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CME price limit

CME Price Limits

Risk management

Definition

The maximum range a futures contract is allowed to move in a session before the exchange halts or limits its trading. Some prop firms prohibit trading when the price is close to the limit, within 2% of it.

Detailed explanation

Limits are calculated from the settlement price and updated daily. When a contract reaches a limit, the market can temporarily halt, trade only within a limited range, or stop trading until the end of the day, and an open position might get stuck without an exit. On normal days, this is not relevant. On a day of an unusual crash or surge, this is a rule that disqualifies accounts, so it's advisable to add a % Net Change column to your platform and monitor it.

An example from the prop world

According to Topstep's published method: when the price limit is 5%, you stop trading when the Net Change % reaches 3%. On ES with a settlement of 2,814, this means stopping above 2,898 and below 2,730.

How it works at the firms on this site

Based on the rules listed on our firm pages. Rules get updated, so check the firm's page before buying.

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High-Impact News

Timed economic releases that sharply move the market within seconds: Fed interest rate decisions (FOMC), Consumer Price Index (CPI), and the Employment Report (NFP). In economic calendars, they are marked in red, hence the nickname Red Folder. Some prop firms prohibit being in a position around them.

Futures trading day

The futures trading day doesn't start in the morning: it opens the evening before, at 18:00 New York time, and closes the afternoon of the next day. According to this boundary, firms reset the daily loss limit, calculate the EOD drawdown floor, and count trading days.

Slippage

The difference between the price at which you wanted to enter or exit and the price at which the order was actually filled. It mainly occurs with market and stop orders, during sharp movements, news, and hours of low liquidity.

End-of-day (EOD) trailing drawdown

End-of-day drawdown (EOD Drawdown) is a trailing maximum loss limit rule in which the loss threshold moves up only once a day, based on the closing balance. At most firms, however, the threshold itself is enforced in real time, so touching it during the trading day fails the account.

Intraday trailing drawdown

This is a risk management limit calculated continuously in real time throughout the trading day. It tracks the account's peak balance (including realized profits and unrealized profits from open positions), so the loss threshold always rises together with the peak balance while keeping a fixed distance, but never goes down; crossing this threshold at any moment (even for a single second) causes immediate failure or closure of the account.

Maximum loss limit

The maximum amount an account may fall below its reference point before it's disqualified. At prop firms it's also called the MLL (Maximum Loss Limit), and each firm calculates it differently: intraday trailing, end-of-day trailing or static.