Three clocks
A daily loss limit sounds simple until you ask when the day starts. There are usually three answers:
- Your broker's server. Every MT5 server keeps its own time, shown in Market Watch. Many brokers set it to UTC+2 in winter and UTC+3 in summer, so that the trading week opens on Monday at midnight on their clock.
- Your prop firm, if you trade a funded account. Prop firms reset the day at a time written in their rules, often in their own time zone, and it may not match your broker's midnight.
- You. In Kuala Lumpur or Singapore (UTC+8) you are five or six hours ahead of a broker on UTC+2 or UTC+3. Your midnight falls in the evening of their trading day.
A limit that resets at the wrong moment can let a loss run across two "days" and never trip, or trip much earlier than you expected.
How Guard counts the day
Guard uses the day of your broker's server. It starts at midnight on the server clock and ends at the next midnight on the same clock. It is a fixed rule, so it does not change when you travel or when your PC's time zone changes.
The day's loss is worked out from the account's deal history every time, so it stays correct after a terminal restart:
Money you deposit or withdraw during the day is left out. A deposit cannot hide a loss, and a withdrawal is not mistaken for one.
An example
A made-up account starts the broker's day with a balance of 10,000 USD. Its Guard has a daily loss limit of 4%, so the limit is 400 USD.
By the afternoon, trades closed today have lost 250. Two trades are still open with a floating loss of 160. The day's loss is 250 + 160 = 410, which is more than 400. If it stays there for as long as you chose (it starts at 10 seconds), the Agent stops the account.
Say that instead, the open trades recover to a floating loss of 100. The day's loss is 350, under the limit, and nothing happens. A deposit of 1,000 at lunch would change neither result.
After a daily limit has stopped the account, Guard is ready again when the broker's day ends, at the next server midnight.
On a broker on UTC+3, that midnight is 05:00 in the morning in Kuala Lumpur. If you trade from Asia, check your broker's server time once, and work out when your trading "day" really turns over.
If you trade a prop firm account
Guard can help a funded account, but it is not designed or guaranteed to keep you within a prop firm's rules. Firms differ in ways that matter:
- When their day resets, and in which time zone.
- Whether the daily loss is measured from the start-of-day balance, from equity, or from the highest point of the day.
- Whether commissions and swaps count, and whether a single breach ends the account.
Guard also closes at the market price of the moment, which can be past your limit when prices move fast. So set Guard's limit inside the firm's limit, with room to spare. If the firm allows a 5% daily loss, a Guard at 3.5% to 4% leaves a margin for a fast market and for a different way of counting.
Read Guard: a stop that runs inside MT5 for how to set it up, and start in dry run to see when it would have acted.
In Quantrivance
A daily limit on your broker's clock
Set a daily loss limit per account on the Strategies page, together with a minimum equity if you want one. The Agent enforces both every second inside MT5, and tells you on Telegram when it acts.
This post is for education and is not investment advice. Examples use made-up figures, not anyone’s results. Trading carries risk.