Drawdown is the fall in your account from a reference point, and on a funded account it decides everything. Greenwick uses two limits: a daily drawdown limit that resets every morning, and a max drawdown limit that covers the life of the account. Touch either floor, even for a moment, and the account closes. This guide explains how both work, in rupees, for every plan and size.
01What drawdown means in trading
Drawdown is the amount by which your account equity has fallen from a reference level, such as the previous close or the starting balance.
A prop firm turns that idea into a floor: a rupee level your equity must stay above. Greenwick sets two floors on every account.
- Daily loss floor — how far equity can fall within one trading day.
- Max loss floor — how far equity can fall in total, across all days.
Breaching either one is a hard rule, which means the account closes. These are two of the five hard rules listed on the rules page. Most other conditions, such as consistency or the news window, only affect payouts and never close an account.
Why the limits exist
A funded account is a test of whether you can produce returns without large losses along the way. Profit targets measure the first half of that. Drawdown limits measure the second. A trader who makes 10% but dips 7% on the way has shown something very different from one who makes 10% with a 2% dip, and the floors are how that difference is enforced.
For you, the floors are also a useful discipline. They convert a vague intention, "I will not lose too much", into an exact rupee number you can see on your dashboard before every trade. Once you know that number, most sizing decisions become simple arithmetic.
02Daily drawdown and the 09:15 IST reset
The daily drawdown limit is a fixed rupee amount, set as a percentage of your account size, that your equity may lose within one trading day.
Every trading day at 09:15 IST, the daily floor resets to the previous day's closing balance minus your daily limit. So the floor follows your account: a profitable day raises tomorrow's floor, and a losing day lowers it.
The ₹40,000 limit does not grow with profit. It is 4% of the original ₹10L, measured from wherever yesterday closed.
Two details follow from this. First, the daily limit is the same rupee amount every day. On a ₹10L 2-Step it is ₹40,000 whether the account is at ₹9,50,000 or ₹11,00,000; it does not scale up as you grow. Second, a losing day lowers tomorrow's daily floor, but it never lowers the max loss floor. After two or three red sessions, the two floors move closer together, and the one that binds can change without you noticing. That is why it pays to write down both numbers before the market opens.
A practical point for MCX traders: the evening session belongs to the same trading day. A loss at 21:00 counts against the floor set at 09:15 that morning.
03Max drawdown: static vs trailing
The max drawdown limit is the total loss an account can take before it closes. Greenwick uses two kinds.
Static max loss (2-Step and 1-Step)
A static floor is fixed on day one and never moves. On the 2-Step it is 8% below the starting balance; on the 1-Step, 6%. On a ₹10L 2-Step the floor is ₹9,20,000. If you make ₹1L, the floor is still ₹9,20,000, so your distance from it has grown to ₹1,80,000. Every rupee of profit becomes buffer.
Trailing max loss (Instant)
A trailing drawdown floor moves up with your highest equity and never moves down. On Instant it trails 5% below the peak. The important detail is the lock: once the trailing floor reaches your starting balance, it stops moving permanently.
Before the lock, profit and floor rise together, so your buffer never exceeds ₹50,000. After the lock, every rupee above ₹10,50,000 adds to the buffer.
A static floor rewards profit with room. A trailing floor rewards profit with a higher floor, until it locks.
04Equity vs balance and open P&L
Balance is your account value from closed trades only. Equity is balance plus or minus the P&L of positions still open. Greenwick measures every loss limit on equity.
Your floors are compared with ₹10,10,000, not ₹10,25,000.
This has three consequences. An unrealised loss can close the account, even if the trade would have recovered. On Instant, an unrealised gain raises the trailing floor, even if you never book it. And holding a losing position in the hope it comes back does not protect you from the floor.
05Worked drawdown examples by account size
₹5L 1-Step: when the max floor overtakes the daily floor
On day 3 you have only ₹10,000 of room, not ₹15,000, because the max loss floor is higher than the daily floor.
₹10L 2-Step: profit builds a static buffer
The daily limit still caps any single session at ₹40,000. The static floor means a bad week cannot close the account until equity is back below ₹9,20,000.
₹25L Instant: the road to the lock
Until equity first reaches ₹26,25,000, your total room never exceeds ₹1,25,000. Reaching the lock early is the single most useful thing on an Instant account.
One bad day, three plans
It helps to run the same losing day through every plan. Suppose a trader starts the day flat at the starting balance and has a session that goes wrong by 2.5% of the account.
- ₹5L account, ₹12,500 loss. On the 2-Step (₹20,000 limit) and the 1-Step (₹15,000 limit) the account survives, with ₹7,500 and ₹2,500 of room left respectively. On Instant (₹10,000 limit) the account closed the moment equity fell to ₹4,90,000.
- ₹10L account, ₹25,000 loss. The 2-Step has ₹15,000 of daily room left, the 1-Step only ₹5,000. Instant closed at ₹9,80,000, when the loss reached ₹20,000.
- ₹25L account, ₹62,500 loss. The 2-Step has ₹37,500 left, the 1-Step ₹12,500. Instant closed at ₹24,50,000, when the loss reached ₹50,000.
The percentages are identical at every size; only the rupee amounts scale. What changes your outcome is the plan, and how far inside its limit you choose to trade. A loss that is an ordinary bad day on one plan is a closed account on another.
06All drawdown floors by plan and size
The daily floor on any given day is the previous closing balance minus the daily limit shown here. The max loss floor is shown at the start. Plan prices are on the pricing page, and the differences between plans are covered in 2-Step vs 1-Step vs Instant.
| Plan | Size | Daily loss limit | Max loss amount | Starting max loss floor | Floor behaviour |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2-Step | ₹5L | ₹20,000 | ₹40,000 | ₹4,60,000 | Static |
| 2-Step | ₹10L | ₹40,000 | ₹80,000 | ₹9,20,000 | Static |
| 2-Step | ₹25L | ₹1,00,000 | ₹2,00,000 | ₹23,00,000 | Static |
| 2-Step | ₹50L | ₹2,00,000 | ₹4,00,000 | ₹46,00,000 | Static |
| 1-Step | ₹5L | ₹15,000 | ₹30,000 | ₹4,70,000 | Static |
| 1-Step | ₹10L | ₹30,000 | ₹60,000 | ₹9,40,000 | Static |
| 1-Step | ₹25L | ₹75,000 | ₹1,50,000 | ₹23,50,000 | Static |
| 1-Step | ₹50L | ₹1,50,000 | ₹3,00,000 | ₹47,00,000 | Static |
| Instant | ₹5L | ₹10,000 | ₹25,000 | ₹4,75,000 | Trails; locks at ₹5,00,000 once equity reaches ₹5,25,000 |
| Instant | ₹10L | ₹20,000 | ₹50,000 | ₹9,50,000 | Trails; locks at ₹10,00,000 once equity reaches ₹10,50,000 |
| Instant | ₹25L | ₹50,000 | ₹1,25,000 | ₹23,75,000 | Trails; locks at ₹25,00,000 once equity reaches ₹26,25,000 |
07How an options spike hits a floor
Most floor breaches on Indian index options do not come from one slow, obvious loss. They come from a few minutes of violent movement on an open position.
Equity touched below ₹9,80,000, so the account closed at that moment. It does not matter that premiums collapsed ten minutes later and the position would have finished in profit.
Short premium is especially exposed because the loss on a sharp move can be several times the premium collected. Expiry days compress this further. Remember too that MIS positions auto-close at 15:15 IST, and that overnight NRML positions, where your plan allows them, carry gap risk into the 09:15 open, when the new daily floor is already in force.
A stop-loss order can fill below its trigger in a fast market. Place stops so that even a poor fill leaves equity comfortably above your floor, not one tick above it.
08How to build a drawdown buffer
A buffer is the distance between your equity and the nearest floor. Traders who keep accounts open treat that distance as the thing they are managing, rather than the profit target.
- Set a personal daily stop at half the limit
On a ₹10L 2-Step, the daily limit is ₹40,000. Stop trading for the day at ₹20,000 down. That leaves room for slippage and one bad fill.
- Size each trade from the daily stop
If your personal daily stop is ₹20,000 and you want room for four losing trades, risk ₹5,000 per trade, which is 0.5% of ₹10L. Lot limits per account size are listed on the rules page; sizing well inside them is your job.
- Bank a cushion before increasing size
On static plans, profit sits between you and the floor. Keep size constant until you are at least one full daily limit above your starting balance.
- On Instant, aim for the lock
Until the floor locks at your starting balance, your room never grows. Trade smaller and steadier until equity has reached 5% above the start.
- Watch equity, not balance
Your dashboard shows live equity and both floors. Check the gap to the nearest floor before every new position, not after.
For a fuller method, see risk management for prop traders.
09Common drawdown mistakes
- Calculate both floors at 09:15 IST every day and note which one binds.
- Measure risk on equity, including open option positions.
- Keep a personal daily stop well inside the official limit.
- Reduce size on expiry days and around listed events.
- Remember that unrealised peaks raise an Instant trailing floor.
- Assuming the daily limit grows when your account grows. It does not.
- Averaging into a losing short option to "fix" it near the floor.
- Treating a stop-loss as a guarantee of the exit price.
- Holding NRML overnight close to the floor and hoping for a quiet open.
- Doubling size after a loss to win back the day.
One more common error is forgetting that losing days lower the next day's daily floor, so a run of small losses can bring both floors uncomfortably close together. If you want to see how these patterns usually play out, read why traders fail prop firm challenges, and for the evaluation itself, how to pass a prop firm challenge.
Know your two floors in rupees every morning. Size so that a bad trade, a poor fill and an options spike together still leave you above the nearest one.