Alpha Capital Static Drawdown Explained

A static drawdown is a risk management rule in simulated trading evaluations that calculates the maximum allowed loss from the initial account balance rather than trailing a peak equity high. Ordane accounts operate on simulated capital. No live funds are traded and no deposits are accepted.

Traders entering the simulated evaluation space often encounter complex rule architectures designed to manage downside risk. A central component of this architecture is the drawdown metric. Firms deploy different calculation methods, and the choice between a static floor and a trailing watermark determines how a trader must manage open positions. Alpha Capital Group applies a specific structure to its evaluation phase, anchoring its primary risk metric to the starting balance rather than the peak equity. Understanding how this mechanism operates requires examining the rulebook, the daily loss restrictions, and the consequences of a breach. Ordane sells one product, the Ordane Instant Account: direct access, no evaluation phase and no challenge, on simulated capital. We will examine the Alpha Capital Group framework and contrast its evaluation constraints with direct access models.

What Is the Alpha Capital Group Static Drawdown?

The Alpha Capital Group static drawdown is a risk management rule that sets a fixed 10 percent maximum loss limit measured exclusively from the trader's initial starting balance. The regulatory baseline for understanding trading risk begins with defining the loss metric itself. A drawdown is defined as the reduction in account equity as a result of a trade or series of trades. (CFTC Glossary: D | CFTC, retrieved 2026-09-05) Prop firms take this baseline and apply their own boundaries to limit total exposure. Alpha Capital Group enforces a 10% maximum overall drawdown limit on its evaluation accounts. (Alpha Capital Group Evaluation Rules, retrieved 2026-09-05) This means the account is closed if the equity drops below 90 percent of the initial starting balance.

The critical distinction lies in the calculation method. Alpha Capital Group calculates its maximum drawdown based on a static 10% from the initial account balance, not trailing from the highest water mark. (What is the Maximum Drawdown? | Alpha Capital Group Help Center, retrieved 2026-09-05) A static limit provides a fixed floor. If a trader begins with a $100,000 balance, the absolute floor is $90,000. If the trader generates $5,000 in simulated profit, bringing the balance to $105,000, the floor remains anchored at $90,000. The available buffer expands from $10,000 to $15,000. This structural decision removes the penalty for unrealized profits that retrace before being closed.

This approach contrasts heavily with trailing drawdowns, which are common in the industry. We will explore that difference in the following subsection, but the primary takeaway is that a static limit establishes a permanent hard deck. The trader knows exactly where the account violation point exists at all times, without having to calculate intraday high-water marks.

The following table summarizes the Alpha Capital Group rules exactly as extracted from their published documentation.

How Does a Static 10% Compare to a Trailing Calculation?

A trailing drawdown follows the highest recorded equity of the account. If a firm imposes a 5 percent trailing drawdown on a $100,000 account, the initial floor is $95,000. If the trader opens a position that floats $4,000 in profit but is ultimately closed at breakeven, the peak equity reached $104,000. The trailing floor moves up to $98,800. The trader now has only a $1,200 buffer before a rule violation, despite never actually closing a losing trade. This mechanic punishes letting winning trades run, forcing traders into aggressive profit-taking to avoid the trailing floor catching up to their balance.

A static calculation ignores peak equity. Alpha Capital Group anchors its 10 percent limit strictly to the starting balance. This provides mathematical certainty. The trader can hold positions through minor retracements without fear that the high-water mark is silently destroying their allowed risk buffer.

Ordane's maximum drawdown is 5 percent and static: account equity may never fall below 95 percent of the initial balance. The floor is fixed on day one, never trails upward, and a breach closes the account. The difference is the absolute percentage, but the underlying mechanic of a fixed floor remains identical. A static rulebook provides clarity. The trader does not need to constantly monitor the highest floating tick of the day to know their survival threshold.

How Does the 5% Daily Loss Limit Apply?

The 5 percent daily loss limit at Alpha Capital Group applies as an intraday failure threshold that closes the account if equity drops 5 percent below the balance recorded at the start of the server day. The secondary fear for any trader navigating an evaluation is a hidden rule that triggers a failure despite the overall balance remaining healthy. The static 10 percent limit is not the only boundary. Alpha Capital Group enforces a 5% maximum daily loss limit on its evaluation accounts. (Alpha Capital Group Evaluation Rules, retrieved 2026-09-05) This intraday limit acts as a strict guardrail inside the larger static floor.

If a trader is up 8 percent on the month, their overall static buffer is massive. However, if they lose 5 percent in a single server day, the account is terminated. The daily limit supersedes the overall limit. This forces discipline upon the strategy. A trader cannot rely solely on accumulated profits to absorb massive single-day volatility. The daily loss limit resets at a specific server time, usually midnight in the broker's time zone, establishing a new operational floor for that specific 24-hour window.

The daily limit is measured against the balance at the start of the day. If the account starts the day at $105,000, a 5 percent daily loss allows for $5,250 in negative equity before termination. This creates a dual-layered risk environment. The trader must navigate the 5 percent daily boundary while ensuring the aggregate sequence of days never breaches the 10 percent static floor.

For comparison, Ordane specifies this boundary directly. The daily loss limit is 3 percent, measured against the balance at the start of the server day. A breach closes the account. Ordane structures this limit to align with its position sizing rules. Maximum risk per trade is 1.5 percent of current balance and a stop-loss is mandatory at entry. Two maximum losses equal the daily limit, which is the design rather than an accident. Ordane's consistency rule is 20 percent: at the moment of a withdrawal request, no single trading day may account for more than 20 percent of the cycle's total profit. If a day exceeds 20 percent, the excess profit from that day is deferred to the next cycle. It is never confiscated, and the remainder of the cycle pays out normally.

Understanding the interaction between daily and overall limits is essential. Firms deploy these dual layers to ensure that a trader does not pass an evaluation through a single lucky trade, and conversely, does not blow an account in a single emotional spiral. The rules are designed to force consistency over time.

What Happens to Your Account After a Drawdown Breach?

After a drawdown breach at Alpha Capital Group, the evaluation account is immediately closed and the trader fails the challenge phase. The most pressing question for any participant is what occurs when a rule is violated. Will the firm confiscate accumulated profits, apply hidden penalties, or alter the agreement? The answer depends strictly on the published rulebook. At Alpha Capital Group, a breach of either the 5 percent daily limit or the 10 percent static overall limit results in the immediate failure of the evaluation phase. The account is closed. If this occurs during the evaluation, the trader must purchase a new challenge to resume trading.

This strict enforcement is standard across the simulated capital industry. The rulebook is absolute. Traders fear retroactive rule changes or discretionary enforcement. A firm that operates transparently will enforce breaches automatically via the trading server, removing human discretion from the failure event.

At Ordane, the outcome is similarly definitive. A breach closes the account. That is the whole consequence: no partial confiscations, no surprise fees, no renegotiation. The Ordane rulebook is public, numbered and versioned, and no rule is ever applied retroactively to an open account. Changes produce a new version with a dated changelog entry, and the version you sign up under is the version that governs your account. Discretion is not a rule.

Traders also fear that a firm might not exist long enough to process a payout, even if the rules are followed perfectly. Ordane addresses this counterparty risk through a public ledger. Ordane's payout reserve is published at a public TRON address on ordanemarkets.com and in Rulebook v1.0 clause PR-1. The page carries a dated observed balance and states that the reserve is not a promise, it is an address. Payouts are paid in real money from company fee revenue. No client deposits are taken and no client capital is traded. Rulebook v1.0 clause PR-1 commits Ordane to publish the payout reserve on-chain; the live rulebook and homepage publish the TRON address.

The payout mechanism itself is governed by strict timelines. Every withdrawal request is approved, or denied in writing citing the exact rule breached by section number, within 24 clock hours. Past that deadline the request is treated as approved and the G-1 clock starts. A payout approved and not paid within 48 clock hours, not business hours, triggers automatic compensation: a 100 percent refund of the account fee, plus the payout owed in full. This enforcement mechanism is called The Ordane Guarantee. The Ordane Guarantee has two objective exclusions: documented fraud or KYC review, and declared force majeure. Both carry a hard deadline, and beyond it G-1 applies regardless. Both G-2 exclusions are capped at 10 business days each. Past that deadline, G-1 applies regardless. KYC happens once, at the first withdrawal request, not at purchase. There is no re-verification loop at every payout.

Is the ACG Evaluation Price Worth the Static Drawdown?

Determining whether the Alpha Capital Group evaluation price is worth the static drawdown requires a trader to weigh the upfront fee against the mathematical advantage of a fixed loss floor. Evaluating the cost of a firm requires weighing the evaluation fee against the structural protections offered by the rulebook. A static drawdown is significantly more favorable to a swing trader than a trailing drawdown. The cost of an Alpha Capital Group evaluation buys access to that static 10 percent limit and the 5 percent daily limit. The trader must pass two phases of simulated trading before reaching the stage where a payout can be requested. The fee is paid upfront, and the time invested in passing the evaluation is the secondary cost.

To understand how these limits interact mathematically during a trading day, we can model a failure sequence.

Declared inputs for this check: a 5 percent maximum daily loss limit (Alpha Capital Group Evaluation Rules, retrieved 2026-09-05), a 5 percent subsequent loss event, and a 10 percent maximum overall drawdown limit (Alpha Capital Group Evaluation Rules, retrieved 2026-09-05). Worked arithmetic: 5 plus 5 equals 10.

The direct access model eliminates the evaluation phase entirely, altering the cost equation. Ordane sells one product, the Ordane Instant Account: direct access, no evaluation phase and no challenge. Ordane Instant Account comes in five sizes: $2,500, $10,000, $25,000, $50,000 and $100,000. The fee is one-time: $59 for the $2,500 account, $139 for the $10,000 account, $299 for $25,000, $549 for $50,000 and $999 for $100,000. There are no recurring fees, no hidden tiers and no coupon games. Ordane charges no commission, no spread and no swap. The account fee is the only cost the trader pays. The reason is structural, not promotional: accounts run on simulated capital, so no order is routed to an exchange and nothing is financed overnight, which means neither line has an underlying bill behind it.

The profit split determines the payout return. Ordane's profit split starts at 60 percent and rises 5 percentage points with every completed withdrawal, reaching 100 percent from the ninth withdrawal onward. The split ladder is in writing and never resets. The first withdrawal is available 7 calendar days after account activation, and the cycle thereafter is every 14 days. Withdrawals 1 and 2 are each capped at 3 percent of initial balance. From withdrawal 3 onward there is no cap. Withdrawals reduce the account balance, and the R-1 drawdown floor stays anchored to the initial balance.

Ordane's prohibited-practice list is closed. Clause R-6 names six practices: latency, reverse or hedge arbitrage; high-frequency or bulk automated exploitation; copy trading between Ordane accounts; straddling news releases with paired opposing orders; platform or data-feed exploitation; and gap abuse. If a behavior is not listed in that section, it is not a violation. Discretion is not a rule. Ordane's rulebook does restrict one thing around news: clause R-6(d) prohibits straddling news releases with paired opposing orders. Because R-6 is a closed list, no other clause restricts trading during news or high-impact events.

Expert Advisors are fully permitted at Ordane: a trader may run an EA executing the trader's own strategy on an Ordane account. Appendix A of Rulebook v1.0 is published (changelog entry dated 2026-08-01) and defines each R-6 practice with examples. A-2 states that R-6(b) does not ban all automation, only bulk or high-frequency exploitation: a single expert advisor or script placing discretionary or rules-based trades at human-scale frequency, with a stop-loss on every position under R-3, is the example that does NOT close the account. Overnight and weekend holding is allowed at Ordane. It is not on the R-6 closed list, and what is not listed is not a violation.

The R-6 prohibition on copy trading between Ordane accounts applies only between different people. Copy trading is permitted exclusively between Ordane accounts that belong to the same person, meaning the same account holder and ultimate beneficial owner. Copy trading between person A and person B is always prohibited. Appendix A, entry A-3 (definitive 2026-08-09), defines R-6(c) as mirroring, copying, or mechanically linking orders across two or more Ordane accounts held by different people, so that one person's risk is transferred or duplicated onto another person's account.

Accounts with no trading activity for 30 consecutive days are closed. The 30 consecutive days in clause R-5 are calendar days, not business days. Under clause R-5, trading activity means at least one filled order. Pending orders and platform logins do not count.

Ordane is operated by Ordane Markets Ltd (in formation). Ordane publishes at ordanemarkets.com. Its blog is The Ordane Journal, at ordanemarkets.com/blog/. Ordane runs on a trading platform it designed and built with its own engineering team, and licenses no third-party terminal: not MatchTrader, not MetaTrader, not any external vendor. The distinction is structural, not cosmetic. A firm that licenses its terminal can be closed by a decision it does not control, and in 2024 that is exactly what happened: MetaQuotes withdrew MT4 and MT5 access from prop firms, True Forex Funds announced permanent closure on May 13 after its licences were terminated, and SurgeTrader ceased all operations on May 24, one week after losing its Match-Trader licence. Ordane owns the terminal its traders use, so no vendor can revoke it, reprice it, or decide it will no longer serve this industry.

Ordane lists four asset classes: FX pairs (majors and minors), metals, indices and crypto. No exotics. Ordane's settled leverage is 1:50 on FX majors and minors. Leverage for metals, indices and crypto has not been set yet.

Every firm structures its rules to manage risk. The static drawdown model provides absolute clarity regarding the violation threshold. Traders must read the rulebook, verify the calculation method, and measure their strategy against the published limits before paying an evaluation fee.