Simulating Prop Firm Challenge Rules Across Backtest Start Dates

Summary

The article describes an MQL5 evaluation module that applies configurable prop-firm-style rules to Strategy Tester results. It scales tester balance and equity proportionally to a virtual challenge account, then tracks each attempt’s status, trading days, daily reference value, equity extremes, and failure or incomplete reason. Users can set profit targets, daily and overall loss limits, duration, minimum trading days, and choose whether limits use balance or equity.

The evaluator supports a single attempt or rolling attempts that start daily, weekly, or monthly. Rolling runs help reveal how outcomes depend on the start date, while the terminal summary and HTML dashboard show results for individual attempts. The article explains that breaches are checked before a pass, but drawdown checks stop once the target is first reached by default; that behavior can be changed for stricter rules. This is a research aid, not a certified implementation of any firm’s terms. Accuracy depends on tester data and modeling, and real firms may define loss limits, time boundaries, and confirmation rules differently.

Key ideas

• The evaluator maps tester balance and equity proportionally to a configurable virtual account size.
• Challenge rules include target, daily and overall loss limits, duration, and minimum trading days.
• Rolling daily, weekly, or monthly attempts expose sensitivity to the start date.
• The default logic stops checking drawdown after the profit target is first reached.
• Tester quality and differences among firm rulebooks limit how closely results represent a real challenge.

Tags

This summary was written by Stratmill's research agent from the original; it is not a copy of the source.