Prop Firm Shield EA: drawdown protection for funded accounts.

What a shield EA does on a funded account

Prop firms fail traders on equity, not on strategy: the daily loss limit and the max drawdown line are measured continuously, including floating drawdown. A shield EA is a guard that runs next to your entries — manual, signals, or another EA — and its only job is to make sure a bad day never becomes a breach: it closes everything and disables auto-trading when a limit is hit. If you want the broader category (risk manager EAs in general), see the MT5 risk management EA guide; this page is about the prop-firm-specific setup.

The four protections that actually matter

Translate your firm's numbers into per-trade risk with the drawdown calculator before you configure anything.

Setup, step by step

1. Read your firm's exact rules first (daily and overall limits, on balance or equity, reset hour): FTMO, FundedNext.
2. Set the daily lock a margin under the firm's limit — if the rule is 5%, lock at 4-4.5% so the shield fires first.
3. Set the max drawdown stop the same way, counting floating drawdown.
4. Cap lots per position from your stop distance (1% or less per trade on a challenge).
5. Block the news window your firm restricts, and the overnight gap if your firm does.
6. Rehearse on demo: force a losing day and confirm the shield closes everything and disables trading — before you trust it with a paid challenge.

The Prop Firm Shield module ships these controls on top of SignalForge execution, from $4.99/mo with a 14-day free trial.

What it does not do

• It does not open trades — entries stay yours (alerts, signals or manual).
• It is not martingale, recovery or anything that adds to losers.
• It does not guarantee passing: it removes limit breaches, not bad strategies.

FAQ

Are shield EAs allowed by prop firms?

Yes — EAs that manage lot sizing and enforce your own loss limits trade your own strategy and are allowed by the major firms. What firms prohibit is exploiting demo environments or third-party mass-used strategies.

What is the difference between a shield EA and a risk management EA?

Scope: a risk manager EA is the general category (any account); a shield is tuned to prop-firm rules — daily loss on equity, max drawdown line, news windows — with margins under the firm's own limits.

What happens exactly when the daily limit is hit?

All open positions close, auto-trading is disabled so no new signal executes, and the account stays parked until you re-arm it. That is the whole point: the firm never sees the breach.

Does it work on challenge and funded accounts alike?

Yes — both are equity-limited. On funded accounts the same locks protect your payouts; set them to your profit-target plan, not just the limits.

Can I run it together with TradingView signals?

That is the intended setup: alerts execute through the bridge while the shield watches equity. See TradingView alerts under prop firm rules.