On Option 1 the intraday trail is the guard. If a winner has lifted the floor by $2,000, you have about $1,000 of pullback left on a $3,000 trail, not the fresh $3,000 you started with. FTMO still flattens near $4,250 and the floor does not chase the high.
One NQ contract at $20 a point means a 15-point stop risks $300. Ten of those are the Option 2 day. Four contracts with a 40-point adverse move risk $3,200 and clear the trail on either option. The $145 fee is cheap because the room is $3,000, not because the evaluation is a smaller FTMO.
