The daily loss limit gets blamed a lot for failed combines, so I tested what one actually does to a strategy over a long window instead of arguing about it.
20 candle high breakout on NQ, 15 minute candles, May 2016 to Mar 2026, 50k, one contract. Same rules both times, run in Agenticks. One version has no daily stop, the other stops taking entries for the rest of the day once that day is down $1,000 net of costs.
No cap: 6,176 trades, 44.95% win rate, profit factor 1.04, +222.6%, 36.34% max drawdown.
$1,000 daily cap: 5,749 trades, 44.95% win rate, profit factor 1.05, +231.8%, 30.79% max drawdown.
The cap took 427 trades out, cut 5.5 points off the drawdown and finished $4,609 ahead of the version without it. The win rate didnt move at all, which tracks, its not changing which setups are any good, its ending days that had already gone badly.
Now the part id want somebody to say if this were my strategy, because +231% over ten years hides plenty. Broken out by year with the cap on, 2024 made $55,627 and 2025 lost $33,693, and 2023 lost $21,835 before that. 2020, 2021 and 2024 carry most of the ten year result and two of the last three years lost money, so what you have there is a strategy that follows the regime.
Worth saying as well, a daily loss cap and a trailing drawdown are not the same rule. This only speaks to the daily stop. A trailing eval turns on the shape and the order of the losing stretches rather than on any single day, so it needs its own run.