Plus 5% removes the bottom half of the original hole
Smart Drawdown on evaluations starts with a 10% maximum. On $100,000 the first floor is $90,000. Once closed or marked profit reaches plus 5%, the floor locks at minus 5%, which is $95,000, and it does not step back down. From a $105,000 high, the old floor was $15,000 away. The new floor is $10,000 away. The $5,000 you thought you had earned as a cushion is the $5,000 the rule just deleted.
Phase 1 on the two-phase path is 10%, or $10,000. The lock therefore hits at the halfway mark of the target, not after you pass. Traders who push from plus 4% to plus 6% in one gold push meet the new floor on the same afternoon. One-phase daily loss is a separate trap: it is 3%, or $3,000 on $100,000, while the maximum is still 10%. A note that says you have $5,000 today is already $2,000 too loose on that product.
00:00 takes the higher of balance and equity
Daily loss is anchored to the higher of day-start balance or equity at 00:00 server time. A runner that is $2,800 ahead at 23:50 does not gift a cushion. The snapshot can use that higher equity, and a giveback after midnight spends the new day. Closed balance may still show yesterday as a win. The new 5% hole is measured from the richer number, and the Smart Drawdown floor does not care that the giveback was only a giveback.
This stacks. You can lock the lifetime floor at $95,000 during the session, hold the leftover float through midnight, and start Tuesday with both a higher daily anchor and a tighter lifetime floor. Partial the float before the clock if you do not want the next session to inherit it. Weekend holding on selected Instant tiers needs the add-on. Swing tiers include the hold. A Friday runner without the add-on is a rule break before Sunday's gap even prints.
The no-challenge book fails a different way
The Instant product, the one with capital from day one, does not use the Smart Drawdown lock. It trails a 10% maximum and scores a 40% best day. A brilliant Monday can be the breach. Forty percent of a $7,500 cycle is $3,000. A $3,400 gold day fails the score while equity never trades near a 5% hole. People mix the products because both carry the firm name and both reset at 00:00.
Funded news is restricted to a 2-minute window unless the news add-on is enabled. A stop that slips through CPI, NFP, or an FOMC print still debits the daily line. Martingale and grid stacking are banned on MT5, cTrader, Match-Trader, and DXtrade, and the book also dies at 2,000 server requests in a day. Bot controls should refuse a grid that tries to climb back to the old $90,000 floor after the lock has already moved it.
Put a cash stop in front of the lock and the clock
Equity Guard should flatten a two-phase book near $4,250 of daily loss on $100,000, which is 4.25% and $750 inside the official $5,000 line. That flatten does not restore the $90,000 lifetime floor after plus 5%. It stops a red afternoon from being the thing that discovers the lock. On the one-phase 3% day, flatten near $2,250. A guard left at $4,250 on that product fires after the firm has closed the account.
Track profit versus the plus 5% line as carefully as you track the daily hole. On $100,000, treat $4,600 of open profit as the warning, not $5,000 as a surprise. Create a Venasri login and store the evaluation and the Instant product as separate cards. One midnight rule serves both. One lifetime floor does not.
