Trailing Drawdown Calculator — Apex & Topstep

Enter your account’s highest point and current equity, and this calculator returns your exact liquidation threshold, how many dollars of room you have left, and how far away that is in ticks for NQ, MNQ, ES, and MES. Presets match Apex 4.0 (intraday and end-of-day trailing, lock at start + $100) and Topstep (end-of-day trailing, lock at starting balance) as published in 2026 — updated live as you type.

Where is your liquidation line?

Firm preset Start $50,000 · trail $2,500 · locks at $50,100

Trail mode Apex trails your live high-water mark, including open profit.

Highest live equity incl. open P&L ($)

Current equity ($)

Liquidation threshold

—

peak − drawdown, until it locks

Room to threshold

—

equity − threshold

Drawdown remaining—

Distance to threshold in ticks by instrument and contract count
Instrument	1 ct	2 cts	5 cts

Ticks = floor(room ÷ (tick value × contracts)). All four instruments trade in 0.25-point ticks.

How this is calculated

Your trailing threshold follows your account’s peak up, never down. It stops moving once it reaches the lock level (start + lock offset):

threshold = min(peak − drawdown, start + lockOffset) room = equity − threshold ticks = floor(room ÷ (tick$ × contracts))

What counts as the peak depends on the trail mode. Apex 4.0 trails intraday: the peak is your highest live equity, including open (unrealized) P&L — a winner you let run and gave back still dragged your threshold up. Apex also offers EOD-trail account types. Topstep trails end of day: only your highest settled end-of-day balance moves the threshold, and it locks at your starting balance (lock offset $0). Apex locks $100 above start.

Worked example (Apex 50K, intraday). Start $50,000, trailing drawdown $2,500, lock offset +$100. Your best live moment so far was a peak of $52,140, and you now sit at $50,250:

threshold = min(52,140 − 2,500, 50,000 + 100) = min(49,640, 50,100) = 49,640 (not locked yet) room = 50,250 − 49,640 = $610 NQ, 2 contracts: floor(610 ÷ (5 × 2)) = 61 ticks

That’s 61 NQ ticks — about 15 points on two contracts — between you and liquidation. One more $210 push at the peak and the threshold would have locked at $50,100 for good.

Tick values used: NQ $5, MNQ $2, ES $12.50, MES $1.25 per 0.25-point tick.

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