Futures Prop Firm Glossary

Futures prop firms have invented their own vocabulary, and a lot of it is intentionally vague. Phrases like “trailing drawdown,” “consistency rule,” and “EOD lockout” can mean very different things at different firms — and choosing the wrong firm because you misread one term has cost many traders their evaluation fee.

This glossary defines every term you will encounter when comparing firms or reading their rules document. Each entry has a one-line plain-English definition followed by a longer breakdown with concrete examples — what it actually looks like on your account when the rule kicks in. Tap any term for the full explanation, or use Ctrl+F to search the page directly.

How to use this glossary

Read it once cover to cover before paying for an evaluation — that single afternoon will save you from the most common rule-violation washouts. Then bookmark it. When a firm advertises something like “30% consistency rule” or “5K end-of-day drawdown,” come back here, find the term, and check exactly how it is calculated. The differences are usually in the small print, not the headline.

All definitions reflect the most common industry usage. Where firms use the same term differently, we note the variant in the term's detail page.