Common reasons accounts fail

Leverage tells you the most you can open, not how much you should. On gold, at 1:30, a $10,000 account can open about 0.75 lot at $4,000, worth $300,000. At 0.5 lot (50 oz), every $1 move in gold is $50 to you. A $16 move against you is $800: the whole max loss. Gold can move that much in minutes.

Very large positions can also be stopped out: at a 50% margin level, the position with the biggest loss is closed for you.

The fix: decide how much you'll risk before you choose a size. Risk 0.5% of the account, $50, with a stop $10 away on gold: that's 0.05 lot. Work out the size from the stop, every time. See Position sizing and Leverage and margin.

A trade with no stop has no planned loss. If it runs against you, the only stop left is the account's max loss or daily limit. Reaching one ends the account, or, with a daily limit that pauses, your day.

The fix: place a stop loss with every order. In the terminal, you can size a trade in Risk $ or Risk %: the ticket turns the stop on and works out the size that risks that much. Costs (the spread, and the commission on Raw) come on top, so leave a little room. See Stop loss and take profit.

A loss, then a bigger trade to get back to even, then a bigger one. This is how many good accounts end on a single bad day. It's a very human reaction, and it's the one the daily limit is there to catch.

The fix: set your own daily stop, well before the real one, and keep to it. Stop at $200 down, or after three losing trades in a row, and come back tomorrow. If you know this is your weak spot, a challenge whose daily limit pauses the account rather than ending it gives you a second chance. See Daily loss limit and Managing a losing streak.

The day starts again at 00:00 UTC, and the new day's start is the higher of your balance and your equity at that moment. Open profit you hold at 00:00 counts as part of the new day's start.

Your balance is $10,000, with one open trade showing +$350 at 00:00. The day's start is $10,350, and the daily line is $9,950. If the trade fades and goes to −$50, your equity is $9,950: you've reached the daily limit, though you are only $50 below your balance.

The fix: know where you are before 00:00 UTC (19:00 in New York in winter, 20:00 in summer). Take some profit, or move your stop up so the trade can't give back more than the new day allows. See Daily loss limits explained.

When a market closes (gold and oil from Friday 17:00 to Sunday 18:00 New York time, stocks every night), your position stays open at its last price. While it's closed, you can't close it or move its stop. When it reopens, the first price can be far from the last, and a stop that was passed fills at that first price, which can be worse.

You're long 0.1 lot of gold at $4,000 on Friday, with a stop at $3,980: a $200 planned loss. It reopens on Sunday at $3,940. The stop fills at $3,940, a $600 loss, and that reaches the $400 daily limit.

The fix: before a market closes, decide what you're willing to hold through the gap. Close the trade, or hold a size small enough that a big gap still leaves you room. Crypto trades 24/7 and doesn't gap this way. See Markets and hours.

A position open at 00:00 UTC pays an overnight fee, on its value at that moment, each night. On Bitcoin it's 0.05% a night. A 0.4 BTC position at $100,000 is worth $40,000: $20 a night, $60 from Friday to Monday (three nights), $140 for a week. That's 1.4% of a $10,000 account, gone without a losing trade.

The fix: count the fee into any trade you plan to hold for days, and hold smaller if you hold longer. The fee for each market is in Overnight fees.

With a live trailing max loss, the floor rises with your highest equity, open profit included, and never comes back down. A trade that runs to +$500 lifts the floor by $500. If it then comes back to −$300, you've used $800 of room, and the account ends, though the trade lost only $300.

With an end-of-day floor, it rises with your best balance at each 00:00 UTC. Yesterday's profit isn't a cushion: the floor moved up with it.

The fix: check which type your challenge has on its Rules tab, and watch your distance to the floor, not to your entry. On a live floor, take profit along the way or trail your stop. See Trailing vs static drawdown and Max loss.

Some challenges give each step a time limit. On Runtiler, the first step's limit counts from the moment you buy, not from your first trade, and each later step's from the moment the one before it passed. The deadline is rounded up to the next 00:00 UTC. If the step hasn't passed by then, the account ends. Time pressure also leads to bigger trades near the end, which brings back the first reason on this list.

Funded accounts have no time limit.

The fix: buy when you're ready to start, and work out your pace on day one: an $800 target over 30 days is about $27 a day, which is a calm number. If you trade slowly, a challenge with no time limit may suit you better. See Time limits.

One more reason, rarer and only at a claim. Each claim is checked for copying or hedging another account, your own included, and for profit made mostly from trades opened on a price more than a second old. A flagged claim goes to a person, never to an automatic rejection. If they confirm copy or hedge trading, the claim isn't paid and the account ends. Trade your own ideas on each account and this never comes up. See Claim checks.

It happens to good traders. Look at the trade that ended it in your history, and find which of these it was. Then you can buy the challenge again and start over with a fresh account, and a plan for that one thing. Everything that can end an account is in What ends an account.