Risk limits: max open trades, and why RobotCopier limits lots instead
RobotCopier caps risk by volume (lots), not by the number of open trades. What the two limits do, what happens when you hit them, and why volume is the safer control.
If you've used another copier, you may be looking for a max open trades setting — a cap on how many positions can be open at once. RobotCopier doesn't have one, and that's deliberate. It limits your risk by volume instead, using two settings on every copy relationship.
The two limits
Both live on the copy relationship, so you can set them differently for each follower.
| Setting | Shown as | Default | What it caps |
|---|---|---|---|
| Max lots per trade | // max / trade |
10.00 |
The size of any single copied trade |
| Max open lots | // max open |
50.00 |
The combined volume of everything open on that follower |
In the API these are maxLotsPerTrade and maxOpenLots.
What actually happens when you hit them
The two behave differently, and the difference matters.
Max lots per trade — the trade is trimmed, not refused. If sizing works out larger
than your limit, the trade is reduced to exactly that limit and still opens. A master
trade that scales to 14 lots against a limit of 10.00 opens at 10.00.
Max open lots — the trade is trimmed, then refused. This one measures the total volume already open on that follower account. A new trade is first trimmed to whatever headroom is left; if there is no headroom, it is skipped entirely and recorded with the reason, for example:
max open lots reached (50.00/50.00)
So with a 50.00 limit and 48.00 already open, a 5-lot trade opens at 2.00. Once
you're at 50.00, further trades are refused until something closes.
Why volume rather than trade count
A count tells you almost nothing about what you stand to lose. These are the same number of trades:
- 10 positions at 0.01 lots — trivial exposure
- 10 positions at 10.00 lots — a hundred lots at risk
A "max 10 trades" rule treats those identically. A volume cap doesn't: it limits the thing that actually determines your loss. It also can't be gamed by a master who splits one large entry into several smaller ones, which a count-based limit would let straight through.
If you're converting from another copier
Translate the intent rather than the number. Instead of "no more than 10 trades", ask
what exposure that was protecting you from, and set max open lots to that figure.
If your master typically trades 0.50 lots and you were comfortable with 10 open, then
roughly 5.00 max open lots expresses the same thing — and holds even if the master's
sizing changes.
Related
- How trade copying works — volume scaling, symbol mapping, stops and closes
- Plans, masters and followers