Guardrails is a measuring tool. It reads your firm's published rules and your account's own numbers, and shows how much room is left. It does not decide anything.
The five meters
- Daily loss. How much of today's loss allowance is used.
- Trailing drawdown. How far you are from the line where the account fails, for your drawdown type.
- Consistency. Whether your biggest day is inside your firm's limit.
- Profit target. How far to the target, if the account has one.
- Scaling cap. How many contracts the account's balance allows today.
The daily loss meter uses the stricter line
You may have two daily loss numbers, and they do different jobs. Your own daily stop, in the account's settings, stops Wildflower trading the account for the day. Your firm's daily loss limit is the one that fails the account. They are rarely the same.
The meter measures against whichever is lower, and names it under the bar. That is also the line a guardrail action acts on. If you set no daily stop, it uses your firm's line. If your firm's rule has not been researched for your account, it uses your own stop, so something is always measured.
When the two differ, the panel shows both numbers in one line and says which one is in force. Your Dashboard shows your own stop on the account's chip, because that is the number you set. Both numbers are always on screen.
Every meter is after fees
All five meters measure profit and loss after fees. Firm rules are measured against your account balance, and fees come out of that balance. Each reading records that it used the after-fees figure.
The states
- Ok. There is room. This is a description, not praise.
- Close. Past a level you set for that meter.
- At limit. The line has been reached.
- No rule. Your firm has no such rule on this account.
- Unknown. This rule has not been researched for your firm, or something the meter needs is not filled in. It says which.
The scaling cap
Some firms start a funded account at the bottom of a scaling plan. A scaling plan is a ladder: the account may hold more contracts as its balance grows.
Two things to know. If the ladder is known but the balance is not, the meter uses the lowest step, because assuming the top step is the reading that could break the rule. And the cap can drop during a session but never rise, because firms read the ladder at the start of a session.
Some firms also give certain products a smaller ladder of their own. Say your firm allows 10 contracts on most products but only 5 on one group of products. For those products, Wildflower sends the smaller of the two limits.
What can go wrong
Guardrails is part of the Bot. Without it, the meters are not shown.