What Risk Settings Are and Why They Matter
The risk settings panel in Copy Trading is where you define the guardrails around your account before a single mirrored position opens. These settings let you cap how much capital any single pilot can deploy on your behalf, restrict which tickers or directions you are willing to copy, and choose how you receive activity alerts. Configuring them carefully before enabling mirroring is one of the most important steps you can take, because copied trades involve real money and can lose value just as easily as they can gain it. A pilot's past performance does not guarantee future results.
If you have not yet completed the quick-start walkthrough, start with Copy Trading Quick Start first. Risk settings are most useful once you already have a pilot in mind and understand the basics of the feature. For a deeper look at what the risk engine does with these limits once you set them, see How the Risk Engine Works.
When to Use This Panel
Open the risk settings panel in two situations. First, before enabling mirroring for any pilot - this is the moment to set your exposure caps so the system enforces them from the very first copied trade. Second, whenever your account size or risk tolerance changes. The settings are not set-and-forget. If you add significant capital to your brokerage account, your per-pilot cap as a percentage of the new total is effectively lower than you intended unless you update it.
The Settings, One by One
Alert Frequency
This controls when you are notified about activity from pilots you follow. There are three options.
Real-time alerts fire a push notification or in-app alert the moment a followed pilot opens or closes a position. Use this if you monitor markets during the session and want to compare the pilot's activity against your own OptionFlow and DealerEdge reads as it happens. The educational value is highest here because you see what the pilot did and can immediately check the same data they were likely looking at.
Daily digest sends a single end-of-day summary of all activity from pilots you follow. Use this if you prefer to review activity during your evening session rather than getting interrupted during the trading day. The daily digest is also a good fit if you follow a swing trader whose positions develop over days - real-time pings on every minor update add noise without value.
Weekly summary is an in-app or email report covering all pilot activity, notable trades, and performance trend shifts over the past seven days. Use this for a higher-level view when you are in an observation phase and not yet ready to mirror positions.
A common mistake is choosing real-time alerts and then ignoring most of them because the volume is too high. If you are following an active day trader who opens and closes ten positions before noon, real-time alerts can become disruptive fast. Match the alert frequency to the pilot's trading style, not just your preference for responsiveness.
Position Size Cap
This is the most operationally important setting in the panel. The position size cap sets a maximum dollar amount or percentage of your account that can be mirrored into any single trade from a given pilot. When a pilot opens a position, the system scales your copy relative to this cap rather than mirroring the pilot's exact dollar size.
For example, if your account holds $20,000 and you set a per-trade cap of 5%, the system will not mirror more than $1,000 into any single position, regardless of the size the pilot is trading in their own account. If the pilot opens a position worth $50,000 in their account, your mirrored position is still capped at $1,000.
A practical starting point for most followers is 2-5% of account size per trade. This limits the impact of any single losing position while still giving the copied trades room to contribute meaningfully to your account. Do not start at 10% or higher until you have watched a pilot through at least one full losing stretch and confirmed you are comfortable with their drawdown pattern.
Daily Loss Limit
The daily loss limit halts all mirroring for the rest of the session once your copied positions have lost a defined dollar amount or percentage on that calendar day. It is a circuit breaker, not a guarantee against all loss - positions that are already open when the limit triggers remain open until they close or you close them manually. What the limit prevents is new positions being mirrored after a rough run has already started.
Set this to the maximum you would accept losing in any single session across all mirrored activity combined. A conservative starting point is 1-2% of your total account. Crossing this threshold does not mean the pilot stopped trading - it means mirroring pauses for you until the next session, while you review what happened.
Ticker Filter
The ticker filter lets you restrict mirroring to specific symbols or exclude symbols you do not want exposure to. If you follow a pilot who trades a broad universe of tickers, you can narrow mirroring to only the names you understand well or already have analysis on from OptionFlow and Dark Pool. Alternatively, you might exclude tickers in sectors you already have concentrated exposure in your own portfolio.
Keep the ticker filter list short and purposeful. Filtering out too many symbols effectively changes the pilot's strategy into something different from what their track record was built on. If you find yourself filtering more than 20-30% of a pilot's usual universe, consider whether that pilot is actually the right fit for your goals.
Direction Filter
Direction filtering lets you copy only long trades, only short trades, or both. This is most useful if you have strong conviction about the current market environment - for example, if you believe the broader market is in a prolonged uptrend and do not want to mirror bearish positions even when a pilot takes them.
Direction filters can also be dangerous if they cause you to systematically skip a pilot's protective short positions or hedges. Before enabling a direction filter, check how much of the pilot's historical P&L came from the side you are filtering out. If a significant portion of their returns came from short positions, filtering those out gives you a very different risk profile than what their track record suggests.
Display Options
Display options control how activity appears in the dashboard rather than what gets mirrored. The three modes are compact view (one line per trade, good for high-frequency pilots), expanded view (shows size, direction, and any notes the pilot has added - best when you are in learning mode), and chart overlay (renders pilot entry points directly on your chart, useful for comparing their timing to your own technical and flow analysis).
Start with expanded view during your observation period. Once you have a clear picture of a pilot's style, switch to compact to reduce visual noise.
Worked Example
You are on a Monthly plan (one pilot allowed) and have chosen a swing trader who primarily trades liquid large-cap equities with a three to five day hold time. Your account holds $15,000. Here is a reasonable starting configuration: alert frequency set to daily digest (the pilot rarely trades more than twice a week, so real-time pings add no value); position size cap at 4% of account, which is $600 per trade; daily loss limit at 1.5% of account, which is $225; no ticker filter (the pilot focuses on a universe you are already familiar with); direction filter off (the pilot uses both long and short positions strategically); display set to expanded view during your first two weeks, then compact.
This configuration means no single copied trade can risk more than $600, and if mirrored positions collectively lose $225 in one session, mirroring pauses until the next day. You stay informed through end-of-day summaries without getting distracted during market hours. That structure gives you exposure to a pilot's track record without putting your account at serious risk during the learning phase.
Common Mistakes
- Setting the position size cap too high before the observation period. It is tempting to mirror aggressively when a pilot's recent track record looks strong. But recent results are the period most subject to variance and potential style drift. Start small, observe for at least two weeks, then scale up if the pilot's pattern holds.
- Not updating settings as your account size changes. A cap set when your account held $10,000 becomes much smaller as a percentage if your account grows to $30,000. Review your settings whenever your account size changes materially.
- Using direction filters without understanding the pilot's strategy. Filtering out short positions from a pilot who actively hedges their long book changes your exposure in ways the track record does not reflect. Read the pilot's profile and recent activity before applying a direction filter.
- Treating the daily loss limit as a loss guarantee. The limit halts new mirroring - it does not close existing positions. Open positions can continue to move against you after the limit triggers. Always size conservatively enough that open positions alone cannot create an unacceptable loss.
Related: Copy Trading Quick Start - How the Risk Engine Works - Copy Trading Feature Overview