Daily loss limits need an explicit reset clock
By DX Research Group · · Mandates and reasoning
Use a UTC interval fixture to distinguish loss-budget boundaries from the owner’s displayed calendar day.
A daily loss limit needs a named timezone and an exact interval boundary. We would compile the day as a half-open interval, including its start and excluding the next start, so an event at midnight belongs to exactly one budget. The owner’s local display can then show the same event without changing its accounting day.
In an illustrative UTC-reset mandate, a $300 realized loss at 23:59:59 UTC belongs to day A. A $250 loss at 00:00:00 UTC belongs to day B. With a $400 daily budget, each day remains below the illustrative limit even though the two losses total $550 within one second. This behavior follows the calendar definition. A rolling 24-hour loss budget would evaluate a different interval and could reject further exposure.
The reset changes accounting, not history
We would keep settled events in an immutable ledger and derive each day’s total from event time. Receipt time records when the runtime learned of the event. A late settlement receipt from day A must update day A’s total under the chosen accounting convention; assigning it to day B solely because it arrived after midnight would alter the intended measure.
The mandate should specify realized loss, change in total equity or another measure. A realized-only budget can coexist with a large unrealized loss. Fees and funding require a stated inclusion policy. Record the opening baseline if equity change is used, along with deposits and withdrawals so external cash flows have a deliberate treatment.
Our proposed replay includes an event one millisecond before reset, one exactly at reset and a delayed receipt. It also includes daylight-saving transitions for any civil timezone option. UTC avoids seasonal offset changes, while a named regional timezone requires a timezone database and its interpretation to be recorded.
The review question is whether a calendar budget matches the owner’s intended operating rhythm. If the intention is continuous loss containment, compile a rolling measure separately. A reset should produce a new accounting interval, while an unresolved pause or owner interruption follows its own release rule.
Our mandate compiler provides the wider instruction-to-action framework for this loss-budget clock. The published controls research supplies its historical background. DXAP publicly describes the corresponding separation between model proposals and external policy checks.