Touching the Daily Loss Line: What Prop Firm Risk Guardian PRO Does
Prop Firm Risk Guardian comes in two editions on the MT5 Market. The free edition is Prop Firm Risk Guardian and the paid one is Prop Firm Risk Guardian PRO. Both watch the daily loss line of a challenge or funded account, and the difference is what happens when the line is touched. The free edition turns the panel red and tells you. Pro also closes positions by itself and refuses new orders from its own panel. This post follows that one moment, equity reaching the daily loss limit, and sets out what each edition does, what neither can do, and who needs the closing part.
What both editions do
Both are an Expert Advisor with a panel on a chart. They track the daily loss, the maximum drawdown and the profit target, show how much room is left in each, and work out the largest lot their sizing rules allow for your stop. Daily loss is measured from the day's anchor down to current equity. By default the anchor is the balance at the daily reset hour you set in server time; on the day you attach the panel, it is the balance at that moment, so a loss taken earlier that day is not counted. Because it is equity, a floating loss counts in full, before you close anything.
The panel has three states. SAFE is the normal one. CAUTION comes earlier, and an input sets how low the room may fall before the panel turns amber. Since version 1.19, CAUTION also tightens the panel before the stop: the strip shows how much more can be lost before LOCKDOWN, and the max lot on the panel is multiplied by an input that is 0.5 by default, so it is halved (1.0 leaves it as it was). The limits themselves do not move. LOCKDOWN is the red one: the daily loss or the drawdown has reached its limit, so it can come from the drawdown as well as from the daily line. In LOCKDOWN a card on the panel now names the limit that was hit: for the daily limit, today's loss against the limit and the time of the next daily reset; for the drawdown, that it does not reset when the day rolls over. A popup is on by default and a push message to your phone is available but off. LOCKDOWN is announced at once, while the other two states are announced only after they have held for a short while.
The anchor is stored for the account and the day, not for the chart, and the manual says that reopening a chart does not refill the gauges. So if you remove the panel and attach it again the same day, or restart the terminal, you should not get a fresh day: while equity is still past the limit, the panel should show LOCKDOWN again. I say should because I have checked this in the code and have not staged it on a live account. The one deliberate way to start over is an input that re-takes the baseline, meant for a new challenge.
Neither edition opens a position on its own.
What the free edition does at the line
In LOCKDOWN the free edition shows a red strip that says the limit is hit and to close manually. It closes nothing and does not touch your orders. It cannot, because the trading code is not in that build. What you get is the signal at the moment you cross, on screen, in a popup and, if you switch it on, on your phone. What you do next is yours.
What only Pro adds
First, the automatic flatten. It is on by default, under the input named Close all + block on breach. When the state becomes LOCKDOWN, Pro starts one flatten. It does not take a close order as done: it counts the positions again and sends again to what is still open, for several rounds. The result is announced once, and a failure turns the strip solid red with the lots still open. If the terminal cannot close anything, for example because Algo Trading is off, the last line of the panel says so before you need it.
Second, what it closes. By default that is every open position on the chart's symbol, whatever its magic number, so positions from other EAs or opened by hand are included. Pending orders are left alone. An input can widen the scope to the whole account. Pro does not stop other EAs or manual trading. What it blocks is the BUY and SELL buttons of its own panel. That happens in LOCKDOWN, while it is closing and, since 1.19, after a position on the account is closed by its stop-loss, for 10 minutes by default. The length is an input, and 0 turns the pause off; a position opened outside the panel during the pause is reported once and left open. If a new position appears in the scope while the account is still past the limit, such as an EA entering again or a pending order filling, the flatten is armed again and closes that too. By the same reading of the code, attaching Pro again while the account is still in LOCKDOWN starts a flatten on what is open in its scope. I have not staged that either.
Third, a FLATTEN button for the same procedure whenever you want it, with two taps to confirm, in any state. Pro also has order buttons, which in CAUTION send no more than the narrowed lot, and an optional Auto SL/TP for orders placed outside the panel. This post leaves those aside. There is also an e-mail and a sound for the alerts, both off by default.
What neither edition can do
It reacts after the limit is reached. It is not in the path of your orders, so it cannot stop one before it is sent. The check runs on every tick of the chart symbol and once a second, and the loss can grow between the breach and the fill if the market gaps or the fill slips. It works only while the terminal is running and connected, and Pro needs Algo Trading on. It measures from the baseline it took, not from your firm's records, and it does not know what happened before you attached it. Firms define the daily start and the drawdown differently, and a few of those definitions cannot be set here at all, so compare the panel with your firm's own figures before you rely on it, and set the limits to your firm's rules rather than assuming the common 5 and 10 percent. A withdrawal also needs care, because the drawdown still counts it; the manual gives the steps.
Who gets something out of Pro
Pro is worth a look if you are often away from the screen while positions are open, or if you know you might hold a losing position past the line and want a rule that acts without asking you.
Who does not need it
The free edition is enough if you sit at the screen anyway and are happy to close by hand when the strip turns red, or if you want the numbers and the max lot without anything acting for you. Pro may also be the wrong tool if you run other EAs that must keep their trades, because it closes the positions on its symbol whatever their magic number. If what you want is only a warning, there is nothing to buy.
A note about the Pro demo
The Market demo of a paid product runs only in the Strategy Tester. According to the manual, the panel, the presets, the gauges and the lot sizing can be checked there. I have not checked what the tester does with the automatic flatten, so I do not say what the demo shows of it. The free edition on a live chart of a demo account is the better way to see the panel. In version 1.19, the current one as I write this, the free edition has the same gauges, the same narrowed max lot in CAUTION, and the same LOCKDOWN state and card.
My suggestion is simple: put the free edition on a demo chart, set the rules to your challenge's, and see whether the signal at the line is enough for you. If you find you would want the closing done for you, that is the day to look at Pro.
