Risk guide
Weekend trading risks
Weekend markets are real, and so are their sharp edges. These are the four that matter, without euphemism.
Last reviewed
Thinner books, wider spreads
Weekend volume is a fraction of weekday volume. Spreads widen and a market order of meaningful size moves the price against you. Our movers board excludes markets whose spread exceeds our threshold rather than presenting an illiquid quote as a clean price.
Monday-open gap risk
The weekend contract price is an opinion the exchange can disagree with at 9:30 on Monday. If the official market opens away from the weekend mark, the perpetual snaps toward it fast. A weekend position is implicitly a bet on where the exchange reopens.
Leverage and liquidation
Leverage is opt-in, but it is the default culture on perpetual venues. Above 1x, a move against you can close the position automatically at the liquidation price — and weekend illiquidity makes stop-outs sloppier. You can lose your entire collateral. Trading at 1x removes the liquidation cliff and simply tracks the stock.
Venue and stablecoin risk
Your collateral lives on the venue in a stablecoin. Exchange outages, smart-contract failures and stablecoin depegs are all real, if rare, ways to lose money that have nothing to do with the stock you traded. Self-custody venues remove the broker but not these risks.