Three midnight formulas that share the word daily
Initial-balance firms (FTMO 2-Step, FundedNext Stellar 2-Step) pin the 5 percent floor to starting capital, so a $100,000 challenge stays a $95,000 cash line whether you are flat or sitting on a $3,800 runner. Balance-anchored books (E8 Classic) recompute from closed day-start balance. Equity-anchored books (FundingPips, The5ers High Stakes, Maven Trading, Alpha Capital) take max(DayStartBalance, DayStartEquity) at the broker 00:00 snapshot, which is how floating profit raises tomorrow's breach print.
Futures shops do not even share that clock. Topstep flattens at 3:10 PM CT and trails an end-of-day maximum ($3,000 on the $100K Combine). Apex Trails peak unrealized equity in real time on the Rithmic or Tradovate feed until the Performance Account locks near initial plus $100. Open the firm page before you paste a 5 percent number into a risk card.
EA caps, news windows, and weekend contracts by desk
FTMO and FundedNext treat roughly 2,000 server requests per day as hyperactivity. FundedNext adds a 200-trade ceiling and a $300,000 identical-EA allocation cap. FundingPips lets trade-manager Expert Advisors run, then asks for source-code ownership before a full entry bot. Apex bans unattended black-box bots on funded PA accounts. Topstep allows API automation inside CME message ratios. Breakout Crypto has no weekend close at all, which is the opposite of a 3:10 PM CT flatten.
News is equally split. FTMO Standard funded restricts a 2-minute window around red-folder events; FTMO Swing does not. FundingPips and FundedNext funded books often use a 5-minute window. The5ers High Stakes lets you hold through the print but forbids new bracket orders inside 2 minutes. Breakout states no news blackout on BTC, ETH, and SOL perps. Weekend holding is a product choice at FTMO (Standard versus Swing) and a hard no at Topstep and Apex.
Payout clocks that are not the same 80 percent
FTMO pays bi-weekly starting 14 days after the first funded trade at 80 percent, scaling toward 90 percent. FundingPips sells the cadence itself: Tuesday at 60 percent, bi-weekly at 80 percent, on-demand at 90 percent with a consistency score, monthly at 100 percent. FundedNext shares 15 percent of Challenge profits, then pays after 21 days (5 days on Stellar 1-Step) with a $1,000 late-payout guarantee. Maven pays every 10 business days. E8 can pay after 8 days, then every 14, with a checkout slider up to 95 percent. Topstep returns 100 percent of the first $10,000 withdrawn. Apex returns 100 percent of the first $25,000 per account.
Consistency gates sit on several of those clocks. Topstep Combine: best day cannot exceed 50 percent of the profit target. Apex payout: no single day above 30 percent of total profit. FundingPips Zero and on-demand: 45 percent consistency. Maven Instant: 20 percent. A hub that only lists split percentages without those numerators is advertising, not a blueprint.
How to use this directory on a live MT5 login
Pick the firm you actually bought. Open its rules blueprint, then its daily-drawdown calculator, then its $100K risk plan if that is your size. Set Venasri Equity Guard 0.75 percentage points in front of the official floor ($4,250 of daily loss on a $100,000 FTMO 2-Step, $2,250 on a $100,000 Stellar 1-Step 3 percent book). The guard polls floating equity every 3 seconds, independent of whether a strategy is armed.
start free on Venasri and wire the same login through 24/7 MT5 Bot Control so Manual Trade Guard attaches a stop, breakeven buffer, and TP1 to TP4 without burning the 2,000-request cap on tick trails. Crypto books belong on the Breakout pages in this hub, not on a Forex 00:00 CE(S)T card. Futures books belong on Topstep and Apex, not on an MT5 gold lot table.
