Why I failed my prop challenge: a 20-minute review
By the Trading Journal team · Updated · 6 min read
First: which rule, and when
A failed challenge is one rule broken at one moment. The firm’s dashboard or the breach email says which: the daily loss limit, the overall max loss, a consistency rule, a time limit or a forbidden strategy. Write down the rule and the exact time. Everything below works back from that moment.
Get every trade of the challenge
If you can still log in to the challenge account in the desktop MetaTrader — the investor password is enough — export the full history: how to export your MT5 trade history. If the login no longer works, ask the firm for the account’s trading history or use the statement in its dashboard. You want every deal, with commissions and swaps, not your memory of them.
The 20-minute review
Minutes 0–5: rebuild the breaking day
- What was the balance and the equity at the firm’s daily reset?
- Was a position open across the reset? Its open loss counts against the new day.
- Where was the floor? Enter the numbers in the daily loss limit calculator with the method your firm’s rules describe.
If the breach came from an open trade over the reset or from equity rather than closed trades, the cause may be the rule’s mechanics, not your trading — see how FTMO counts its daily loss limit for an example of how this works.
Minutes 5–10: go through that day trade by trade
For each trade on the breaking day, answer yes or no:
- Was the size the one you planned?
- Was there a stop, and did it stay where you put it?
- How long after the previous loss did you enter?
- Was it a setup you trade on normal days?
Minutes 10–15: compare it with your normal days
Put the breaking day next to the rest of the challenge: the number of trades, the average size, the symbols, the hours. A day that looks like the others points at size or mechanics; a day that looks different points at behaviour.
Minutes 15–20: one cause, one rule
Write one sentence: «I failed because…». Then one rule that would have stopped it, specific enough to check — not «be more disciplined».
Three causes and how they look in the trades
1. The rule’s mechanics
Looks like: the breach happened with a smaller closed loss than you thought the limit was; a position was held over the reset; commissions and swaps tipped it over.
Rule for next time: learn how your firm counts the limit, and check the floor every morning — or close positions before the reset.
2. A size too big for the limit
Looks like: one or two full losses take most of the daily limit.
The arithmetic: divide the daily limit by the risk per trade. That is how many full stop-outs fit into a day. With a 5 % limit, 1 % per trade gives five; 2.5 % gives two. Then look at your own history: how many losses in a row have you had in one day? If that number is larger than what fits, the breach was a question of when, not if.
Rule for next time: size so that your longest losing streak in a day fits inside the limit with room to spare.
3. What you did after the first loss
Looks like: after the first loss of the day, trades come faster, sizes grow, stops move, setups you don’t normally trade appear.
Rule for next time: a stop for the day — after a set number of losses, or after a set share of the daily limit is used. Put the number in writing before the session.
How to pass your next prop firm challenge
- The rule from the review, written down.
- Checked on the failed challenge: had you followed it, would the breaking day have stayed inside the limit?
- Your risk per trade against the daily limit, with the arithmetic above.
- How the firm counts the daily loss — and what you are allowed to run on the account: which prop firms allow EAs.
This is a method for your own review, not advice on which firm or challenge to buy.