Drawdown Guardian
The risk + behavioral scoreboard for your funded account.
Most prop traders blow accounts on trailing drawdown and daily-loss limits, not bad entries. Drawdown Guardian solves both halves of the problem: it shows you exactly where you stand against every limit on every tick, and it scores how you actually trade so you can see whether you're improving. Pull rule values from prop firm presets — Apex, Topstep, Tradeify Growth, Tradeify Select Daily — or use your own. When broker-side risk values are available (Rithmic), Guardian uses them directly. When Bracket Boss is loaded too, Guardian reads its discipline ledger and shows your Discipline Score, current title, streak, badges, and a Stat Sheet that exports to PDF or CSV.
The only Discipline Score in NinjaTrader.
Drawdown Guardian reads the Bracket Boss discipline-event ledger and turns it into a real, exportable scoreboard. Today's score, your current title, your streak, your badges, your personal bests. Open the Stat Sheet for full rollups across Today, 7-day, month-to-date, and 30-day windows — then export to PDF or CSV.
- Live score, current title, and active streak on every chart
- Stat Sheet: period metrics, daily summaries, badges, titles, challenges, testing-point log
- Rollups across one or many eligible accounts (practice/sim auto-excluded)
- Export to PDF (print-ready HTML) and CSV for your trade journal
- Adversity hold+8
- Clean trade+5
- Stop moved-4
- Order Lock used+3
See it in action
Walk through Drawdown Guardian on a live chart.
What's inside
Real-time prop-compliance dashboard
Account/equity state, Open P&L, daily loss-limit usage, profit target progress, trailing drawdown, and liquidation-room metrics — all on chart, updated every tick. No more mental math while you're trying to trade.
Prop firm rule presets
Built-in presets for Apex Trader Funding, Topstep, Tradeify Growth, and Tradeify Select Daily, plus a Manual/Custom mode. Load your account size and Guardian configures the daily-loss limit, profit target, and safety buffer to match. Override any value individually.
Broker risk integration
When your broker exposes risk fields (Rithmic), Guardian reads them directly — daily loss limit, trailing max drawdown, profit trigger, equity. Verified cutoffs are cached so you have fallback context if the connection blips. Cached values are clearly marked as fallback, never as live truth.
Custom safety buffer
Set a buffer at, say, 80% of your max drawdown. Guardian shows visual + audio alerts before you touch it. Your guardrail before the firm's guardrail.
Auto Flatten + Daily Closeout
Optional Auto Flatten triggers a flatten when your buffer condition fires. Daily Closeout locks the account at a configurable Eastern Time (e.g. 16:59) so end-of-day discipline doesn't depend on willpower. Both are off by default — opt in when you trust them.
Discipline Score + Stat Sheet
Reads the Bracket Boss discipline-event ledger and computes a live Discipline Score with titles, streaks, badges, and motivation text. Open the Stat Sheet for period metrics, daily summaries, personal bests, challenges, badge/title progress, and a testing point log. Export to PDF or CSV for review.
Unprotected position alerts
If you're sitting in a position without a protective stop — for any reason — Guardian flags it loudly. The single most common way prop accounts die is unprotected exposure during a fast-market gap. Guardian refuses to let you forget.
Bracket Boss integration
When Bracket Boss is loaded on the same account/chart, Guardian's Flatten Now button routes through Bracket Boss first so your protected exits clean up correctly. Guardian also respects Bracket Boss's Order Lock — companion flatten requests are blocked while you're locked in.
Multi-account aware
Monitors the selected account on a single chart instrument while you trade Bracket Boss across multiple charts. Stat Sheet rollups can include eligible accounts and exclude practice/sim names so your numbers reflect real trading.
Who it's for
- Prop traders on Apex, MyFundedFutures, Topstep, TradeDay, FTMO, Tradeify, and others
- Funded-account runners scaling multiple contracts
- Day/swing traders who refuse to blow another evaluation
- Anyone tired of manual Excel tracking — and anyone who wants their trading to actually be measured
Tech specs
- Native NinjaScript indicator for NinjaTrader 8 — runs as a chart indicator and/or standalone window
- External rule catalog at bin\Custom\Config\DrawdownGuardianRules.csv
- Schema: Firm | AccountSize | DailyLossLimitDollars | SafetyBufferPercent | DailyProfitTargetDollars | Mode | Notes
- Broker risk cache at bin\Custom\Config\DrawdownGuardianBrokerRiskCache.csv (fallback context only)
- Stat Sheet exports to CSV + print-ready HTML for browser → PDF
- Every release passes the Shadow Edge Test Harness — a 5-day continuous Replay qualification run
- Lifetime license + free updates
System requirements
What you need to run Drawdown Guardian successfully.
- NinjaTrader 8 Desktop on Windows
- Designed for futures (MES, MNQ, ES, NQ, MCL, and more)
- One chart, one instrument, one account per strategy/indicator instance
- Internet connection for license activation; runs locally after that
Honest limits
Trading software that doesn't admit its limits is software you can't trust. Here's what Drawdown Guardian is not.
- Not a substitute for the broker's own risk system — broker/firm enforcement always wins
- Not a guarantee — Auto Flatten can slip, reject, or fail in fast markets
- Not designed for NinjaTrader 7, NinjaTrader Web, NinjaTrader Mobile, or non-Windows platforms
- Not magic — if you've already breached your firm's hard limit, Guardian can warn but it cannot un-break the rule
Frequently asked
Does it work with my prop firm's specific rules?+
Built-in presets cover Apex Trader Funding, Topstep, Tradeify Growth, and Tradeify Select Daily. Manual/Custom mode lets you set any account size, daily loss, profit target, and safety buffer. You can also drop a DrawdownGuardianRules.csv into your config folder for fully custom rule profiles. Email us if your firm needs a built-in preset.
How is this different from the firm's dashboard?+
Firm dashboards tell you when you've blown it. Guardian tells you when you're about to. It runs on your chart in real time, with visual safety zones, your own custom buffer, and audible alerts. And it adds something no firm dashboard does: a Discipline Score that measures how you traded, not just your P&L.
Does Auto Flatten actually close my trades?+
Yes, when enabled. Auto Flatten submits a flatten request when your buffer condition fires. If Bracket Boss is loaded, the flatten routes through Bracket Boss for clean order management. Auto Flatten is opt-in — off by default — and not a substitute for broker-side enforcement.
What's Daily Closeout?+
An optional setting that locks the local account at a configurable Eastern Time (default examples: 16:59 / 4:59 PM). When closeout fires, Guardian flattens (if armed) and disables further trading actions. End-of-day discipline without depending on willpower.
Do I need Bracket Boss to use Drawdown Guardian?+
No — Guardian is a fully functional risk dashboard on its own. The Discipline Score and Stat Sheet do require the Bracket Boss event ledger to be useful, since that's where the events come from. Together, the two tools are the complete Shadow Edge Tools experience.
Can I export my Stat Sheet?+
Yes. The Stat Sheet exports to CSV and print-ready HTML. Open the HTML in any browser and use Print → Save as PDF. Trade-journal-ready out of the box.
What happens if NinjaTrader crashes?+
Guardian itself doesn't manage orders, so a crash doesn't leave you with orphaned exposure (Bracket Boss handles that). The discipline-event CSV ledger is persisted, so when Guardian comes back up your Stat Sheet picks up where it left off.
Go deeper
Background on the concepts and patterns this product is built around.
- Risk Management · 9 min readTrailing Drawdown vs End-of-Day Drawdown: The Complete Prop Trader's Guide
Most prop accounts don't get blown by bad trades — they get blown by traders who don't fully understand which drawdown rule they're trading under. Here's how each one works, and why trailing drawdown is the silent killer.
Read the guide - NinjaTrader · 11 min readNinjaTrader 8 Risk Management Setup: A Prop Trader's Playbook
NinjaTrader 8 is the dominant platform for funded futures traders, but its default risk setup is minimal. Here's the layered risk stack we use to keep funded accounts alive — what NT8 gives you out of the box, what's missing, and how to fill the gaps.
Read the guide - Trading Psychology · 8 min readHow to Measure Your Trading Discipline (and Why P&L Doesn't Tell You)
Two traders take the same setups, follow the same plan, and end the month with identical P&L. One was disciplined every step of the way; the other got lucky on three trades that should have been losses. P&L can't tell them apart. Discipline scoring can.
Read the guide
Drawdown Guardian is launching soon.
Join the early-access list and we'll email you the moment Drawdown Guardian is available. Launch price $149 — one-time purchase, lifetime updates.