Pick EOD if you want a more forgiving drawdown. EOD recalculates your trailing drawdown floor once per day at market close (4:59 PM ET), so intraday equity swings do not ratchet it up. EOD also comes with a Daily Loss Limit, which caps how much you can lose in a single session. Pick Intraday if you want no daily loss cap and are confident your strategy does not give back large unrealized gains. Intraday trails your peak balance in real time — including unrealized P&L — but has no Daily Loss Limit. For most traders, especially those running multiple prop accounts with a trade copier, EOD is the safer choice.
Apex Trader Funding overhauled its entire product on March 1, 2026. The old system had a single trailing drawdown that followed your account’s peak balance in real time. Every trader got the same mechanic. That system is gone.
Now, when you purchase an evaluation, you choose one of two trailing drawdown types: EOD (End of Day) or Intraday. This choice is permanent. You cannot switch after purchase. The drawdown type carries through from your evaluation into your funded Performance Account (PA). Several other rules were also removed in the March overhaul — the MAE rule is gone, the 5:1 reward-to-risk ratio is gone, and bracket orders are now mandatory. For the full rule set, see Apex Trader Funding Rules 2026.
This page focuses entirely on the EOD vs Intraday decision because it is the single most consequential choice you make when starting an Apex evaluation in 2026.
EOD stands for End of Day. Your trailing drawdown floor is recalculated once per day at 4:59 PM ET, based on your closed account balance at that moment. Any equity swings that happen during the trading session — unrealized gains, unrealized losses, intraday peaks — do not affect the trailing drawdown calculation as long as your positions are closed before the recalculation.
You start a 50K evaluation with a $2,500 trailing drawdown. Your initial drawdown floor is $47,500. On Day 1, you have a trade that runs up $800 in unrealized profit, pulls back, and you close it for $400. During the session, your equity peaked at $50,800 — but that does not matter. At 4:59 PM ET, your closed balance is $50,400. The drawdown floor moves up to $47,900 ($50,400 minus $2,500). The intraday peak of $50,800 is ignored completely.
On Day 2, you take a trade that runs up $1,200 unrealized, reverses, and you close it for a $200 loss. Your closed balance drops to $50,200. Because the drawdown floor only moves up (never down), it stays at $47,900 from the previous day. The trailing drawdown floor is now $2,300 below your current balance instead of the original $2,500, because it already ratcheted up on Day 1.
EOD accounts have a Daily Loss Limit (DLL) that Intraday accounts do not. This is a per-day maximum loss that resets at 4:59 PM ET. For a 50K account, the DLL is $1,000. For a 100K account, the DLL is $2,000. If you hit the DLL at any point during the session, your account is in violation — even if your trailing drawdown has plenty of room left.
The EOD trailing drawdown is more forgiving, but the Daily Loss Limit restricts how much you can lose in a single session. If your strategy has occasional large losing days, the DLL can stop you out even though your overall drawdown is fine. Factor this into your decision.
Intraday trailing drawdown follows your account’s peak equity in real time, including unrealized gains. Every new high-water mark your account reaches — even for a moment while a trade is open — ratchets the drawdown floor higher. It does not wait for the session to close. It does not wait for you to close the trade. It moves immediately.
You start a 50K evaluation with a $2,500 trailing drawdown. Your initial drawdown floor is $47,500. You enter a trade that runs up $1,500 in unrealized profit. Your equity peaks at $51,500, and the drawdown floor immediately moves to $49,000 ($51,500 minus $2,500). The trade reverses and you close it for $300 profit. Your closed balance is $50,300, but your drawdown floor is already at $49,000 because it locked in at the unrealized peak. You now have only $1,300 of breathing room instead of $2,500.
This is the core risk of Intraday drawdown. If your trading style involves letting winners run and they frequently pull back before you close, the trailing floor ratchets up at the peak of the move. You lose drawdown space you never actually captured as closed profit.
Intraday accounts have no Daily Loss Limit. Your only constraint is the trailing drawdown floor. If you have $2,000 of room left before the floor, you can lose all $2,000 in a single session without violating any per-day rule. This is the main advantage of Intraday for traders who prefer not to be capped on daily loss.
| Feature | EOD | Intraday |
|---|---|---|
| Drawdown recalculation | Once daily at 4:59 PM ET | Real time, tick by tick |
| Tracks unrealized P&L? | No — closed balance only | Yes — includes open positions |
| Daily Loss Limit (50K) | $1,000 per day | None |
| Daily Loss Limit (100K) | $2,000 per day | None |
| Trailing drawdown (50K) | $2,500 | $2,500 |
| Trailing drawdown (100K) | $3,000 | $3,000 |
| Payout min daily profit (50K) | $250 | $200 |
| Payout min daily profit (100K) | $300 | $250 |
| Safety Net formula | Drawdown floor + $100 | Drawdown floor + $100 |
| Best for | Scalpers, swing traders, copier users | Momentum traders who hold through pullbacks |
If you run multiple funded Apex accounts with a trade copier, EOD is almost always the better choice. Here is why.
A copier replicates your lead account trades across 5, 10, or 20 follower accounts simultaneously. Execution timing varies slightly between accounts — fills may differ by a tick or two, and different accounts may see slightly different unrealized peaks during a trade. With Intraday drawdown, each follower account trails its own real-time peak independently. A trade that peaks at $51,300 on one account might peak at $51,500 on another due to fill differences. Each account’s drawdown floor locks in at its own peak.
With EOD drawdown, none of this matters. All accounts are evaluated on their closed balance at end of day. Minor fill differences between copier accounts do not ratchet drawdown floors differently. Every account with the same closed P&L will have the same drawdown floor. This makes managing multiple accounts significantly easier and more predictable.
If you use Tradecovex or any other NinjaTrader trade copier to manage multiple Apex accounts, choose EOD for every account. The consistency across accounts is worth the Daily Loss Limit trade-off.
On funded Performance Accounts, Apex applies a Safety Net. The Safety Net is calculated as your trailing drawdown floor plus $100. When your account balance drops to the Safety Net level, your account enters a restricted state.
Because EOD and Intraday trail differently, the Safety Net number diverges over time. EOD trails end-of-day closed balances, so the Safety Net moves more slowly and predictably. Intraday trails real-time peaks, so the Safety Net can jump up during a single trade if unrealized P&L spikes. For copier users running many accounts, the EOD Safety Net is easier to track because it only changes once per day.
The lack of a DLL sounds like more freedom, but the real-time trailing drawdown is a much harder constraint than the DLL for most trading styles. Losing your DLL for the day just means you stop trading until tomorrow. Losing drawdown room to an unrealized peak you never closed is permanent — that room is gone for the life of the account.
EOD means the trailing drawdown floor is recalculated at end of day. You can still violate the existing floor at any point during the session. If your current floor is $48,000 and your equity drops to $47,999 at 10:30 AM, you are in violation even though EOD does not recalculate until 4:59 PM. The floor does not move during the day, but it is always enforced.
EOD and Intraday have different minimum daily profit requirements for payouts. On a 50K account, EOD requires $250 per qualifying day while Intraday requires $200. On a 100K account, EOD requires $300 versus $250 for Intraday. If your average daily profit is close to these thresholds, this difference matters for how quickly you accumulate qualifying days.