0.62 lots is the plan and 0.70 lots is a raise
Daily loss is $1,250, a fixed 5% of the initial $25,000, reset at 17:00 New York. The static maximum is $2,500, so $22,500 equity ends the challenge. Majors pay about $10 per pip at 1.00 lot, so a 20-pip stop at 0.62 lots risks $124. At 0.70 lots the same stop is $140, a raise you did not vote on. Gold is cleaner: 0.25 lots times 50 pips times $10 is $125.
The mistake is borrowing that tidy 0.25 gold lot and putting it on an 80-pip stop, which is $200, or adding a second 0.25 lot because the first one looks small beside a $25,000 balance. Two gold ideas are $250, a fifth of the day, and they are often the same US dollar trade. Bot controls should count correlated metals as one risk.
Phase 1 is $2,000 and the maximum is $2,500
Phase 1 needs $2,000, which is 8%. Phase 2 needs $1,250, the same cash as one full day. Three minimum days still apply. At 1R, the $125 unit needs sixteen net winners to clear Phase 1. Risking $250 so the target feels close means five losses are the whole day. The 0.50% unit is slower, and it survives a morning that goes wrong.
Classic 2-Step does not add a consistency score on top of those figures. A single $600 green day is allowed. A single $1,250 red day consumes the session and half of the $2,500 life of the account. Start on Venasri with $125 stored as cash, not as a lot size, because the correct lot changes every time the stop distance changes.
Open profit does not expand the fixed $1,250 day
The challenge allowance is 5% of the initial balance, not 5% of a floating high. A $1,000 open gold winner does not gift you a larger hole to play with. If that winner is still live at 17:00 New York, a giveback after the reset can spend the next $1,250 while yesterday's closed blotter still looks excellent. Book part of it.
Weekend holds are allowed, so Friday is the same decision with more hours attached. A 50-pip Sunday gap on 0.25 lots of gold is another $125, a full unit, before you place a new trade. The two-minute news ban on opens and closes still applies, and a slipped stop debits the $1,250 in full. The OANDA spread does not cap that slip.
Flatten near $1,062 and ignore the round $1,000
Equity Guard belongs near $1,062 of daily loss, 4.25% of $25,000. A tidy $1,000 flatten gives away more buffer than this account can spare if gold slips. The official $1,250 is the firm print, which is too late to be your exit. After funding, the static $22,500 floor is replaced by an end-of-day 10% trail, and the guard has to learn the new number.
A funded high changes the trail even when your $125 unit never changed. Recalculate the floor from the latest end-of-day balance before the next session. The awkward 0.62 lot is the correct FX click on the challenge. Rounding it for comfort is how a $25,000 account starts trading a $140 plan it never wrote down.
