I’ve been testing a relatively high trade to low profit day trading strategy on a paper account recently and noticed that at the start of each day or at the end of business hours for a day (8PM) my account equity will drop. This drop happens even though I am not holding any positions overnight. At first I thought it may have something to do with it being a margin account, but I cannot find anything to suggest that something like margin calls would be the cause. Attached are screenshots that demonstrate what is happening:
As you can see the equity dropped from ~293 to ~182
In keeping track of a profit estimate on the client side, I’ve noticed that my account equity drops to about where it should be if I had just added this profit estimate to my opening equity.
Does anyone have an explanation for what is happening?
Is the equity displayed on the paper account wrong at the EOD and its being set back to what it should be based on trades being settled?
Would this also be present in a live account?