Why Do Traders Fail The5ers High Stakes? 10 Common Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
Passing a prop firm evaluation is not only about making enough profit. It is about making that profit while staying inside a defined risk framework.
That is particularly important with The5ers High Stakes, a two-step evaluation with a 10% maximum loss, 5% daily loss limit, no fixed evaluation deadline, and a requirement for three profitable days in each phase. The evaluation account becomes inactive after 30 consecutive days without trading.
Those rules leave traders considerable room to develop a strategy, but they also create several ways to fail if risk is poorly controlled or the rules are misunderstood.
Here are 10 common mistakes traders should understand before starting a High Stakes evaluation.
The5ers High Stakes Rules: Where Traders Most Often Go Wrong
Are traders failing High Stakes because of the 10% maximum loss and 5% daily loss limits?
The most obvious failure point is exceeding one of the account's drawdown limits.
The current High Stakes rules use two separate thresholds:
- ●5% daily loss
- ●10% maximum loss from the initial balance
The daily limit is calculated using the higher of the previous day's closing balance or equity. The calculation resets at 00:00 server time.
For a $100,000 account, that means a 5% daily limit represents $5,000, while the absolute maximum loss is $10,000.
Mistake #1: Treating the entire drawdown allowance as normal trading risk.
A $10,000 maximum loss does not mean a trader should risk $5,000 on a single setup. The purpose of the limit is to define the account's failure boundary, not a recommended position size.
Mistake #2: Monitoring only closed losses.
Floating losses can affect the account's equity and therefore matter when calculating whether the daily threshold has been breached.
A trader should monitor both balance and equity rather than waiting for a trade to close before checking risk.
How do unlimited evaluation time, minimum profitable days, and the inactivity rule affect a High Stakes trading plan?
High Stakes does not impose a fixed deadline for completing the two evaluation phases. That can be useful for traders who prefer to wait for their normal setups instead of increasing risk simply because a deadline is approaching.
However, unlimited evaluation time does not mean the account can remain untouched indefinitely.
The current rules state that evaluation accounts expire after 30 consecutive days without activity. Funded accounts have a 60-day inactivity limit.
Mistake #3: Confusing no time limit with no activity requirement.
There is another important requirement: High Stakes requires three profitable days in each evaluation phase. A profitable day is currently defined as a day where closed positions generate at least 0.5% of the initial balance under the program's calculation.
That means a trader should understand the difference between:
no deadline ≠ no trading requirements.
Related Read: The5ers Bootcamp vs Hyper Growth vs Pro Growth vs High Stakes: Which Program Fits Your Trading Style in 2026?
The 10 Common The5ers High Stakes Mistakes That Can Fail an Evaluation
Why do traders risk too much, revenge trade, or increase position size after a losing trade?
Most evaluation failures can be traced back to the way risk is managed after something goes wrong.
Mistake #4: Increasing position size after a loss.
A losing trade can create pressure to recover the account quickly. Increasing size immediately after that loss can turn a normal drawdown into a daily-limit problem.
Mistake #5: Revenge trading.
Taking another trade simply because the previous trade lost changes the reason for entering the market. The trader is no longer following the original setup.
Mistake #6: Risking too much to reach the profit target faster.
High Stakes has a 10% Phase 1 target and 5% Phase 2 target. Trying to reach the target in a few trades can create unnecessary exposure.
A slower approach can be more compatible with the structure because there is no fixed evaluation deadline.
How do overtrading, changing strategies, ignoring stop losses, and chasing the target lead to account failure?
There are four more common mistakes.
Mistake #7: Overtrading.
Taking marginal setups after the daily target has already been reached can turn a profitable session into a losing one.
Mistake #8: Changing strategy midway through the evaluation.
A trader who switches between scalping, swing trading, news trading, and discretionary entries can lose the consistency of the original system.
Mistake #9: Moving or removing stop losses.
A predefined risk level only works if it is respected. Moving a stop farther away because the trade is losing increases the amount of capital exposed.
Mistake #10: Chasing the evaluation target.
The profit target is an objective to reach, not a reason to increase risk.
This is where trader psychology becomes relevant. The evaluation creates a financial consequence for impulsive decisions, so having a written risk plan before starting can reduce the need to make emotional decisions during the session.
Related Read: The5ers EA Violations: 7 Things Traders Get Wrong and How to Avoid Them
High Stakes Drawdown and Risk Management: Understanding the Rules
How does The5ers calculate daily loss and maximum drawdown on a High Stakes account?
The two limits work differently.
Maximum loss is 10% of the initial account balance.
Daily loss is 5% and is calculated from the higher of the previous day's closing balance or equity at the daily reset.
Consider a simplified $100,000 example.
If the account reaches $110,000 at the daily rollover, the next day's 5% daily-loss threshold is calculated from $110,000 rather than the original $100,000.
That makes the daily threshold $5,500.
The account would therefore breach the daily limit if equity fell below $104,500 under that example. The5ers provides essentially this example in its current drawdown guidance.
This is why traders should not calculate risk only from the original account size.
How should position size, leverage, stop losses, and open risk be managed?
High Stakes currently provides leverage of up to 1:100 on Forex, while indices and metals have a 1:25 margin-based leverage level, commodities 1:5, and crypto 1:2. The firm also currently notes a temporary 1:5 leverage adjustment on Oil for certain $50K and $100K funded accounts.
Leverage is therefore not the same thing as recommended risk.
A practical position-sizing process is:
Account risk → stop distance → position size → total open exposure.
For example, if a trader decides that a single trade should risk 0.5% of a $100,000 account, the planned loss is $500. The position size should then be calculated from the stop distance rather than simply using the largest available lot size.
This approach also helps preserve room for several trades instead of allowing one position to consume a large part of the daily limit.
Related Read: The5ers Risk Management Rules Explained: Drawdown, Position Sizing & Consistency 2026 Guide
News Trading, Consistency, and Other Rules Traders Commonly Misread
Can you hold trades through NFP, CPI, and FOMC on The5ers High Stakes?
Yes. The current High Stakes rules allow existing positions to remain open during high-impact news.
However, there is an important restriction.
New orders cannot be executed from two minutes before until two minutes after a relevant high-impact news release. The rule applies to market orders as well as pending entry orders that are triggered during the restricted period.
For example, if CPI is scheduled for 15:30 server time, a new order cannot execute between 15:28 and 15:32.
What happens if a pending order executes during the restricted news window?
The important detail is when the order executes, not simply when the pending order was placed.
A pending order placed before the restricted period can still become a violation if it triggers inside the two-minute window. The5ers states that profits generated from an order executed during the restricted period will not count toward the target, while losses remain the trader's responsibility.
This creates another practical mistake:
Mistake #11 would be treating pending orders as exempt from the news rule.
For High Stakes traders, pending entries around CPI, NFP, FOMC, and similar releases therefore need to be managed carefully.
Existing trades can remain open, but that does not eliminate the possibility of their stop loss or take profit being triggered during the announcement.
From Evaluation to Funded Account: How to Avoid Repeating the Same Mistakes
What changes after passing The5ers High Stakes, and how do consistency, payouts, and scaling affect the trading plan?
Passing the evaluation is not the end of the risk-management process.
Once funded, traders can request payouts every two weeks through the dashboard, subject to the applicable payout requirements and limits. The current High Stakes rules list a $3,000 payout cap for a $50K account and $4,000 for a $100K account, with minimum P&L requirements for requesting a payout.
The funded account also has a 50% consistency requirement under the current 2-Step plan structure.
That means a trader should not assume that the evaluation and funded stages are identical.
The trading objective changes from:
"Can I reach the target?"
to:
"Can I produce repeatable profits while satisfying the funded-account rules?"
How can traders build a long-term High Stakes account-growth framework instead of focusing only on passing?
The5ers currently provides a scaling pathway that can take High Stakes accounts toward $500,000. The program's published profit-share structure starts at 80% and can increase toward 100% as traders reach the applicable milestones.
The current program also provides fixed monthly payout milestones at higher account balances. The5ers states that High Stakes traders can become eligible for a $4,000 monthly fixed payout at $350,000 and $10,000 at $500,000, subject to the program's conditions.
This creates a different way to think about the evaluation.
Instead of building a plan around "pass as quickly as possible," traders can build one around:
controlled risk → consistent returns → payout → scaling → larger allocation → improved profit share.
That framework can be particularly relevant to traders who want the account to become part of a longer-term trading process.
Related Read: The5ers From Evaluation to Funded Trader: What Changes After You Pass in 2026
How to Build a Better The5ers High Stakes Trading Plan Before You Buy
What should traders check before choosing a High Stakes account size, risk level, and trading style?
Before purchasing an account, traders should answer a few practical questions.
What is my normal risk per trade?
If the strategy normally requires unusually large stops or concentrated positions, it should be tested against the High Stakes drawdown rules first.
How frequently do I trade?
A trader who waits several weeks between setups needs to account for the 30-day evaluation inactivity rule.
Do I trade around major news?
If yes, existing positions can remain open, but new executions around high-impact releases are restricted.
Do I hold overnight or over weekends?
High Stakes permits overnight and weekend holding, including indices, although weekend index positions can incur high swaps.
Can my strategy produce consistent results?
This becomes even more important after funding because the funded account has its own consistency requirements.
Can a structured risk plan improve consistency, trader psychology, and long-term account development?
A structured plan cannot guarantee that an evaluation will succeed, but it can reduce the number of decisions a trader has to improvise under pressure.
A useful High Stakes trading plan could define:
- ●maximum risk per trade;
- ●maximum trades per session;
- ●maximum daily loss used internally;
- ●stop-loss rules;
- ●position-sizing formula;
- ●news-event procedure;
- ●maximum correlated exposure;
- ●conditions for stopping after a losing streak;
- ●weekly review process;
- ●payout and scaling objectives.
The goal is to create a system where the firm's maximum loss is a final boundary rather than the trader's normal risk budget.
That distinction matters.
A trader who builds the strategy around the 5% daily limit is operating very differently from one who treats the 5% limit as an emergency ceiling and maintains a much smaller internal risk allowance.
Should You Choose The5ers High Stakes?
High Stakes is most relevant to traders who want a two-step evaluation with no fixed completion deadline, defined drawdown limits, overnight and weekend holding, and a published scaling pathway. The current program also provides multiple account sizes and a funded payout process with biweekly withdrawal requests.
The trade-offs should also be understood before buying.
The program has a 5% daily loss limit, 10% maximum loss, a 50% funded-stage consistency requirement, minimum profitable-day requirements during evaluation, and restrictions on new order execution around high-impact news.
So the key buying question is not simply:
"Can I pass The5ers High Stakes?"
A better question is:
"Does my existing trading system fit the High Stakes rules well enough to remain sustainable after I pass?"
That shift can prevent one of the biggest mistakes traders make with prop evaluations: choosing an account based on its headline target or account size without first testing the rules against their actual trading method.
Final Takeaway
Failing a High Stakes evaluation is not necessarily about having a losing strategy.
Often, the bigger issue is a mismatch between the strategy and the account's rules.
The most important areas to understand before trading are daily drawdown, maximum loss, position sizing, profitable-day requirements, inactivity, news execution, funded consistency, payouts, and scaling.
The5ers High Stakes provides a relatively clear path from a two-step evaluation toward funded trading and subsequent account growth. The absence of a fixed evaluation deadline can also allow traders to focus on their normal setups rather than trading simply to beat a countdown. At the same time, the program's drawdown, consistency, news, and payout rules need to be built into the trading plan from the beginning.
For traders considering an evaluation, the most useful next step is to compare their own risk model against the program rules before purchasing. That makes the buying decision about strategy fit and long-term account development, rather than simply account size or headline profit target.
For more prop firm comparisons, scaling guides, The5ers rule breakdowns, and trader education, explore Prop Firm Insider.