Risks

Trading perpetual futures is risky. You can lose some or all of the money you put in, and you can lose it quickly. Only trade with money you can afford to lose.

Tandem is a tool. It does not give financial advice, and nothing on tandem is a promise of profit.

LeverageCopy Anchor Link

Leverage lets you hold a position larger than your money. At 5×, $100 of margin holds a $500 position.

• Gains are larger, and so are losses.
• The higher the leverage, the smaller the price move that leads to liquidation.
• Higher leverage does not change the fees in percent, but fees are paid on the full position value, not on your margin.

Your copy plan's Highest leverage caps the leverage your copies may use. Lower leverage gives you more room.

LiquidationCopy Anchor Link

If your losses eat into your margin far enough, Hyperliquid closes your position for you. This is a liquidation.

• It happens at the liquidation price, which the order form shows before you place an order.
• You lose the margin of that position, and the close itself can cost more.
• A liquidation can happen fast, for example during a sudden price spike, even between two checks of your account.

A stop loss can close a position before liquidation, but in a fast market it may fill at a worse price than you set.

FundingCopy Anchor Link

Open perpetual positions pay or receive funding. When many traders are on your side, you usually pay. Over days or weeks, funding can add up to more than the fees. See Fees.

Copy trading risksCopy Anchor Link

When you copy a trader, your account follows their trades, with your own plan and limits.

• Past results don't predict future results. A trader who did well last month can lose next month. Charts, scores and rankings describe the past only.
• Your result will differ from theirs. Your copy starts later, trades a smaller size, pays its own fees, and may fill at a different price. Very small positions may be too small to copy at all: Hyperliquid has a minimum order size.
• A trader can change. They can take more risk, trade other coins, or stop trading. They can also be liquidated.
• Several traders can lose together. Traders often hold the same coins, so a bad day for one coin can hit many copies.

Tandem watches for warning signs and pauses a copy, for example after three losses in a row, when a trader takes out most of their money, or when a trader is liquidated. This helps, but it reacts after the fact.

Countertrade risksCopy Anchor Link

A countertrade takes the opposite side of every trade a trader makes. Everything above applies, and more:

• If the trader wins, you lose. Their gains are your losses, before fees. A trader who lost last month can win this month, and a losing streak tells you nothing sure about the next trade.
• The trader's take profit is your stop. When the trader closes a winning trade, your countertrade closes at a loss. Their stop loss closes it at a gain. Each close is a market order sent moments after the trader's fill, at a different price from theirs.
• You pay fees on every move. Countering a trader who trades often costs a lot in fees, and you pay funding on the side you hold.
• The trader's past losses are not your gains. A countertrade starts from today's prices.
• Your own trades on the same coin. Your countertrades, your copies and your own trades share one Hyperliquid account. A countertrade won't add against a position of your own on that coin. But if you open your own position on that coin the other way after the countertrade opened, the two net out on Hyperliquid, and when the countertrade closes, your own position ends up smaller, by up to the countertrade's size. Keep your own trades off the coins your countertrades hold.

Your stop at a loss is always on, as for a copy.

HIP-3 market risksCopy Anchor Link

Live copies can also trade Hyperliquid's stock and commodity markets. These HIP-3 markets have risks of their own:

• A company runs each market. Its deployer sets the market's price feed, its leverage and its fees. If a deployer makes a mistake, nobody pays you back.
• A deployer can halt its market. A halt cancels every order there and settles every position at the current mark price. Your copy's position there closes at that price.
• Prices outside market hours. The market trades around the clock on Hyperliquid, but outside its price source's hours the deployer prices it another way, for example from the market's own order book. A stop may not trigger then, and may fill well past its price when the price source reopens, for example after a weekend. Copies add only inside the hours, but a position held over a weekend can still jump at the open.
• Thin books. Many HIP-3 markets have few orders, so a fill can cost more. Copies add only when the book is deep enough, but closes always go, whatever the book.

Your limitsCopy Anchor Link

Your copy plan has limits that stop losses from growing past what you chose:

• Most to lose on one trade
• Most to lose in one day
• Stop everything after a drop of, which sets your Floor
• Highest leverage

For live trading, tandem's server also checks every order against its own limits before it sends it, and you have a kill switch that cancels your orders. See Live trading.

Practice and liveCopy Anchor Link

Practice results are a guide only. Live results are usually somewhat worse than practice results. Practice and live are kept apart: live results are never added to practice, and practice never touches your money.

Risks outside the marketCopy Anchor Link

• Hyperliquid itself. Your money sits on Hyperliquid. If Hyperliquid has an outage, a bug or another problem, tandem can't protect your funds there.
• tandem being down. Your orders and stop losses rest on Hyperliquid and stay in place, but new copies and changes wait until tandem is back.
• Your own accounts. Someone who gets into your wallet or your tandem account can cause losses. See Security.

Before you trade liveCopy Anchor Link