Intraday trailing, 20 PAs, Rithmic and Tradovate
Apex is Austin-based, founded 2021. Evaluation is 1-Step futures from $25K to $300K on Rithmic and Tradovate, then a Performance Account (PA). $100K: 6% target ($6,000), $3,000 intraday real-time trailing threshold, seven minimum days, $137 fee. Daily character includes a 30% maximum negative PnL per trade rule on PA plus the trailing threshold. Reset: flat before 4:59 PM ET. Split: 100% of the first $25,000 per account, then 90%. Payouts every 8 trading days, needing at least 5 days of $50+ net and 30% consistency. Up to 20 PAs under one login. Platforms: NinjaTrader, Tradovate, TradingView, Quantower, Rithmic. Semi-automated assistants allowed. Hands-off black-box bots prohibited on PA. CME quote-to-order ratios apply.
News: directional one-sided trading permitted, but straddling both sides or risking more than 5:1 stop-to-target is prohibited. If you start a free Venasri account, tag Apex as tick-trail, not EOD-trail, so you never paste Topstep close logic onto an Austin PA.
The +$2,200 open spike that leaves $800
Primary trap, in cash: $100K, $3,000 trailing threshold, NQ spikes +$2,200 unrealized, you do not close, price pulls to +$100. The trail moved up $2,200. Remaining air is about $900 in the brochure telling, not $3,000. A further $1,000 fade can end the evaluation while closed PnL still looks like a scratch. That is Apex. Topstep would have ignored the +$2,200 unless you closed the day there. Trade Apex like a scalper who banks spikes, or like a small-size swing that never lets float approach 50% of the remaining trail.
30% windfall at payout: no single day may be more than 30% of total profit balance. Five $50 days plus one $4,000 day will stall the 8-day payout even if 20 PAs are green. 5:1 stop-to-target max means a $200 stop needs at most a $1,000 target, which kills lottery NQ holds. Design 2R to 3R, not 8R moonshots.
Twenty accounts is a correlation bomb
20 PAs with the same NQ long is 20 times the trail math on one idea. Apex allows it. Correlation does not. A 10-point NQ fade can trip several PAs' crawled trails at once. Diversify sessions or instruments if you actually use double-digit PAs, or treat 20 as a marketing ceiling and run 3 to 6. 100% of the first $25,000 per account is real money if those accounts survive. It is a video-game score if they all die on the same tick.
PA 30% max negative PnL per trade is another inner ring, like Maven's idea cap but on futures. A single loser that is 31% of that day's red can be a PA problem even if the trail still has air. Size PA losers as small fractions of the remaining threshold, not as 2% CFD habits.
Bank spikes, flatten 16:50 ET, cap 30% days
Venasri Equity Guard on an Apex-style book should flatten when unrealized giveback from the session high approaches 40% to 50% of remaining trail, not when closed loss hits $3,000. That requires a peak-equity tracker, which forex 00:00 guards do not do. Force flatten by 16:50 ET. Keep 24/7 MT5 Bot Control off Apex PAs if the bot is a hands-off black box. Semi-auto SL attach is the legal shape.
The ZeroMQ MT5 Bridge can still protect a Venasri FX account you run beside Apex. Do not point it at Rithmic and assume CME ratios will like forex-style modify storms. Count 8-day payout windows, 5 days of $50+, and 30% consistency as a separate sheet from the $3,000 trail. 20 PAs only help traders who already respect the tick trail on one PA.
