Lark does not bill you for a floating winner at midnight
Lark Funding scores the daily loss from end-of-day closed balance at 00:00 server time, UTC+2 or UTC+3. A gold trade that is $3,000 in open profit at the snapshot does not lift the next breach line the way a higher-of-equity rule would. FTMO anchors its 5% to day-start balance plus floating PnL at 00:00 CE(S)T, so the open loss still spends the Prague day even when you have not clicked close.
The kindness has a hard edge. If unrealized equity touches the Lark daily floor at any second, the account still breaches. Balance-based does not mean the float can knife through $5,000 and come back. It means the profitable float does not raise tomorrow's floor. Those are different sentences, and only one of them is permission.
A $2,000 easier target and zero minimum days
Lark Phase 1 is 8% and Phase 2 is 5%, so $8,000 then $5,000. FTMO is 10% then 5%, so $10,000 then $5,000. Lark lists zero minimum trading days. FTMO lists four. The fee gap is $40. Lark pays 80% to 90%, with a first payout after 14 days or after 7 days if you buy the add-on. FTMO pays 80% to 90% starting 14 days after the first funded trade.
Lark has no best-day consistency rule on the 1-step or 2-step evaluations. FTMO has no hard formula and still reviews extreme single-ticket gambling. The 2-step maximum at Lark is described as static 8% to 10%, so confirm you bought the 10% contract before you trade as if $90,000 were the floor. An 8% contract dies at $92,000. Create a Venasri login and write the signed percentage on the card.
Lark leaves the news window open
Lark permits news trading on standard evaluations and funded accounts without a two-minute profit confiscation. FTMO Standard funded accounts restrict the two minutes before and after red-folder events. FTMO Swing does not. If your edge is the CPI candle, Lark and FTMO Swing are the readable choices, and FTMO Standard is the one that will argue with the fill.
Both firms allow EAs inside a 2,000-request day, on overlapping platform lists. Lark bans HFT, latency arbitrage, and grid martingale. Weekend holding is allowed at Lark. FTMO Standard must be flat into the weekend. Bot controls can run the same slow logic on both MT5 logins, and they should not straddle a red-folder print on the FTMO Standard account just because the Lark account would have allowed it.
Guard the $5,000 touch, not only the closed balance
Equity Guard should flatten either $100,000 book near $4,250. On Lark that flatten matters intraday, because a touch of the floor is a breach even if you later close back above it. On FTMO it matters because floating PnL is already inside the daily formula. The same dollar level solves two different failure stories.
Lark's 1-step is a 4% day and a 6% trailing maximum, $4,000 and $6,000 on this size. FTMO's 1-step is a 3% day and a 10% end-of-day trail. Do not carry the 2-step $5,000 habit onto either 1-step. The $40 fee will not refund a trail that ratcheted up during a gold spike you refused to bank.
