> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.askfutures.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Live trading overview

> Live trading turns an armed strategy's signals into real orders at your own broker account — as a follower that never improvises.

**Live trading** is automated execution for AskFutures. Once a strategy is armed
for live signals, it connects to your own broker account: every entry, stop,
target, time exit and contract roll the strategy produces becomes a real order,
placed for you, with the protective legs resting at the broker.

<Note>
  In the app the switch on an armed strategy is labelled **Trade live**.
</Note>

<Warning>
  Live trading places **real orders with real money** in the account you connect.
  Backtest results are hypothetical; live results will differ. Past performance
  does not guarantee future results. Every new connection starts on your
  broker's **demo** environment and stays there until it has proven itself —
  see [demo first](/live-trading/turn-on-live-trading#demo-first).
</Warning>

## The one principle: Live trading follows

Live trading is a **follower**. The strategy is the same computation that produced your
backtest, running forward in real time. Live trading's only job is to keep the broker's
position matching what the strategy believes it holds.

That has three consequences worth internalising before you turn it on:

<CardGroup cols={3}>
  <Card title="Fills never change the strategy" icon="arrow-right-to-bracket">
    What actually filled at the broker is never fed back into the strategy. The
    strategy would have produced exactly the same signals whether or not you were
    trading them — which is what makes the live record comparable to the
    backtest.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Differences are recorded, never hidden" icon="eye">
    A limit the market touched but did not fill, an order you cancelled by hand,
    a stop that filled on a tick the bar never showed — each one is written down
    with its cause and shown to you.
  </Card>

  <Card title="It stops rather than guesses" icon="hand">
    When reality and the strategy disagree, Live trading **detaches** for that trade
    instead of improvising a position. It picks the strategy up again at the next
    point where both are flat.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## What you need

<Steps>
  <Step title="An armed, intraday strategy">
    Live trading trades [armed](/guides/live-signals) strategies on intraday
    timeframes. A daily "trade at the
    close" strategy stays notify-only: a signal produced after the session ends
    cannot be filled at a close that has already happened.
  </Step>

  <Step title="A verified broker connection">
    Currently **Tradovate**, demo and live. See
    [connect a broker](/live-trading/connect-a-broker).
  </Step>

  <Step title="Live trading enabled on your account">
    Auto-trading is being rolled out gradually. If you don't see broker
    connections in Settings, it isn't switched on for your account yet — contact
    [support](mailto:support@askfutures.com).
  </Step>
</Steps>

## Where Live trading lives in the app

| Surface                                                | What you do there                                                                                                                                                        |
| ------------------------------------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **Settings**                                           | Add, verify and remove broker connections.                                                                                                                               |
| **Armed tab** (the notifications panel)                | Turn Live trading on per strategy, set contracts per signal, choose demo or live, and set [what happens when things go sideways](/live-trading/when-things-go-sideways). |
| **Run view** (the **Run** button on an armed strategy) | This strategy's live state: position, working orders, fills with slippage, every recorded difference, and the kill switches.                                             |
| **Positions** (`/trading/reconcile`)                   | Every strategy Live trading is running, side by side with what your broker actually holds — plus **Fix**, **Match strategy**, **Skip**, and the kill switches.           |

## What Live trading will never do

These are guarantees, not settings — you cannot switch them off, and neither can
we by accident:

* **It never flattens your whole account.** When Live trading closes a position it
  sends the opposite of the quantity *it* is responsible for. Positions you took
  by hand are never touched by a flatten.
* **It never invents a fill.** If the strategy thinks it entered and the broker
  never filled, Live trading does not pretend. The trade becomes a recorded difference.
* **It never pyramids.** A strategy's position at the broker is at most the
  contracts-per-signal you set. There is no averaging in and no doubling up.
* **It never leaves an exit floating in the cloud.** Stops and targets rest *at
  the broker*, attached to the entry, from the moment the entry fills. If
  AskFutures goes offline, your protection is still working.
* **It never re-enters on its own after a halt.** Anything that halts a strategy
  needs you to resume it.

## Next steps

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Connect a broker" icon="plug" href="/live-trading/connect-a-broker">
    What Tradovate requires, and how your credentials are stored.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Turn Live trading on" icon="toggle-on" href="/live-trading/turn-on-live-trading">
    Contracts per signal, the demo gate, pausing and turning off.
  </Card>

  <Card title="When things go sideways" icon="triangle-exclamation" href="/live-trading/when-things-go-sideways">
    Every setting for how Live trading should behave when reality disagrees.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Positions and controls" icon="table-list" href="/live-trading/positions-and-controls">
    Read the live state, repair a difference, kill a position.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>