> ## 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.
# When things go sideways
> Every setting that decides how Live trading behaves when the broker and the strategy disagree — unfilled entries, unexpected fills, a quiet signal feed, your own hand at the broker — plus the safeguards you cannot switch off.
Live trading diverges from a backtest. A limit gets touched and not filled. A
tick outside the minute bar trips a resting order the backtest would never have
counted. Your data feed goes quiet for four minutes. You open the broker's app
and cancel something yourself.
None of that is a bug — it is what trading actually looks like. What matters is
that **you** decide, in advance, what Live trading should do about each case. That is
what the section literally titled **"What to do when things go sideways"** is
for, on every Live trading strategy's settings.
Every setting below has a default, and **every one can be changed while the
strategy is running**. Changes apply from the next signal; they never rewrite
an order that is already resting at the broker.
## Quick reference
| Setting | Default | What it decides |
| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------ |
| [If the entry order is not filled by the bar close](#if-the-entry-order-is-not-filled-by-the-bar-close) | Chase it at the next bar | Whether to pay up for a trade the backtest assumed you got |
| [If a new entry signal arrives while one is still working](#if-a-new-entry-signal-arrives-while-one-is-still-working) | Replace the working order | Which of two entry orders survives |
| [If the broker reports a fill the strategy did not ask for](#if-the-broker-reports-a-fill-the-strategy-did-not-ask-for) | Flatten it right away | Whether to keep a position the strategy doesn't believe in |
| [When the front contract rolls](#when-the-front-contract-rolls) | Roll automatically | Whether Live trading moves you to the new contract by itself |
| [When you pause the link](#when-you-pause-the-link) | Keep working orders and the position | What a pause does to what is already out there |
| [When you turn Trade live off](#when-you-turn-trade-live-off) | Flatten the position | How Live trading hands the position back |
| [If the signal feed goes quiet while in a position](#if-the-signal-feed-goes-quiet-while-in-a-position) | Tell me, keep the exits working | What to do when the strategy stops speaking |
| [After you cancel or flatten by hand at the broker](#after-you-cancel-or-flatten-by-hand-at-the-broker) | Resume when flat | Whether taking over one order stops the strategy for good |
| [If the broker drifts from the strategy and it does not self-resolve](#if-the-broker-drifts-from-the-strategy-and-it-does-not-self-resolve) | Restore lost stops/targets, cancel orphan orders | Which repairs happen without you |
| [Give up an entry if slippage exceeds (ticks)](#give-up-an-entry-if-slippage-exceeds-ticks) | Empty (no limit) | A hard slippage budget — **read the caveat** |
Taken together the defaults say: *stay in sync with the strategy, keep the
protection resting at the broker, and stop rather than guess.*
***
## If the entry order is not filled by the bar close
**The situation.** The backtest counts a resting entry as filled when the bar
trades through its level. Your real limit or stop order can be touched and still
be sitting there unfilled at the bar's close — the queue didn't reach you. The
strategy now believes it is in a trade that you are not in.
| Option | What Live trading does |
| -------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Chase it at the next bar** *(default)* | Wait one more bar. If it still hasn't filled, cancel the order, wait for the cancel to confirm, and enter at market — with the same stop and target levels the strategy set. |
| **Chase it immediately with a market order** | Cancel and go to market now, without waiting the extra bar. |
| **Skip this trade** | Cancel the entry and stop following this trade entirely. The strategy's later exit for it is ignored. Live trading picks the strategy back up at its next flat. |
| **Leave it working and tell me** | Do nothing automatic. The order stays working and you get told. |
Chasing keeps you in step with the backtest but pays for it in slippage. Skipping
keeps you out of trades the market never really offered. If your edge depends on
getting filled *at a specific level* — mean reversion into support, say —
chasing can systematically buy the worst of the move; **Skip this trade** is
often the more honest choice there. For momentum and breakout strategies, where
the fill price matters less than being in the move, chase.
**Partial fills.** The part that filled is a real position and is treated as one;
the remainder follows whichever option you chose.
## If a new entry signal arrives while one is still working
**The situation.** The strategy wants a different entry order than the one
currently resting — a level that moved more than a price change can express, a
new rule arming, or the opposite side appearing.
| Option | What Live trading does |
| ----------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Replace the working order** *(default)* | Cancel the old order, **wait for the broker to confirm the cancel**, then place the new one. The two never rest at the same time. |
| **Keep the original order** | Leave the original working. A new order is only placed alongside it if it's on the other side; otherwise this behaves like replace. |
The same entry rule at a new price is a **price modification**, not a replace —
Live trading moves the resting order rather than cancelling and re-sending it, so you
keep your place in the queue where the broker allows it.
## If the broker reports a fill the strategy did not ask for
**The situation.** Something filled that the strategy does not count as a trade.
The classic case: a tick printed outside the minute bar's range, your resting
stop order triggered on it, and the backtest's rule — which only ever sees the
bar — rejects that entry. Live trading waits until the end of the bar after the fill for
a matching signal, and when none arrives it acts.
| Option | What Live trading does |
| -------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Flatten it right away** *(default)* | Cancel the brackets, close the position at market, and stop following this trade. |
| **Keep it, but stop managing this position** | Leave the position and its stop and target where they are. Live trading stops following the strategy for this trade; the position is yours to manage. |
**Keep it** means exactly that — Live trading will not move the stop, will not take
the target, and will not close it when the strategy exits. If you choose this,
you are taking the trade over.
## When the front contract rolls
**The situation.** The strategy's contract is expiring and the market's front
month moves on.
| Option | What Live trading does |
| ---------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **Roll automatically** *(default)* | Cancel the brackets, flatten the expiring contract, re-enter the new front at market with the stop and target re-priced, and move any working entry to the new contract. |
| **Tell me and wait** | Stop following the strategy and tell you. Nothing moves until you roll or flatten yourself. |
## When you pause the link
**The situation.** You pressed **Pause** on this strategy — or paused the armed
strategy itself. No new entries go out either way; this decides what happens to
what is already out there.
| Option | What Live trading does |
| ---------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **Keep working orders and the position** *(default)* | Everything stays exactly where it is, and the position keeps being managed — the stop still trails, the time exit still fires. |
| **Cancel entry orders, keep the position** | Pull the entries you haven't been filled on; leave the open position and its protection alone. |
| **Cancel everything and flatten** | Cancel all orders and close the position at market. |
## When you turn Trade live off
**The situation.** You turned Live trading off — or the strategy was disarmed, which
includes AskFutures disarming it because you armed a newer version.
| Option | What Live trading does |
| -------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Flatten the position** *(default)* | Close the position at market and cancel the working orders. You end up flat. |
| **Leave the position and its exits at the broker** | The position and its stop and target stay at the broker. **Live trading stops managing them from that moment** — the stop will not trail and the strategy's exit will not be taken. |
The confirmation dialog tells you which of these two you are about to get. If
you choose to leave the position, write down that you now own it — nothing in
AskFutures will close it for you.
## If the signal feed goes quiet while in a position
**The situation.** No signal has arrived for **three minutes** while the
instrument's day session is open. Market data outage, an evaluation problem,
anything. The strategy has stopped telling Live trading what it wants, and the run is
flagged **signal feed stale**.
| Option | What Live trading does |
| ----------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Tell me, keep the exits working** *(default)* | Notify you and change nothing. The stop and target are resting at the broker and keep protecting the position. A time-based exit still fires from the last deadline the strategy gave. |
| **Cancel entries, keep the position** | Pull unfilled entries so a stale level can't fill into a strategy that has gone quiet; keep the protected position. |
| **Flatten** | Cancel everything and close the position at market. |
The default is right for most people, and the reason is structural: your stop
and target live [**at the broker**](/live-trading/overview#what-live-trading-will-never-do),
not in AskFutures, so a signal outage does not leave you unprotected. Pick **Flatten** only if being out beats being
unmanaged for you — it will realise losses that the strategy's own stop might
never have taken.
The flag clears by itself as soon as signals resume.
## After you cancel or flatten by hand at the broker
**The situation.** You went into the broker's own app and cancelled or changed
**one of Live trading's orders**.
* **You cancelled it** — it's recorded, the attached brackets die with it, and
Live trading stops following this trade (if the strategy later "fills", no exit is sent
for a position you don't hold).
* **You modified it** — Live trading keeps following the strategy but stops moving that
particular leg. You own it now, and the run view says so.
| Option | What Live trading does afterwards |
| -------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Resume when flat** *(default)* | Follow the strategy again as soon as both it and this strategy's position are flat. |
| **Halt until I resume** | Stop the strategy outright. It stays stopped until you press **Resume**. |
This setting is about Live trading's **orders**. If you traded the account yourself —
bought or sold the instrument by hand — that is a different thing entirely, and
Live trading asks you about it directly. See
[when you also trade the account by hand](/live-trading/multiple-strategies-one-symbol#when-you-also-trade-the-account-by-hand).
## If the broker drifts from the strategy and it does not self-resolve
**The situation.** A difference between what Live trading should have at the broker and
what is actually there has persisted — a bracket leg that went missing, an exit
that no longer covers the position, an order of Live trading's own that shouldn't be
there. These are the same **bounded repairs** the **Fix** button applies on the
[Positions page](/live-trading/positions-and-controls#the-action-column); this setting decides which of
them happen without you.
| Option | What Live trading repairs by itself |
| -------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Restore lost stops/targets, cancel our orphan orders** *(default)* | Re-place a missing stop or target, resize an exit to the position actually held, and cancel an order of Live trading's own that is no longer wanted. |
| **Also re-place a missing entry order** | The above, plus re-arming a resting entry that went missing. |
| **Never — leave every repair to the Fix button** | Nothing automatic. Every repair waits for you. |
How the automatic repairs behave:
* A repair only fires after the **same** repair has been needed continuously for
about a minute — long enough that ordinary in-flight settling (a chase, a
pending cancel, a fill racing the next signal) resolves first.
* After **three** attempts on the same repair, Live trading gives up on it and says so
rather than fighting the broker or fighting you.
* **No repair ever opens, reverses or enlarges a position.** Taking a position —
**Match strategy** — is always your decision, never automatic.
Leaving this at the default is the safe choice, and it is the default for a
reason: a position sitting at the broker without its stop is the one situation
where waiting for a human is the more dangerous option.
## Give up an entry if slippage exceeds (ticks)
A ceiling, in ticks, on how much slippage you will accept on an entry. Leave it
**empty** for no limit — which is the default.
**Read this before you set a number.** Live trading has no live executable quote at
the moment it sends an order, so it cannot prove in advance that a market order
will fill inside your budget. The guard is therefore deliberately conservative:
with any value set, **every exposure-increasing market order is not sent at
all** — market entries, the market order that completes a chase, and the
re-entry side of a contract roll.
A blocked entry is treated exactly like a broker rejection: you stay flat, and
the strategy's trade is recorded as one you didn't take. Setting this value also
disables **Match strategy** for the strategy.
What is *never* blocked: risk-reducing orders (flattens, exits, the exit side of
a roll) and priced orders (resting entries and bracket legs).
In practice: leave it empty unless you deliberately want a strategy that only
ever takes resting limit and stop entries and skips everything else. Slippage on
every fill is measured and shown in the run view either way — this setting is not
what makes that reporting happen.
***
## Safeguards you don't configure
These are always on. They are not settings, and no combination of the choices
above turns them off.
Stops and targets are placed **at the broker**, attached to the entry, as a
pair where one cancels the other. They are working from the instant the entry
fills and keep working whether or not AskFutures is reachable.
A market entry is expected to fill within about ten seconds. If it hasn't,
Live trading stops following that trade rather than assuming a position it may not
have.
A position sitting unprotected is treated as an emergency. Exit orders are
never blocked by any guard, are retried and escalated when a broker rejects
them, and an unprotected position raises an alert to the AskFutures team.
An **entry** rejected by the broker (margin, outside hours, a broker-side risk
limit) leaves you flat, is recorded, and you're told. An **exit** rejection is
retried and escalated — it is never allowed to quietly leave a position
unprotected.
A margin liquidation or a broker-side risk lock blocks the account, not one
order. Every Live trading strategy on that account **halts**, and only your explicit
**Resume** lifts it — and that Resume is refused while your broker still
reports the account blocked.
Halting rather than detaching is deliberate: a detach would re-attach at the
next flat, and a liquidation leaves the account flat — Live trading would trade
straight back into the block. The liquidation's own cancels and closes are
attributed to the broker, never read as your hand.
While disconnected, Live trading sends nothing — and your brackets stay resting at
the broker throughout. On reconnect or restart it replays its own record of
every order it sent, re-reads the broker, and matches the two up. Anything it
cannot explain makes it stop following that trade. It never guesses, and it
never sends an order twice.
**Pause**, **Cancel entries**, **Flatten now**, **Skip this trade**, **Turn
off**, and the Positions page itself stay available even if auto-trading is
switched off for your account or paused fleet-wide. Only the things that
*start* or *resume* sending orders are withheld. You can always get out.
Every flatten Live trading sends is the opposite of the quantity **it** is
responsible for — never a broker-level "close everything". Positions you took
by hand are untouched. See
[multiple strategies on one symbol](/live-trading/multiple-strategies-one-symbol).
## Next steps
Where you see all of this happening, and the buttons that end it.
Netting, attribution, and the question Live trading asks when you trade by hand.