How to pass the Apex evaluation by the rules

The basics

The numbers that matter, by account size

To pass, you reach the profit target within 30 calendar days without your balance ever touching the max drawdown threshold. The numbers scale with the account.

EOD and Intraday evaluations share these numbers, except the daily loss limit, which only EOD evaluations have. Contract limits count 10 micros as one mini.

The target is 6% of the starting balance at every size, and it’s 1.5 times the max drawdown on the 25K and 50K, 2 times on the 100K and 2.25 times on the 150K. The evaluation has no minimum number of trading days and no consistency rule.

This guide covers the EOD and Intraday evaluations. Legacy accounts follow older rules, and Apex is selling Legacy evaluations again as a temporary offer. Our rules guide covers the current rules size by size and how legacy accounts differ.

Drawdown

Your drawdown room, and how each type moves it

Your room is the gap between your balance and the max drawdown threshold. If the balance touches the threshold at any moment, Apex closes every position and the evaluation fails.

The threshold starts at the starting balance minus the max drawdown, $48,000 on a 50K, and never moves down. It follows each new high up, so while it trails, profit doesn’t build a cushion. The two types differ in what counts as a new high.

Intraday: open profit counts

The threshold follows your peak balance in real time, open profit included. A trade that runs up and comes back lifts it at the peak, and it stays there.

EOD: only the close counts

The threshold is recalculated once a day from your closing balance and stays fixed through the next session. Apex still enforces it in real time, so touching it mid-session fails the evaluation.

Hypothetical numbers that show how Apex calculates the rule. Not a trading result. The Intraday column follows the example in Apex’s help center.

Same trade, same $300 gain. Under Intraday, giving back $600 of open profit cost $600 of room for good. Under EOD it cost nothing.

Where trailing stops

On Rithmic and WealthCharts evaluations, the threshold stops trailing at the profit target balance, $53,000 on a 50K. On Tradovate evaluations it keeps trailing. In a Performance Account it stops at the starting balance plus $100.

Daily loss limit

The daily loss limit in EOD evaluations

EOD evaluations add a fixed daily loss limit of half the max drawdown, from $500 on a 25K to $2,000 on a 150K. Intraday evaluations don’t have one.

What counts

Your net loss for the session, open positions included

If you reach it

Positions close and trading stops for the session

Does it fail the evaluation?

No, the account stays active

Resets

At 6:00 PM ET, for the next session

Because the limit is half the drawdown, two full-limit days in a row reach the threshold. On a fresh 50K, a $1,000 loss on day one leaves $49,000, and the threshold stays at $48,000. Another $1,000 loss the next day touches it, and the evaluation fails.

Hypothetical numbers that show how Apex calculates the rule. Not a trading result.

Sizing

Sizing trades as a share of the drawdown

Apex caps how many contracts you can hold, but it sets no dollar limit on the risk per trade. The cap is a ceiling, not a target.

A common rule of thumb is to size so a normal stop risks 10 to 15% of the max drawdown. It’s a convention traders use, not an Apex rule and not a recommendation.

Illustration only, not a recommendation.

At 10% a trade, the tenth full loss in a row touches the threshold. At 15%, the seventh does. The count is the same at every account size.

Pacing

Pacing the target over 30 days

The 30 days are calendar days from purchase, weekends and holidays included, and Apex doesn’t extend them.

That’s about 20 to 22 weekday sessions, fewer around a market holiday. At 6:00 PM ET on day 30 the evaluation expires, and the balance doesn’t carry over.

Spread over 15 sessions, the 50K’s $3,000 target is $200 a session. That’s arithmetic, not a forecast: any session can lose money, and one or two oversized losing days can use up most of the $2,000 drawdown.

Some traders stop for the day at a profit goal of about a tenth of the target, $300 on a 50K. Others set a personal daily stop well inside Apex’s limits, such as 2 to 3 losing trades or about 25% of the drawdown. These are personal habits, not Apex rules and not a recommendation.

Every day

Flat before the market close

Every position must be closed before the market close: 4:59 PM ET for most contracts, earlier for agricultural futures and on CME holiday early-close days.

Most contracts

Flat before 4:59 PM ET

Livestock: HE, LE, GF

Flat before the 2:05 PM ET close

Grains and soy: ZC, ZW, ZS, ZM, ZL

Flat before the 2:20 PM ET close

Holiday early closes

Earlier, per CME’s holiday calendar

Trading resumes at 6:00 PM ET. Apex says being flat in time is the trader’s responsibility, and holding a position through the close is a prohibited activity: traders who do it forfeit their accounts.

Rules

What ends an evaluation

Two things end an evaluation automatically: touching the threshold at any moment, open losses included, or reaching 6:00 PM ET on day 30 without hitting the target. There are no resets.

Prohibited activities

Any of these can close an account or put a trader on probation. Besides holding a position through the close and trading without a stop, both covered above, Apex’s list includes:

• Hedging: long and short at once on the same or correlated instruments, or one evaluation against another.
• Automated or algorithmic trading.
• Non-directional orders left on both sides of the market to catch a lucky move, at any time, and news strategies that chase the market. Trading news with your normal strategy is allowed.
• Buying several discounted evaluations to cycle through and blow up on purpose.
• Sharing accounts, computers or IP addresses with other traders, or copying their trades.

Apex’s full list, linked in our sources, also covers identity, payments and VPNs.

Next step

What happens after you pass

Apex reviews the account at the close of the trading day in which you reach the target and marks it as passed after 6:00 PM ET. That starts the activation window.

1. Marked as passed. The evaluation moves to Passed Evals in your dashboard and is locked against further trading.
2. 7 calendar days. Counted from being marked as passed, not from hitting the target. Passing on day 30 still gets all 7, and the window can’t be extended.
3. Activation fee. A one-time fee, paid through the Purchase PA link in your Passed Evals tab. It’s $0 on No Activation Fee evaluations. Miss the window and you’d need to pass a new evaluation. Our pricing guide lists the fee by size.
4. Performance Account. Created with your evaluation login, which can take up to 6 hours. Activations after Friday’s close aren’t created until Sunday at 6:00 PM ET.

The PA is simulated too, and its contract limit starts lower: 2 on a 50K, against 6 in the evaluation, rising to 4 as the balance grows. Both drawdown types have a tiered daily loss limit in the PA, and payouts add the consistency rule and safety net. The sizing habits from the evaluation matter even more there.