Vanguard is the instant funding program in the Upcomers Futures lineup. Unlike Thunderbolt Classic and Thunderbolt Legacy, there is no challenge to pass and no profit target to hit first. You buy the account, it is funded, and you trade the funded rules straight away on the DXtrade platform. There is no Trial Phase, so you go straight to your funded account.

Because you skip the evaluation, Vanguard trades a little differently from an evaluation program: the trailing drawdown is set at 3% (rather than the 4% on a passed Classic or Legacy account), and you need a minimum of 5 trading days before your first payout. Everything else works the way it does on a funded Thunderbolt Classic account: the 99% profit split, the 1.5% max trade loss, the 2% daily drawdown, and the 20% Best Day Rule.

Vanguard is available up to a $300K account. Every rule below is stated as a percentage of your account size, so the dollar figures scale with the account you buy. Two common sizes look like this:

The trailing drawdown is our Dynamic Risk Shield. It sets a floor under your account that follows your equity higher as you make money.

How it trails (real-time): the floor starts 3% below your starting balance and moves up in real time as your equity makes new highs, staying 3% below your highest equity point.

When it locks: once your account grows by 3%, the Dynamic Risk Shield stops trailing and locks permanently at your initial balance. After it locks it becomes static and no longer moves, so you can keep trading without the drawdown chasing your profits. This is the same lock model as the CFD Dynamic Risk Shield.

Example on a $50K account. Your trailing drawdown is 3%, so $1,500. The floor starts at $48,500. As your equity climbs, the floor trails $1,500 below your highest equity point in real time. Once your equity reaches $51,500 (3% growth), the floor has trailed up to $50,000, your initial balance, and locks there permanently.

Example on a $100K account. The trailing drawdown is $3,000. The floor starts at $97,000 and trails $3,000 below your highest equity point in real time. Once your equity hits $103,000 (3% growth), the floor has trailed to $100,000, your initial balance, and locks there permanently.

Because the floor moves in real time, it follows your open trade to new highs and back, not just your closed balance. If your equity touches the floor, the account is breached.

Trailing vs daily drawdown. These are two separate limits and both are always active. The trailing drawdown is the floor under your whole account over its lifetime. The daily drawdown is a separate, tighter limit that only measures the current trading day and resets every evening. Whichever one you hit first ends the account.

Vanguard has a 2% daily drawdown. This caps how much your account can fall within a single trading day.

How it is calculated: your daily loss limit is set from the higher of your equity or your balance at the daily reset snapshot, times (1 minus 2%). Your account is breached if your equity falls below that limit at any point during the day. On a breach, all open positions close automatically at market.

Reset time: the daily drawdown resets at 5:00 PM ET. This is the futures-industry standard daily boundary on DXtrade, not midnight UTC. Your daily loss limit for the new session is set from the higher of your equity or balance at that 5:00 PM ET reset.

Example on a $50K account. Your daily drawdown is 2%, so $1,000. If you start the session at $50,000, your account cannot fall below $49,000 that day. If you start the next session at $51,000 (after a green day), the new floor for that day is $49,980. On a $100K account the daily limit is $2,000.

No single open trade may lose more than 1.5% of your account size. That is $750 on a $50K account and $1,500 on a $100K account. Size your positions and set your stops so that no one trade can breach this cap.

This is a hard rule. Breaking the max trade loss triggers an automatic breach and terminates the account, even if your overall account is still in profit. It is not a soft, payout-only limit like the Best Day Rule.

How positions are counted: multiple positions on the same instrument in the same direction are treated as a single trade for this rule, so their combined loss counts together. You cannot split one large position into several to stay under the cap.

Vanguard lets you hold positions overnight. It does not allow weekend holds. If you want to carry trades across the weekend, Thunderbolt Legacy is the program built for that. Remember that the daily drawdown still applies to overnight positions and resets at 5:00 PM ET.

Vanguard uses a 20% Best Day Rule. No single trading day may account for more than 20% of your total profit at the time you request a payout.

This is a soft rule. It does not kill your account. It gates payout eligibility. If your best day is more than 20% of your total profit, you keep trading until the balance of your days brings that share back within the limit, then you can request the payout.

Example. If you want to withdraw and your total profit is $5,000, no single day can make up more than $1,000 of that (20%). One $3,000 day out of a $5,000 total would put you over the limit, so you would keep trading to spread your profit across more days before requesting the payout.

Vanguard requires a minimum number of trading days before your first payout, and every request has to meet the standard funded payout conditions.

Minimum trading days: you need at least 5 trading days before your first payout. A qualifying trading day requires at least 0.5% profit on that day. A day where you trade but do not reach 0.5% profit does not count toward your 5-day minimum. These 5 days do not have to be consecutive.

Once you have met the trading-day minimum, every payout request has to meet the standard funded payout conditions:

There is no fixed payout interval. Once you meet the conditions, you can request. Approved payouts are processed the same day, just like our CFD product. You keep 99% of your profit.

A processing fee applies when your payout is sent. The fee depends on how you choose to receive it:

Bank transfer: $19.90 + 2.49%.

Crypto: $19.90 + 30%. This is reduced to $19.90 + 2.49% if your original order was paid in crypto.

Crypto payouts are sent on USDT TRC20 or USDC ERC20. The fee is deducted before the transfer is sent.

An account left with no trading for 14 calendar days is closed automatically. Place at least one trade inside that window to keep your Vanguard account active. The inactivity clock counts calendar days, starts at purchase (even before your first trade), and resets each time you close a trade. A closed account cannot be reactivated. If your account is closed for inactivity, you would start a new one.

Is there a profit target?

No. Vanguard is instant funding. You start funded and trade the funded rules from your first trade.

When can I take my first payout?

After a minimum of 5 trading days (a day only counts if you make at least 0.5% profit on it), once you also meet the standard conditions (at least 1% profit since your last payout, best day within the 20% limit, all positions closed, minimum $100).

What breaches the account?

Touching the 3% trailing floor, breaking the 2% daily drawdown, or losing more than 1.5% on a single open trade. The Best Day Rule does not breach the account, it only gates payouts.

Can I hold trades overnight?

Yes, overnight is allowed. Weekend holds are not. For weekend positions, use Thunderbolt Legacy.

What is my profit split?

99%. You keep 99% of your profit.

If you are still deciding between programs, see how to choose your futures program and the Upcomers Futures programs overview. For the mechanics behind the numbers, see tick size and tick value explained and how to calculate P&L on futures.

Have a question about Vanguard? Start a chat with our team from the help center, or email us at [email protected].