that is the least of your worries . if your only risking one half of one % of your trading account per trade like you should be doing ... you will get through most any problems that come your way..

MiniP 

those of you who traded during 9/11 how fast did trading come to a halt? What ever that number is I'd cut it in half and that's to time you get to get out of a trade if something big like that happens again. thats why everyone needs some news source on there desk. at least twitter -P

I was trading that morning and was short ES and NQ when the event occurred.
I had several news feeds active and CNBC on the TV.
My position went very profitable. I knew why.
I was stunned and did not close the position quickly because I was glued to the news and TV watching the event unfold.
There was no immediate halt and I was able to finally close my position gracefully.

I did not keep the profits from that day but donated to a charity. It did not seem right to keep blood money.

The ones hurt from the event were the retail traders and retirement fund people. They could not close quickly and did not think about doing it until it was too late. My Uncle asked me for advice and I told him to sit it out and wait for the bounce after the market opened again. He was too upset about the loss and ended up selling out at the market resume which was the bottom. He lost a lot of his retirement $$.

As in most cases, patience and a stop loss are golden things.

Sent using the NexusFi mobile app

DavidHP 

I was trading that morning and was short ES and NQ when the event occurred. I had several news feeds active and CNBC on the TV. My position went very profitable. I knew why. I was stunned and did not close the position quickly because I was glued to the news and TV watching the event unfold. There was no immediate halt and I was able to finally close my position gracefully. I did not keep the profits from that day but donated to a charity. It did not seem right to keep blood money. The ones hurt from the event were the retail traders and retirement fund people. They could not close quickly and did not think about doing it until it was too late. My Uncle asked me for advice and I told him to sit it out and wait for the bounce after the market opened again. He was too upset about the loss and ended up selling out at the market resume which was the bottom. He lost a lot of his retirement $$. As in most cases, patience and a stop loss are golden things. Sent using the NexusFi mobile app

I think everyone knows exactly where they were and what they were doing when that event unfolded. I cant even remember what I had for breakfast this morning but I clearly remember that day almost 20 years ago. Kudos to you for donating your profits to charity.

DavidHP 

I was trading that morning and was short ES and NQ when the event occurred. I had several news feeds active and CNBC on the TV. My position went very profitable. I knew why. I was stunned and did not close the position quickly because I was glued to the news and TV watching the event unfold. There was no immediate halt and I was able to finally close my position gracefully. I did not keep the profits from that day but donated to a charity. It did not seem right to keep blood money. The ones hurt from the event were the retail traders and retirement fund people. They could not close quickly and did not think about doing it until it was too late. My Uncle asked me for advice and I told him to sit it out and wait for the bounce after the market opened again. He was too upset about the loss and ended up selling out at the market resume which was the bottom. He lost a lot of his retirement $$. As in most cases, patience and a stop loss are golden things. Sent using the NexusFi mobile app

Wow, interesting to hear perspective from someone who went through that! Yes, I think we all remember exactly where we were that day and how deeply it effected us all. With the current political climate, I just wanted some proactive ideas on how to handle open positions if there were to be a massive outage and if my protective stop would still then be viable. Just didn't want to be surprised with a $10,000 bill from my broker once the dust cleared!

techa 

So legit question here. In light of the NYC power outage the other day... what happens if we have positions open and something like that happens? That is an incredibly frightening thought for me as a smaller new trader (especially when I go to full contracts of ES). Also, the thought of in the future doing this full-time with the possibility of a prolonged outage causes me to shutter. Not trying to be a pessimist but it is a thought I have far too often.

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I think most secure way is always open position with stop and limit OCO orders
In this case if problem only in your region , your orders will be executed as you plan without any action from you and of cause you can call order desk to flat everything .

Best

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I always use bracket orders to protect both profits and losses in case I lose connectivity or somehow get distracted. With some brokers, it's easy to modify or delete the brackets to react to changing conditions; but I would never risk a large futures trade without brackets.

A good back-up plan is to have cell plan that includes a hotspot and a UPS if you trade on a desktop. A laptop should have enough battery. If you lose power, or often more likely, drop a connection you should be able to connect using a hotspot to flatten positions.

kbaker11 

I always use bracket orders to protect both profits and losses in case I lose connectivity or somehow get distracted. With some brokers, it's easy to modify or delete the brackets to react to changing conditions; but I would never risk a large futures trade without brackets.

This is what I do. I also trade with a laptop and I trade using the USB teathering from a mobile phone. I have this phone account specifically for trading. So far I've been in good shape during power outages.

Everyone has the power outage covered. It sounds like your placing trades with no profit and loss in place. I never place a trade with out stops in place. This way you can control losses. Then if you lose power you don't have to panic.

techa 

So legit question here. In light of the NYC power outage the other day... what happens if we have positions open and something like that happens? That is an incredibly frightening thought for me as a smaller new trader (especially when I go to full contracts of ES). Also, the thought of in the future doing this full-time with the possibility of a prolonged outage causes me to shutter. Not trying to be a pessimist but it is a thought I have far too often.

- System
1. Back up system with power: Charged Laptop with platform and broker connection set-up and tested. make sure you update the machine with necessary windows and platform versions, weekly is recommended. Make it a weekend exercise.
2. UPS for your desktop

- Internet
1. Cellphone 4G - Cell towers have UPS and are most likely survive grid power failures. However in an event like mass power outage, networks may get congested. so be mindful that - prioritize taking risk off and not manage the trade.
2. So laptops have a built in wireless card - get a USB Wifi adapters for your Desktop and plug-in, install necessary software and TEST it with cell network (i.e. set-up the hot-spot, passwords and connect so your machine remembers to automatically connect with it.
3. There are cellphones available with multiple sim cards, if you want to have two cell networks as for back-up.

- VPS - Go virtual/ physical leased machine on the cloud and stay connected with it via cell phone