Last updated: 2 October 2026 Prop firm drawdowns are fixed in dollars, but how far the market moves each day is not. We set the $2,000 drawdown on a 50K futures account against five years of daily S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 closes, plus the VIX and VXN, all from FRED. We convert each move into dollars per contract using CFTC contract sizes. Every figure links to its source, and modeled figures are labeled as modeled.
All four futures firms we checked give a 50K account the same $2,000 drawdown. That holds for Topstep, Apex Trader Funding, Take Profit Trader and MyFundedFutures, each on the firm’s own help pages, checked 2 October 2026. Maximum size is 5–6 contracts.
On 184 of the last 252 trading days (73%), the Nasdaq-100 moved far enough between closes that one E-mini Nasdaq (NQ) contract would have gained or lost more than $2,000. The median day was 197 points, or $3,945 on one NQ. For one E-mini S&P (ES) the figure is 109 of 252 days (43%).
One micro contract leaves far more room. A median day was worth $394 on one Micro Nasdaq (MNQ), 20% of $2,000, and $177 on one Micro S&P (MES), 9%.
In index terms, $2,000 covers about half the room it did in 2021. On one NQ, $2,000 is 100 Nasdaq-100 points. That was 0.64% of the index on 2021-09-01 (15,612) and is 0.33% now (30,502). The median daily Nasdaq-100 move in 2026 so far is 223 points, against 104 in 2023.
The drawdown: 50K futures accounts
| Firm | Plan | Max drawdown | How it trails | Max size | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Topstep | Trading Combine 50K | $2,000 | Trails the end-of-day balance high; locks at the starting balance | 5 minis / 50 micros | Firm page Firm page |
| Apex Trader Funding | Intraday Evaluation 50K | $2,000 | Trails peak balance in real time, including unrealized gains | 6 contracts | Firm page |
| Take Profit Trader | Futures test 50K | $2,000 | End-of-day trailing | 6 contracts | Firm page |
| MyFundedFutures | Rapid 50K (evaluation) | $2,000 | End-of-day (evaluation stage) | 5 minis / 50 micros | Firm page |
We also looked at Tradeify and FundedNext, but couldn’t match each drawdown to a specific 50K plan from their public pages, so we left them out.
A typical day, in dollars per contract
| Contract | Size (CFTC) | Median daily move | Median as % of $2,000 | 90th-percentile day | Modeled 1-sigma day (from VIX/VXN) | Days over $2,000 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Micro E-mini S&P 500 (MES) | $5 × index | $177 | 9% | $464 | $395 | 0 of 252 |
| E-mini S&P 500 (ES) | $50 × index | $1,766 | 88% | $4,637 | $3,946 | 109 of 252 |
| Micro E-mini Nasdaq-100 (MNQ) | $2 × index | $394 | 20% | $1,057 | $863 | 1 of 252 |
| E-mini Nasdaq-100 (NQ) | $20 × index | $3,945 | 197% | $10,570 | $8,631 | 184 of 252 |
Window: 2025-10-01 to 2026-10-01, 252 trading days. A move is the absolute change between index closes, times the contract multiplier. The modeled 1-sigma day uses the latest close (2026-10-01: S&P 500 7,666.45, Nasdaq-100 30,501.56) and the latest VIX (16.34) or VXN (22.46) on 2026-09-30, divided by √252. It’s a model of what options imply, not a measured move.
By year: days one mini moved more than $2,000
| Year | Trading days | NQ: days over $2,000 | ES: days over $2,000 | Nasdaq-100 median daily move (points) | S&P 500 median daily move (points) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 (from 2 Sep) | 84 | 49 (58%) | 27 (32%) | 115 | 22.3 |
| 2022 | 251 | 180 (72%) | 122 (49%) | 176 | 39.0 |
| 2023 | 250 | 131 (52%) | 70 (28%) | 104 | 22.8 |
| 2024 | 252 | 140 (56%) | 80 (32%) | 131 | 24.4 |
| 2025 | 250 | 160 (64%) | 94 (38%) | 138 | 31.6 |
| 2026 (to 1 Oct) | 188 | 138 (73%) | 84 (45%) | 223 | 37.1 |
Micro contracts barely register on this scale. One MNQ moved more than $2,000 between closes on 4 days in the whole period, and one MES on 1. The largest one-day move in the last 252 days was on 2026-06-05: 1,450 Nasdaq-100 points and 201 S&P 500 points.
Methodology
Daily closes for the S&P 500 (FRED SP500) and Nasdaq-100 (FRED NASDAQ100), plus the Cboe VIX (VIXCLS) and VXN (VXNCLS), downloaded from FRED on 2 October 2026, 2021-09-01 onwards. Contract multipliers come from the contract-units field in the CFTC Commitments of Traders data (CFTC public reporting): ES $50, MES $5, NQ $20 and MNQ $2 per index point. Firm drawdowns and maximum sizes were read from each firm’s help pages on 2 October 2026. Apex blocks our automated fetches, so we read its page through a web reader the same day.
Limits, stated plainly: we use the cash index, not futures prices. Close-to-close changes understate intraday swings, and intraday swings are what an intraday trailing drawdown reacts to, so real drawdown pressure is likely higher than these numbers show. Nobody holds a full day’s move by default. This measures how much room the market gives, not how any trader performs. The 1-sigma figures are a model. Index data are copyright of S&P Dow Jones Indices, Nasdaq and Cboe. We publish only derived statistics. See also our Open Rules Dataset, micro futures vs the prop boom, True Cost Index and methodology.
How to cite this
Prop Data Lab, “Prop Firm Drawdown vs Market Volatility”, updated 2 October 2026, https://propdatalab.com/prop-firm-drawdown-vs-volatility/
The table and the CSV are free to reuse under CC BY 4.0: copy, chart or republish them, commercial use included, as long as you link back to this page. Please say the per-day dollar figures are index close-to-close moves times the contract multiplier, not futures fills.
Common questions
How much does one NQ contract move in a day?
Over the 252 trading days to 2026-10-01, the median absolute close-to-close move in the Nasdaq-100 was 197 points. At $20 per point, that's about $3,945 on one E-mini Nasdaq (NQ) contract, or $394 on one Micro (MNQ).
Is a $2,000 drawdown enough to trade NQ?
On 184 of the last 252 trading days, the Nasdaq-100's close-to-close move times $20 was more than $2,000. In other words, a typical day's move on one NQ contract exceeded the whole drawdown on a 50K account at Topstep, Apex, Take Profit Trader and MyFundedFutures. One MNQ used about 20% of it on a median day.
What is the drawdown on a 50K futures prop account?
At Topstep (Trading Combine), Apex (Intraday Evaluation), Take Profit Trader and MyFundedFutures (Rapid evaluation), the 50K account's maximum drawdown or loss limit is $2,000 (checked 2 October 2026). How it trails differs: Apex's trails intraday, and the others are end-of-day in the evaluation.
How is the expected daily move calculated from the VIX?
Expected 1-sigma daily move = index level × (VIX ÷ 100) ÷ √252. We use the VIX for the S&P 500 and the VXN for the Nasdaq-100. It is an options-implied estimate, not an observed move.