The Anatomy of a Prop Firm Account Blowup

In February 2026, Apex Trader Funding published enforcement details about a single individual who had opened 798 Performance Accounts. This person had received 195 approved payouts and 101 denied payouts over their history, extracting over $600,000 in lifetime payouts before enforcement action. In January 2026 alone, 47 of their PA accounts were blown. In one 7-day stretch, they accumulated over 1,200 MAE (Maximum Adverse Excursion) violations. On a single day -- January 26 -- their accounts generated 658 MAE violation pings. This is not an edge case. It is the logical endpoint of a gaming strategy run at scale. Understanding how accounts blow up at this rate reveals the mechanics that destroy individual accounts too, just more slowly.

Most account blowups follow a predictable sequence. The trader starts with a plan: trade MES, use reasonable stops, build profit gradually. Then a loss happens. Then another. The drawdown is now 30% of the limit. At this point, the math changes in the trader's head. "I need to make back $750. At $5 per point on MES, that is 150 points of profit. But if I switch to ES at $50 per point, I only need 15 points." So they size up. The larger position means the same adverse move costs 10x more. A 5-point stop on ES costs $250 instead of $25 on MES. Two losing trades at ES size and the account is at 80% of the drawdown limit. Now the trader needs an even bigger win to recover, so they size up again. This is the martingale spiral. Each loss makes the next bet larger, which makes the next loss more damaging, which makes the next bet even larger. The math is exponential. An account that would survive months of MES losses can be destroyed in a single session of revenge-sized ES trades.

Our persona simulations model two trader archetypes. Ray represents the aggressive trader: after a losing day, he doubles position size to recoup losses. He switches from MES to ES when behind. He trades more frequently after losses, often placing 8-12 trades on his worst days. The simulation results are stark. Starting with a $50,000 Apex account ($2,500 trailing drawdown), Ray's median account survival is approximately 8 trading days. Not because his base strategy is unprofitable, but because the revenge sizing amplifies normal drawdowns into account-ending events. The pattern is visible in real data: the worst days have the highest trade counts and the largest position sizes. The trader is not executing a strategy -- they are reacting emotionally to losses. Each additional trade digs the hole deeper.

The type of drawdown your firm uses dramatically affects how fast a blowup happens. Real-time trailing (Apex, Bulenox, Leeloo): The drawdown floor moves up tick-by-tick with equity. If your account peaks at +$1,500 intraday and then retraces, the floor has already moved. This makes intraday reversals especially dangerous -- your unrealized high-water mark tightens the remaining buffer in real-time. EOD trailing (Topstep, Earn2Trade, MFF Core): The floor only recalculates at session close. Intraday dips below the theoretical floor do not count. This gives more room for trades that are volatile intraday but profitable at close. Static (TradeDay Static, Elite Static): The floor never moves. This is the most forgiving type but comes with tighter absolute limits. Traders who pass an EOD evaluation and then move to a real-time trailing funded account (as happens at TPT and The Trading Pit) often blow up immediately because their strategy relies on intraday breathing room that no longer exists.

Our simulations across thousands of runs show consistent patterns for what separates survivors from blowups: Contract choice is the single largest factor. Traders using MES exclusively have roughly 3-4x the median survival time compared to traders who use ES, all else equal. The reason is simple: MES losses are smaller in dollar terms, which keeps the drawdown utilization low and gives the trader more room to be wrong. Selectivity is the second factor. Traders who sit out 40-60% of sessions -- trading only when conditions match their strategy -- survive dramatically longer than traders who trade every day. The most dangerous sessions are the ones where you have no edge but trade anyway. Adaptive stops are the third factor. Using a fixed point stop regardless of conditions means you are over-stopped on quiet days and under-stopped on volatile days. Sizing your stop to a percentage of the expected daily range (which the volatility rating provides) keeps risk consistent across different conditions. The math is unambiguous: survive first, profit second. You cannot compound gains from a blown account.