Live Program Rules

This rulebook applies to a Live Trader: a person whom Strix Options has admitted to the Live stage and who has executed the Live Trader Agreement. It applies from the opening of the Live account until that account ends under Part K.

Admission to the Live stage is granted by Strix Options in its sole discretion. There is no application route, no entitlement and no performance figure that compels it. Nothing in this rulebook, and nothing achieved at the Evaluation or Funded stage, creates a right to be advanced.

The Live account, the capital in it and every position it holds belong to Strix Options. A Live Trader contributes no capital to it, holds no ownership, beneficial or security interest in it, and has no right to withdraw from the account itself. A Live Trader’s only financial entitlement is the profit share described in Part I.

A Live Trader bears no trading loss. A loss in the Live account is borne entirely by Strix Options, and a Live Trader is not liable for any trading loss, drawdown, deficit, negative balance, margin call or liquidation shortfall arising in it. A losing session reduces what you stand to earn. It is never a debt you owe.

A Live Trader holds exactly one Live account, irrespective of how many evaluation or funded accounts they held before it.

Allocated Capital is fixed by the single largest eligible funded plan the trader held on the date the Live Program Notice was sent, at the figure given for that plan size in Schedule 1. Plan sizes are never added together. A trader who held five funded accounts receives the same Live account as a trader who held one of the same size.

The funded plan sizes eligible for advancement are $25,000, $50,000 and $100,000. No other plan size is advanced, whatever else Strix Options sells at the Evaluation or Funded stage. Schedule 1 states the figures for each eligible size.

Eligibility is capacity to be considered and nothing further. It is not selection, it does not shorten rule 2, and it does not lower any standard for any size. The same evidential screen and the same discretion are applied to a $25,000 plan as to a $100,000 one.

Allocated Capital and Buying Power are different quantities and are not interchangeable. Allocated Capital is money actually transferred into your partition. Buying Power is the largest gross position you may carry, which margin supplies above the transferred amount. Buying Power moves under Part H; Allocated Capital does not.

Every Live account carries a Floor: an equity level which, if reached, ends the account. The Floor opens one drawdown below Allocated Capital, at the drawdown figure given for your plan size in Schedule 1.

Before the Floor locks, it trails your peak equity upward and is capped at Allocated Capital. It rises as your peak rises, it stops rising at Allocated Capital, and it never falls. A withdrawal does not move it in either direction.

The peak that moves the Floor is measured at the close of each session, on the day roll, and not continuously. Equity reached intraday and given back before the roll does not raise your Floor.

Reaching the Floor ends the Live account. Strix Options closes the open positions and the account enters a terminal state. It is not a reset, it is not a phase change, and no further trading occurs in it. No person at Strix Options can reverse it.

The Floor locks, permanently, on the first occasion when all three of the following are true:

1. realized profit in the Live account has reached the lock threshold given for your plan size in Schedule 1;
2. Strix Options holds a current, readable equity figure for the account; and
3. that equity clears the locked Floor by at least $100.

On locking, the Floor is set at the lower of Allocated Capital plus $100, and your equity at the moment of the lock less your drawdown. It is recorded at that figure and never recalculated afterwards. Where the second limb is the lower, the Floor locks below Allocated Capital plus $100 and stays there permanently.

From the moment the Floor locks, the trailing drawdown and the session loss limit in Part D both cease to apply to the account. Nothing in Parts E, F or G relaxes, in either phase.

The lock threshold for your plan size is fixed. Nothing reduces it, brings it forward or offsets it: not a withdrawal, not an account you closed, not a payout request cancelled when you moved to the Live stage, and nothing else done at any earlier stage. Realized profit in the Live account is the sole input to the threshold.

Until the Floor locks, each Live account carries a session loss limit at the figure given for your plan size in Schedule 1, being 30% of the drawdown for that size.

The session loss is measured as the account’s net liquidating value less its equity at the start of that session. It is a mark-to-market measure: unrealized losses on open positions count toward it.

Reaching the session loss limit suspends order entry for the remainder of that session. It is not a breach, it does not end the account, and the suspension clears at the start of the next trading day.

A suspension under rule 24 does not of itself close anything. Positions you are holding stay on, and the Floor continues to apply to them.

The session loss limit ceases to apply once the Floor locks, and does not apply to a locked account for any purpose.

The permitted product types are: US Stocks, US Options, US Index Options. Same-day expiries are permitted; there is no minimum time to expiry.

Strix Options applies no ticker-level restriction to a Live account. Any US listed underlying within the permitted product types may be traded, subject to the rest of this rulebook.

The following product types are prohibited:

Futures · Futures Options · Forex · Bonds · Mutual Funds · Metals · Crypto · CFDs · Warrants · Structured Products · Event Contracts

Unless Strix Options permits it in writing beforehand, a Live Trader must not:

1. sell or write any option that is not fully defined-risk, including any uncovered or naked short option;
2. hold a short option position through expiration where assignment is reasonably foreseeable;
3. exceed any position, order-size, notional or concentration limit applying to the account under Part F and Schedule 1; or
4. take any position whose maximum loss cannot be calculated at the time of entry.

Rule 31(a) is never relaxed. It applies before and after the Floor locks, it applies to every Live account, and it is the one restriction that may not be varied for an individual account at any tier.

A Live Trader must observe the limits in Schedule 1, table 2. Those limits are set per account. Where Strix Options sets a lower limit for an individual account it will be notified to you, and the lower figure then applies.

The aggregate maximum theoretical loss of your open book, taken together with any order you are about to place, must not exceed 75% of your remaining Drawdown Room at the time.

Short options within 2 days of expiry are flagged for closure, and assignable notional is capped at Allocated Capital for your plan size. Rule 31(b) is your obligation whether or not a flag is raised.

Maintenance-margin utilisation above 60% is monitored and flagged. Strix Options may require a book above that level to be reduced.

Strix Options closes options expiring the same day before the bell, at 3:55 PM ET, or at 4:10 PM ET for SPY, QQQ, IWM and DIA, which trade later. The effect is to eliminate assignment exposure on American-style contracts.

On an early-close session, the close runs at 12:55 PM ET for everything, including SPY, QQQ, IWM and DIA. There is no extended session on a half day, so the later time does not exist.

Options on the following index roots settle in cash rather than assign, are exempt from rules 38 and 39, and are left to expire:

DJX · DJXW · MRUT · NDX · OEX · RUT · RUTW · SPX · SPXW · VIX · VIXW · XEO · XSP

The aggregate maximum theoretical loss of your entire open book may not exceed 70% of your remaining Drawdown Room at the close. A book that will breach that allowance must be reduced before the enforcement window opens.

Strix Options checks the allowance at these times:

The regular window covers the whole book. The index curb window covers index positions only, which trade on after the equity bell, and does not run on an early-close session.

A book containing a position whose loss cannot be bounded, or a position Strix Options cannot obtain a price for, may not be carried overnight regardless of the allowance, and is subject to rule 43 on the same basis.

Buying Power opens at the entry figure in Schedule 1 and advances through the steps in Schedule 1, table 3, expressed as multiples of your funded plan size.

A step up requires both of the following, and profit alone never achieves it:

1. realized profit in the Live account at or above the step’s threshold; and
2. at least 30 closed trades in the Live account whose average result is statistically greater than zero, tested one-sided at the 5% level.

The test in rule 46(b) is applied across the whole cohort assessed at the same time, with a false-discovery-rate correction controlled at 10%. A trader whose own result passes in isolation may still be held at their current step by that correction.

Strix Options may reduce a Live Trader’s step at any time, including where realized profit falls back below the threshold for the current step, where the test in rule 46(b) ceases to pass, or in response to elevated risk-taking. A reduction is not a termination and does not of itself end the account.

A Live Trader is entitled to 80% of realized net trading profit in the Live account. Strix Options retains 20%.

The smallest request Strix Options will process is $100 gross.

The gross amount available for withdrawal at any time is the lesser of:

1. your equity, less your Floor, less the operating buffer of $2,000; and
2. your realized profit, less every gross amount already paid to you or committed to a request.

Limb (a) of rule 52 is a solvency limit, not an entitlement: every withdrawal must leave $2,000 of equity standing above your Floor. A Live Trader whose equity is within $2,000 of their Floor may withdraw nothing at all.

Limb (b) of rule 52 counts your whole withdrawal history. The same profit cannot be drawn twice as equity recovers.

Where Strix Options cannot read a current equity figure for the account, no withdrawal will be quoted or processed until it can. A request in that state is held rather than refused.

A withdrawal does not move your Floor in either direction and does not bring the lock in Part C closer or push it further away.

Mandatory de-risking withdrawal. Where your undrawn realized profit reaches 2 times the drawdown for your plan size — the figure given in Schedule 1 — Strix Options initiates a withdrawal without a request from you. The gross withdrawn is the undrawn profit that triggered it and never more, and never more than rule 52 permits. You receive your 80% of it in the ordinary way.

Identity verification and tax documentation must be complete before any payout is processed.

Strix Options reviews each request against this rulebook and the account’s realized results, and may decline or hold a request that does not satisfy them or that is associated with conduct under investigation.

Advancement is offered by a Live Program Notice. The Notice closes nothing. On the date it is sent, no account of yours closes: every evaluation and funded account stays open and tradeable, billing is unchanged, and nothing is barred. Accounts close only when you answer, or when the response period runs out.

You have 30 calendar days from the date of the Notice to accept or decline. The deadline is shown to you and recorded on your account.

New payout requests are paused while your Live Program Notice is open. Every payout request you had already submitted is held while your notice is open. It is not cancelled, and it is not paid in the meantime. It is resolved by your answer: accepting cancels it without payment, and declining pays it in cash, up to the cap.

If you accept, then and only then:

1. every evaluation and funded account you hold is closed;
2. the subscription behind each closed account is cancelled;
3. every payout request then pending is cancelled and you are paid nothing for it;
4. you may not open, purchase or hold a further evaluation or funded account, including under a different email address; and
5. a Live account is opened for you.

Those closures are a consequence of acceptance and not a fault condition. No account has failed and no rule has been broken.

If you decline, every payout request pending at the moment you decline is paid in cash. The amounts are summed across every account you hold and capped at $3,000 in total for you as a trader. The cap is per person, not per account: five accounts with $2,000 pending each pays $3,000, not $10,000. Payment is made through the ordinary payout rail and requires the same tax and banking details — the Mercury W-9 or W-8BEN plus your bank details — that any payout requires. Your accounts are then closed, billing ceases, and re-entry is barred permanently. No Live account is opened.

If you never answer, an unanswered notice expires after 30 days and is treated as a decline. Your accounts close, billing stops and re-entry is barred exactly as on a decline. No settlement is payable on an expired notice. Every held payout request is cancelled without payment.

A decline made with no payout request outstanding carries no settlement. The settlement is measured on requests already submitted; where none exists, the measure is nil.

Fees already charged in respect of a closed evaluation or funded account are non-refundable, at this stage and at every other.

Declining is not a breach. It creates no debt or liability to Strix Options and is not treated as misconduct.

If the broker declines your application, the Live Trader Agreement terminates automatically, Strix Options restores the accounts that closed and lifts the restriction on opening new ones, and your rights at the prior stage are unaffected. You are not penalised for a decision a broker made.

A Live account ends when its equity reaches the Floor, when either party terminates the Live Trader Agreement, or when the broker withdraws your authorisation.

Profit you have already realized and become entitled to remains payable under Part I whatever the reason for the ending, except where it arises from conduct prohibited by the Live Trader Agreement.

An account ended under rule 71 is terminal. It is not reopened, reset or reinstated, and no further Live account is opened in its place except by a fresh exercise of the discretion in rule 2.

Strix Options may amend this rulebook, the Terms and any published rule set at any time and in its sole discretion, including for risk, compliance, legal, brokerage or business reasons. An amendment takes effect when it is posted with a stated in-force date, or on the date stated in a notice. Continued use of the Services or of any account after that date constitutes acceptance.

An amendment does not apply to:

1. a payout request properly submitted and pending before the in-force date;
2. a decline settlement already owed under Part J; or
3. a Live Trader Agreement already executed.

Each of those is governed by the rules in effect when it arose.

Changes are not applied retroactively. A rule change does not reopen a completed trading day, retrospectively breach an account that complied with the rules in force at the time, or reduce profit already realized under the previous rules. Changes are published on this page under a new in-force date.

Separately, and at any time, Strix Options may suspend or close any account, halt trading, or withhold a payout pending investigation where it reasonably believes there has been a rule violation, manipulation of the simulated environment, prohibited trading, fraud, chargeback activity or identity misuse, or where a legal, brokerage or regulatory requirement applies. No notice period applies to this, and rule 75 does not limit it.

Strix Options may change your risk parameters at any time, including during a trading session, where market conditions or your exposure warrant it. A change of that kind takes effect when it is communicated to you or configured at the broker, and applies from that point onward.

Strix Options may close positions, suspend order entry, reduce Allocated Capital or restrict instruments at any time and without prior notice, including for reasons unconnected with anything you have done: firm-wide exposure, market conditions or a broker requirement.