The formula: 5% of the midnight snapshot, not of lunchtime equity
On a 2-Step FTMO account the daily loss limit is 5% of the day-start figure. That figure is initial-balance anchored from the session's opening balance plus floating PnL at the Prague reset. It is not 5% of whatever equity you print at 11:00. If you start the day at $104,000 closed and $2,000 open profit, the snapshot is richer than a $100,000 start, and a later fade of that float spends the new day's budget. The overall static cap remains 10% below the original $100,000, so $90,000 is still the death line even on a day when the daily line sits higher.
Worked $100K 2-Step: daily cash limit $5,000, lifetime static floor $10,000, Phase 1 target $10,000, Phase 2 target $5,000. Worked $100K 1-Step: daily cash limit $3,000, 10% overall still, but the maximum is an end-of-day trail rather than a static shelf. Put those four numbers on a card next to the CE(S)T offset so you stop converting Prague midnight into 00:00 UTC.
A +$3,800 float that becomes a thinner Tuesday
Suppose Monday you are up $3,800 floating on XAUUSD at 23:40 CE(S)T and you do not close it. Tuesday's day-start includes that float. If gold then drops $4,200 before you flatten, Tuesday has already consumed $4,200 of a $5,000 daily budget even though Monday's closed balance never went negative. Traders who instead close $3,000 of that runner before midnight bank the gain on Monday's ledger and give Tuesday a cleaner $5,000 hole. That is the entire calculator: decide which day's budget should eat the pullback.
Standard funded accounts make the same math harsher around news. A two-minute window either side of a red-folder release can restrict the trade, and a stop-out inside that window still spends daily loss. Swing accounts skip that restriction, which is a calculator input, not a personality trait. If you cannot sit the book through NFP, you do not need Swing's 1:30 leverage cut. If you can, Swing is the only FTMO book where the midnight formula and the news formula do not fight each other.
Account protection
The daily drawdown calculator is incomplete without the 2,000-request cap. Every stop modification is a request. A bot that trails every $0.20 on gold can spend the cap by noon and still be nowhere near the $5,000 line. FTMO will still treat hyperactivity as a rule event. Count projected modifies for your trail step: a 40-pip trail that updates once per 10 pips is an order of magnitude quieter than a tick trail, and it leaves the dollar calculator in charge.
Connect the book through the ZeroMQ MT5 Bridge so Venasri can see both equity and request rate. Then start a free Venasri account only after you have written the Prague offset into the risk card. A guard that thinks midnight is UTC will flatten at the wrong time and leave you naked into the real snapshot.
Guard at $4,250, not at $5,000
FTMO's breach is the $5,000 print. Your flatten should be earlier. On $100K, Venasri Equity Guard at $4,250 of daily open loss (0.75% in front of 5%) closes every ticket in a 3-second loop before Prague's engine can tag 5.00%. Leave a $750 cushion for spread blowouts on gold and US100 at the timestamp. For 1-Step, the official daily line is $3,000, so the guard belongs near $2,250, not at the 2-Step number you memorized from YouTube.
24/7 MT5 Bot Control should pause new entries 30 minutes before known red-folder events on Standard funded accounts, then resume after spreads compress. That pause does not change the midnight formula. It stops a news candle from spending the budget the formula just reset. If you swing, keep the bot in a hold-through-news profile and keep leverage and lot size inside the 1:30 Swing cap so a Sunday gap cannot jump the static 10% floor in one print.
