Prop Challenge Odds – User Guide

Prop Challenge Odds — Northline Algo · product page · real MT5 demo video

Contents

1. Overview
2. Installation
3. Exporting a profile (before or at the start of a challenge)
4. Tracking your challenge
5. Reading the panel
6. How the odds are computed
7. The suggested risk
8. Alerts, report and files
9. Input parameters
10. Messages and troubleshooting
11. Strategy Tester and demo
12. Honest limits and support

1. Overview

Prop Challenge Odds estimates your chance to pass the prop challenge you are trading now, starting from where you stand: your balance, the loss you have already taken today, the peak your trailing drawdown follows, the trading days done and the days left.

It works like this:

1. it rebuilds each of your past trading days from the account history: the day's result and the worst and best equity reached during the day, open positions included (M1 prices);
2. it replays those days thousands of times, in random blocks, against the rules of your challenge, starting from your current state;
3. it counts how many paths reach the target, and why the others fail;
4. it repeats the calculation on resampled histories to give a range, and tries other risk levels to find the one with the best odds.

You get the odds and their range, the day-by-day curve, the suggested risk, the room you have left in trades, the expected cost to get funded, alerts and an HTML report.

The tool never places, modifies or closes a trade on a live chart. It gives no trading signal and makes no market forecast.

2. Installation

1. After purchase or rental, Prop Challenge Odds appears in Navigator → Expert Advisors → Market.
2. Open any chart. The symbol of the chart does not matter: the tool reads the account, not the chart.
3. Drag Prop Challenge Odds onto the chart, set the inputs (sections 3 and 4) and press OK.

Algo Trading does not need to be enabled: the tool only reads the account.

3. Exporting a profile (before or at the start of a challenge)

A new challenge account has no history, so there is nothing to learn the odds from. The profile solves this: it is a small file that holds your trading days, taken from another account where your EA or your strategy already ran (a demo account, a previous challenge, a personal account).

1. Log in to the account where your strategy already ran, in the same MetaTrader 5 or in another terminal on the same computer.
2. Attach Prop Challenge Odds to any chart with Mode = Export a profile.
3. To export one EA only, set Magic number (manual trades have magic number 0). Keep -1 for all trades. History length sets how many days back to read (365 by default).
4. Press OK. The panel shows Profile exported with the file name, the number of trading days and of trades.

The file is written to the common folder of MetaTrader 5 (File → Open Data Folder, then up two levels, Common\Files\Northline\Odds). Every terminal of the computer can read it.

If the challenge account itself already has trading days from before the challenge, you do not need a profile: leave Profile file empty and those days are used.

4. Tracking your challenge

1. On the challenge account, attach Prop Challenge Odds to any chart with Mode = Track the challenge.
2. Choose the Rules preset (2-step 10/5/10, 1-step 10/4/6 trailing) or Custom, and fill the custom rules so they match your firm exactly (section 9).
3. Set the Current phase (1 or 2) and the Challenge start date (0 = the first trade of this account).
4. Set the Challenge fee if you want the expected cost to get funded.
5. Set the Daily reset hour: the server hour at which your firm resets the daily loss.
6. Type the Profile file name from section 3 (with or without .csv ).
7. Press OK. The odds appear after a few seconds.

The odds are updated after every closed trade, at every daily reset, and when your equity moves (checked every minute).

5. Reading the panel

• Header: the rules, the phase, the initial balance and the trades used for the profile.
• Chance to pass: the estimated probability, with:
• range: the 10th to 90th percentile over the resampled histories (a short history gives a wide range);
• both phases: on a 2-step in phase 1, the chance to pass phase 1 and then phase 2;
• was X% earlier today: shown when the odds dropped by 10 points or more since the first estimate of the day;
• Main risk: the rule most failing paths break (daily loss, max drawdown, time limit) and the median number of days left to the target.
• Day-by-day curve: your odds at the end of each day since the tool was attached; the dashed line is 50%.
• Suggested risk: see section 7. The small curve below shows the odds for every risk level, from 0.25x to 2x your lot. The green dot is the suggestion, the blue dot your current risk.
• Rules: progress to the target, share of today's loss limit used, share of the drawdown room used, trading days done and left.
• Room left at current risk: how many average losing trades you can still take today, and before the drawdown floor; then the expected cost to get funded (fee × expected attempts: this one, then fresh starts if it fails) and the average number of attempts.
• Footer: where the profile comes from and whether your challenge is in line with it.

When a limit appears to have been hit, the panel shows RULE LIKELY BREACHED and the rule. When the target and the minimum days are met, it shows TARGET REACHED (and, in phase 1, your chance to pass phase 2 from a fresh start).

6. How the odds are computed

• Trading days. Each day runs from one daily reset to the next. For each day the tool keeps the result, the worst intraday equity and the best intraday equity, as fractions of the balance at the start of the day. Days where a position was held but nothing closed still count, because their floating loss counts for your firm. Empty weekdays are kept, so how often you trade is part of the profile.
• Risk scale. Trading k times your lot multiplies a day's result, worst and best equity by k. No stop-loss is needed for this.
• Current state. Each path starts from your real balance and equity, the loss already used today, the peak of a trailing drawdown, the trading days done and the days elapsed. The rest of today is simulated as one more day drawn from your profile.
• Paths. Days are drawn in blocks of 1 to 5 consecutive days, so losing streaks stay together. A path ends when it reaches the target with the minimum trading days and the consistency rule met, when it breaks a rule, or when it runs out of time. With no time limit, a path that has not reached the target after about a year counts as too slow.
• Range. The whole calculation is repeated on 20 resampled versions of your history (1,000 paths each by default). The odds are the average, and the range runs from the 10th to the 90th percentile.
• Drift. The tool compares the average day of your challenge with your profile. After 5 challenge days, if the gap is too large to be chance (z-score beyond 2), the odds are greyed out with an explanation, and your challenge days get more weight in the draws.

7. The suggested risk

The tool computes your odds for 7 risk levels (0.25x, 0.5x, 0.75x, 1x, 1.25x, 1.5x, 2x your current lot). For each level it also tries stopping for the rest of today and starting again tomorrow at that level.

• The suggestion is the level with the best odds. Another level only replaces it if it does at least one point better, and ties go to the smaller risk.
• Stop for today → X% means that closing your exposure for today and continuing tomorrow gives better odds than trading on.
• More risk is never suggested unless your past days show a statistically proven edge (an average day at least two standard errors above zero). Without such an edge, a bigger lot can raise the odds of a lucky pass, but it is a gamble. The tool will not recommend it.
• If your trades have stops, the panel also shows the equivalent risk per trade in percent.

The suggestion is a decision aid based on your past days. You stay in charge of your trading.

8. Alerts, report and files

• Alerts: a pop-up (and a push notification if enabled) when your odds drop by Alert drop points or more since the first estimate of the day, or fall below Alert below. Each alert fires at most once per day.
• HTML report: odds_latest.html, refreshed at most every 10 minutes. It opens in any browser, on a computer or a phone: odds and range, suggested risk, room left, expected cost, the day-by-day curve, odds by risk level and your rules.
• CSV: odds_latest.csv with the same key figures.
• History: one file per challenge (account number and start date) with every estimate. It redraws the day-by-day curve after a restart.

All these files are in File → Open Data Folder → MQL5 → Files → Northline → Odds. Exported profiles are in the common folder (section 3).

9. Input parameters

10. Messages and troubleshooting

• "Not enough history": fewer than 5 traded days. Export a profile from an account with more history (section 3), or keep trading: the estimate starts by itself.
• "profile file not found" (Experts log): the file must be in Common\Files\Northline\Odds and its name typed exactly. The tool then uses this account's history instead.
• "… is not a Prop Challenge Odds profile": the file was edited or is not a profile. Export it again.
• "Check the inputs": a rule or a setting is out of range; the panel says which one.
• "Profile not representative": your challenge days differ clearly from the profile (section 6). The odds are less reliable until the challenge history grows.
• "N deposit(s) in the window: % approximate": deposits or withdrawals in the profile period distort the daily percentages. Export a profile from a period without them.
• "Export not available here": profiles are exported from a live or demo account, not in the Strategy Tester.

11. Strategy Tester and demo

The Strategy Tester has no live challenge to follow. In the tester (and therefore in the free demo of the Market), the tool opens its own small demonstration trades on the tested symbol: an EMA 20/50 trend system on H1, 0.5% risk, stop-loss 1.5 ATR, take-profit 2 ATR. It tracks a 2-step 10/5/10 challenge on them with a built-in demonstration profile. Run it in visual mode to watch the odds, the curve and the suggested risk change. Over long periods the demonstration system usually breaks the drawdown rule: it has no lasting edge, which is exactly what the panel shows.

The demo only shows how the panel works. Your own odds come from your own trades.

12. Honest limits and support

• The odds describe what your past trading days imply under these rules. They are not a market forecast and not a promise of results.
• They are only as good as the profile: a few days, or a strategy that has changed, give unreliable odds. The range and the drift alert show it.
• Past intraday equity is rebuilt from M1 bars at their worst and best prices; your firm's own tick-by-tick measurement can differ slightly.
• Some firm-specific rule variants may not match the presets exactly: use Custom and check your firm's rules.

Questions, a value that looks wrong, a rule your firm uses that is not covered: write to me through my MQL5 profile. I answer every message.