// the daily loss limit
The daily loss limit is the rule that ends the most funded accounts, and it is also the most avoidable one. You breach it with the trade you take after you should have closed the platform. The fix is to make that one trade unavailable.
Nobody breaches a daily loss limit on purpose. A loss lands near the line, and instead of stopping you take one more trade to climb back before the day ends. That trade, taken from behind and usually oversized, is what pushes you through. The limit held. The trade after it did the damage.
Most firms measure the daily loss from your balance or equity at the start of the trading day, and it usually counts open, floating losses as well as closed trades. That detail matters: a position deep in the red can breach you before you have closed anything. Always confirm exactly how your firm measures it. FTMO, for example, uses your balance at 00:00 CE(S)T, midnight Prague time, and your equity has to stay above that balance minus the limit all day. Our daily loss limit guide and breach calculator show the mechanics on real numbers.
This page is about one gate. Gate 6, Session Limit, holds your firm's daily figure. You enter it once while calm, and before every trade the gate reads your live equity against it, so what you see is the real distance to the line in dollars and in trades left at your risk. When the session reaches the limit it locks, and the lock has no override button. Gate 8, the Circuit Breaker, sits behind it and holds the post-loss window that produces most breaches in the first place. It all runs on your own cTrader or MetaTrader 5 account.
Run your next trade through the gatesAll 8 gates free · no card · desktop, with a cTrader or MetaTrader 5 brokerStart freeHow do I stop breaching my daily loss limit?
Set it on a calm day, track your live distance to it before every trade, make the session hard-stop when you reach it, and put a cooling-off after a loss. The breach almost always arrives on the revenge trade taken near the line, well after your planned setups are done.
How is the daily loss limit measured?
Usually from your account balance or equity at the start of the trading day, and it typically counts open, floating losses as well as closed trades, so a position deep in the red can breach you before you close it. Confirm the exact method with your firm.
What is a hard lockout?
A stop that prevents the next trade once you hit your limit. A warning you can click past is only a reminder. Relying on willpower to stop is what fails; a lockout removes the decision at the moment you are least able to make it.
// your move
You just read why it happens. See which gate would have caught yours: six questions, no signup, thirty seconds.