Risk disclosure

Trading carries substantial risk of loss

Trading financial instruments — including foreign exchange, contracts for difference, futures and crypto assets — carries a substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for everyone. You can lose money quickly. Depending on the instrument and the venue, you can lose more than your initial deposit.

Leverage increases both gains and losses. A leveraged position can be closed out by the venue, at a loss, faster than you can react to it.

Do not trade with money you cannot afford to lose.

Automation does not reduce market risk

Automating a strategy removes certain human failures: it does not widen a stop out of hope, revenge trade after a loss, or forget a rule at three in the morning. That is a real benefit and it is why the software exists.

It does not make a losing strategy profitable, and it does not reduce the risk in the market. An automated system executes a strategy consistently — including consistently executing a bad one. Consistency is only an advantage when what is being executed is sound.

What our risk controls do, and what they do not do

Vectorhelm enforces limits — daily loss caps, position size ceilings, drawdown limits and correlated exposure rules — before an order leaves the system. An order that would breach a limit you configured is refused rather than sent.

That is a genuine control, and it is worth being precise about its boundaries.

• A limit is only as good as the number you set. The software enforces your rule; it does not tell you the rule is prudent.
• A pre-trade limit cannot control what happens after a position is open. Gaps, halts and sudden moves can take a position past a level without trading at it.
• Market conditions can prevent an exit at your intended price. Slippage during volatile conditions can be large, and a stop is not a guaranteed price.
• Controls enforced by our software cannot override the venue. If a venue liquidates a position, that happens at the venue.

Technology fails, and you should plan for it

Any automated system depends on infrastructure that can fail: our servers, your venue’s API, the network between them, and the venue itself. Outages, latency, rate limiting, API changes and maintenance windows all occur, and they occur without regard for what your positions are doing at the time.

A stop that exists only inside a strategy disappears if the system holding it disconnects. A stop registered at the venue survives. This distinction matters more than almost anything else in automated trading, and we recommend venue-side protection for any position you are not watching.

We do not guarantee uninterrupted or error-free operation, and no reasonable provider does.

Backtests are not predictions

Past performance does not indicate future results. This is written on everything, and it remains true.

Backtested and simulated results carry an additional problem: they are produced with knowledge of what happened. A strategy can be adjusted, deliberately or accidentally, until it fits a period of history, and the resulting curve says far more about the fitting than about the future. Results that do not charge realistic commission, spread, slippage and financing overstate performance, often by the entire edge.

Treat a backtest as a way to reject strategies, not as a forecast of returns.

Proprietary trading firm accounts

If you are trading a funded or evaluation account, the firm’s rules govern the account, and breaching one can end it regardless of whether the account is profitable. Rules vary between firms and change over time.

It is your responsibility to confirm that your firm permits automated trading, and to configure limits that match its rulebook. Our software enforces the limits you configure; it does not know your firm’s current terms.

We are not a broker and not an adviser

Vectorhelm is software. We are not a broker, exchange, custodian or financial adviser. We never hold your funds — they stay in the account you already hold, and the software places orders on it.

Nothing on this site or in the product is investment advice or a recommendation. Strategy templates are starting points for you to evaluate, not recommendations to trade.

Your responsibility

You are responsible for the strategies you run, the limits you set, the accounts you connect, and for complying with the laws and tax obligations of your jurisdiction. Availability of the software in your country does not mean any particular activity is permitted there.

If any of this is unclear, seek independent advice from someone qualified to give it before trading.