The trail follows the high you have not banked
Apex's published daily line is 2.5%, or $2,500 on $100,000, and the maximum is a real-time trail of $3,000 that follows peak unrealized equity until it locks near the starting balance plus a small buffer on the performance account. FundingPips Standard is a $5,000 day and a static $10,000. Open profit in Dubai can raise tomorrow's floor at 00:00 UTC+3 because the anchor is the higher of balance or equity. Open profit at Apex raises the floor while the candle is still printing.
That is why a scratch that looks like a winner on the blotter can be a breach. You were up $2,200, you are up $100, and the account is nearly done. Closing earlier was the trade. Waiting for the FundingPips-style end of day was the mistake, because Apex does not wait for the end of day.
Twenty accounts, a 30% payout rule, and the first $25,000 at 100%
The evaluation target is 6%, or $6,000, across seven minimum days. Payouts can run every eight trading days if at least five of them made $50 or more, and no single day may be more than 30% of the profit being paid. Thirty percent of a $6,000 path is $1,800. The first $25,000 per account is paid at 100%, then 90%. FundingPips targets $8,000 then $5,000 across three days, and the 45% consistency score applies to Zero and to on-demand rewards, not to the plain 2-step.
The ability to hold up to 20 performance accounts is the scaling story. It is also 20 trails. A copied NQ entry that loses $800 on each of ten accounts is $8,000 of damage from one idea. Create a Venasri login and write the count of live Apex accounts next to the contract size before you duplicate a ticket.
Flat by 4:59 PM ET, and the stop cannot dwarf the target
Every contract must be closed before 4:59 PM ET. There is no overnight cousin of a FundingPips swing. Directional news trading is allowed. Straddling both sides of a release, or using a stop more than five times the target, is not. A 50-point stop therefore wants at least a 10-point objective if the 5:1 rule is the one on your contract. Semi-automated assistants are allowed. Unattended black-box bots are prohibited on the performance account.
FundingPips will allow a full entry bot if you can prove you own the source, inside 2,000 requests, on MT5, Match-Trader, cTrader, or TradeLocker. Bot controls belong on that MT5 login. They are the wrong tool to claim you have satisfied Apex's ban on unattended performance-account bots. After 4:59 PM ET, keep the Dubai book from inheriting the futures loss with a fresh oversized gold ticket.
Leave the trail $600 of unused room
Equity Guard on Apex should scratch when the intraday trail has about $600 left, and it should also respect the $2,500 daily headline so a red session ends before either number. If open profit has already moved the floor, measure room from the new floor, not from the morning's $3,000. FundingPips still flattens near $4,250 and needs a partial before UTC+3 midnight when the float is large. A $2,200 Dubai float is the same dollar figure as the Apex example, and it does its damage at the UTC+3 snapshot.
The $262 fee gap buys a smaller room and a trail that watches unrealized highs. It also buys the first $25,000 at 100% and the right to run many accounts. None of those benefits survive a copied 4-contract order that spends the trail on every login at once.
