Risk Management Guide: Daily P&L Lock, Drawdown, Lockouts
Category: App Pages | Last updated: 2026-11-07 | Reading time: 9 min read
Why Risk Management Matters
Prop firm traders live and die by drawdown and daily loss limits. One bad trade copied across ten accounts can wipe out weeks of progress. The Risk Mgmt page (marked BETA) gives you three things for every account: a live view of the drawdown it has left, alerts before you get close, and lockouts that close positions and stop copies to it.
Drawdown tracking and alerts only alert you. They never close a position, cancel an order, stop copying or lock the account. The only things on this page that close positions are a lockout you set yourself and the Daily P&L Lock you configure.
Your prop firm's own daily loss limit and auto-liquidation are enforced by the firm at the broker (Tradovate or Rithmic), not by Signal Trade App. Signal Trade App does not set a max quantity for you, and drawdown tracking never stops copying on its own. If a copied order breaks a firm limit, the broker rejects it. What you can add is a personal limit: the Daily P&L Lock (below) flattens and locks a Tradovate or Rithmic account when your own daily loss limit or profit target is reached.
Set Up an Account in 2 Minutes
- Open Risk Mgmt in the sidebar. Every connected account has its own card.
- If the card asks for it, enter your firm's max drawdown and pick its type.
- For an evaluation, enter the Profit target and the Starting balance.
- Click Save settings at the bottom of the card.
- Under Alerts, add a Drawdown left ≤ alert, for example $750 on a $50K account.
- Optional: pick the sessions you never trade under Lock during sessions and save again.
- Optional, Tradovate and Rithmic: under Account Lockout, enter a Daily loss limit (and a Daily profit target if you want one), choose what to Count, and click Save settings.
Risk Tools Overview
| Tool | What It Does | Where to Find It |
|---|---|---|
| Drawdown tracker | Shows equity, the liquidation level, drawdown left and profit still needed to pass. For your information only: it never closes trades or stops copying. | Risk Mgmt page, per account. |
| Drawdown alerts | In-app notification and email once when drawdown left, balance or profit to pass falls to a dollar amount you choose. | Risk Mgmt page, per account. |
| Daily P&L Lock | Closes all positions, cancels orders and locks the account until 6:00 PM ET when the day's P&L reaches your daily loss limit or profit target. Tradovate and Rithmic accounts. | Risk Mgmt page, Account Lockout, per account. |
| Lock during sessions | Locks the account automatically every day while the chosen sessions run (New York time). | Risk Mgmt page, per account. |
| Manual lockout | Locks the account now for 1 h, 4 h, 24 h, or permanently. | Risk Mgmt page, per account. |
| Protect | When the leader goes flat in a contract, closes the follower's position in that contract and cancels its working orders there. | Cockpit group table, per follower (on by default). |
Remaining Drawdown
The Drawdown section at the top of each card shows how much you have left before your prop firm's liquidation line and, for an evaluation, the profit still needed to pass. The numbers update live while you trade, and refresh at least once a minute if the live connection drops.
- When your broker reports the account's drawdown rule (Tradovate auto-liquidation, Rithmic RMS), the numbers come straight from the broker and there is nothing to enter.
- When it does not, enter your firm's rule under Your prop firm's max drawdown: the amount and the type, Static, Trailing (real-time) or Trailing (end of day). We track the peak and what is left.
- Add the evaluation's Profit target and Starting balance (the account size, e.g. 50,000) to see the profit still needed to pass. Left empty, the current balance is used as the start, so enter it if the evaluation is already under way.
- Click Save settings on the account card when you are done.
Reading the Numbers
| You See | What It Means |
|---|---|
| Big number, left before liquidation | Drawdown remaining. The bar under it shrinks as you lose. |
| Green / amber / red | Green: more than half your drawdown is left. Amber: half or less. Red: 20% or less, or none left. |
| to pass, or Target reached | Profit still needed to hit the evaluation target, or how far above it you are. |
| Equity | Balance plus open profit or loss. |
| Liquidated at | The equity at which your firm liquidates the account. |
| Peak | The highest balance the trailing drawdown counts from. |
| Type / Source | The drawdown rule, and whether it came from Your broker or Your settings. |
For Rithmic accounts the numbers are shown while the account is flat. Rithmic does not confirm whether its balance already includes open profit or loss, so while a position is open we show no number rather than a wrong one.
Drawdown Alerts
Under Alerts, pick Drawdown left ≤, Balance ≤ or Profit to pass ≤, enter a dollar amount and click Add. Alerts save right away; you do not need Save settings.
An alert is a notification only. It will not close your position, cancel orders or stop copying. If you want to stop trading when an alert fires, lock the account yourself.
- You get an in-app notification and an email once when the line is reached. The alert then shows sent.
- It re-arms when the account climbs back above the line, so a balance wobbling around it does not flood your inbox.
- Remove an alert with the ✕ next to it.
- Turn the emails off in Settings under Balance and drawdown alerts.
Account Lockout
Manual lockout locks the account the moment you click 1 h, 4 h, 24 h or Permanent. Lock during sessions locks it automatically every day while the sessions you pick run; choose them and click Save settings.
| Session | New York time |
|---|---|
| Asia | 20:00–04:00 |
| London | 03:00–11:00 |
| New York | 09:00–17:00 |
When an account locks:
- All of its open positions are closed, in every contract.
- No copies are sent to it, and orders to it from webhooks and the API are refused.
- The card shows LOCKED and the time it ends.
- The lock ends by itself at that time, or when the session ends, and copying resumes. You can end it early with Unlock now.
Session locks are applied once a minute, so one can start up to a minute after the session opens. If you unlock during a session, it stays unlocked for the rest of that session.
A session or manual lockout is something you set; it is not triggered by a loss amount. To stop trading automatically at a loss, use the Daily P&L Lock below.
Daily P&L Lock: Your Own Daily Loss Limit and Profit Target
The Daily P&L Lock locks an account for you when its day reaches a loss or profit you chose. On the Risk Mgmt page, find Account Lockout on the account card and set:
- Daily loss limit: a dollar loss for the day.
- Daily profit target (optional): a dollar gain for the day, to lock in a good day instead of giving it back.
- Count: which P&L is measured. Realized + open (net) is the default and matches the definition Tradovate and Topstep use for their daily loss limit. Realized only counts closed trades. Open only counts unrealized P&L.
Click Save settings. When today's P&L reaches the limit or target, Signal Trade App closes all positions, cancels working orders and locks the account until the next session opens at 6:00 PM ET. A locked account receives no copies. The card shows LOCKED · P&L LIMIT and you are notified.
Once the lock trips it cannot be unlocked, raised or removed, and the Count setting cannot be changed, until 6:00 PM ET. You can still tighten the limit. That is deliberate: it stops revenge trading after a bad day.
- Available on Tradovate and Rithmic accounts only (including prop firm accounts on those platforms). Other connection types show a note that daily P&L limits are not available.
- It trips once per account per trading day.
- It works per account, so a follower in a copy group can have its own limit.
- The flatten is a market close. In a fast market the fill can land past your limit, so keep the limit inside your firm's, not right at it.
- If open P&L goes stale (no price for about 30 seconds while you hold a position), the lock pauses and notifies you rather than act on bad data.
- It is separate from your prop firm's own limit, which the firm still enforces at the broker. See Daily P&L Lock for the full overview.
Protect on Followers
Protect is a per-follower toggle in the Cockpit, on by default. When the leader goes flat in a contract, the follower's position in that contract is closed and its working orders there are cancelled. It is a safety net for a follower that is still holding after the leader has exited. Turn it off only for a follower you also trade by hand.
Recommended Prop-Firm Setup
Use these as a starting point for what to enter on the Risk Mgmt page. Always check your firm's current rules.
| Account Size | Max drawdown to enter | Suggested alert: Drawdown left ≤ |
|---|---|---|
| $50K eval | Your firm's rule (often $2,000–$2,500, trailing) | $750 |
| $100K eval | Your firm's rule (often $3,000–$3,500, trailing) | $1,000 |
| $150K funded | Your firm's rule (often $4,500–$5,000, trailing) | $1,500 |
- Pick the drawdown type that matches your firm: Static, Trailing (real-time) or Trailing (end of day).
- Add the evaluation's profit target and starting balance so Profit to pass is accurate.
- Keep followers within their firm's max contracts. Copying a large account onto a small one can hit the limit, and the broker rejects the order.
- Use Lock during sessions to keep accounts out of sessions you do not trade, such as Asia.
Risk Data in the API
Everything on the Risk Mgmt page is available to API users. GET /api/v1/accounts/{id}/risk returns your saved settings and the current drawdown reading. The live stream (GET /api/v1/stream) sends a risk event whenever the drawdown numbers move, a risk_settings event when settings are saved, and a lock event when an account is locked or unlocked. See the API docs.
Best Practices
- Keep your personal daily stop well above your prop firm's daily loss limit to leave a safety buffer.
- Set a drawdown alert on every funded account, and set a Daily loss limit inside your firm's so the account flattens and locks without a decision from you.
- Keep Protect on for followers you do not trade by hand.
- Review bad days in the Journal to find strategy weaknesses.
Read next: Cockpit guide.
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