Apex Trader Funding $50K, Week One

Week-one totals: +$1,420 net of fees. Eight trading sessions, twenty-two trades, one near-disaster on Wednesday.

This is post one of an open field test of the Apex $50K evaluation. The rules everyone quotes — trailing drawdown, $2,500 minimum profit, 4–5 days of trading — sound simple on paper. In practice, the trailing drawdown is the part that bends your decision-making in the second half of the week. Here's what that looked like, session by session.

Setup

• Platform: NinjaTrader 8, Rithmic data feed
• Instrument: MES (Micro E-mini S&P 500)
• Rule sheet read date: 2026-04-12
• Account high-water mark: $50,000 (trailing $2,500)

Monday — slow

The opening drive went nowhere. Two scratch trades, one for +$15, the other for –$30. I logged off at 11:00 New York time.

I'd argue 90% of the value of a prop challenge is just choosing not to trade. Monday's not the day a trailing-drawdown account needs to take a swing.

Tuesday — the move

…(continues)

Why does this matter for the post? Most prop firm reviews are
snapshots — pass or fail at the end. We're publishing the running
numbers because the run-up is where the real lessons are. We'll update
this post in-place with each session through the end of the challenge.

More on Wednesday's near-bust in part two.