A 50K Apex Intraday Performance Account, traded competently, on a day that finished green on every closed trade but one. Every number below is computed from Apex's own published rules, not invented.
09:31Apex 50K Intraday PA
Room before liquidation
$2,000
Market opens. The floor sits $2,000 below you, exactly where the sales page said it would.
Nothing is simulated. The engine computes each step.
He never closed a loser bigger than $800.
Realized profit going into that last trade was +$950. Three of his four trades made money. He did nothing a risk manager would call reckless.
The floor climbed from $48,000 to $49,750 because his equity touched $51,750 on an open position he never banked. It moved the instant the tick printed. It never came back down. By 2pm his real room was $400, not the $2,000 he believed he had, and he had no way to see it.
Why this happens to good traders
On an intraday-trailing account, the floor does not follow your balance. It follows the highest your equity has ever printed, including profit you never closed. A trade that runs $1,000 in your favour and exits at $400 pays you $400 and costs you $1,000 of room, permanently.
Do that three times in a morning, as any trader who lets winners breathe will, and you have handed back $1,750 of survival distance while booking $950 of profit. You are now trading a $250 account that says $50,950 on the screen.
The account was already dead at 11:09. The 1pm trade just collected the body.
Apex publishes this. It is not hidden and it is not a scam. But it is described in prose, on a help page, in a way that does not survive contact with a fast market, and no platform shows you the number while you are in the trade.