> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.qfex.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Risk Limits

> Stay Safe

We allow trading including overnight and on weekends, when some underlier markets are closed or less liquid.
For now, this may lead to lower liquidity conditions that could make the exchange less safe for users.
To ensure safety, we impose some limits on positions, prices and open interest in the early days of the exchange.

## Definitions

Market Close refers to periods when major reference markets (e.g., NYSE, CME) are closed.

| Asset Class           | Weekday Overnight Hours    | Weekend Hours                  |
| --------------------- | -------------------------- | ------------------------------ |
| **Single Stocks**     | NYSE closed (Mon–Fri ET)\* | Fri afternoon → Mon morning ET |
| **US Equity Indices** | CME closed (Sun–Fri ET)\*  | Fri afternoon → Sun evening ET |
| **Commodities**       | CME closed (Sun–Fri ET)\*  | Fri afternoon → Sun evening ET |
| **FX**                | N/A (open 24/5)            | Fri 22:00 → Sun 22:00 UTC      |

> *U.S. bank holidays are treated as normal business days for Market-Close logic.*

## Leverage Limits

| Asset Class                  | Maximum Leverage |
| ---------------------------- | ---------------- |
| **FX (Currency Pairs)**      | 50:1             |
| **Gold & Major Indices**     | 30:1             |
| **Commodities (excl. Gold)** | 20:1             |
| **Individual Equities**      | 10:1             |

> Example: 50× leverage requires a **2% Initial Margin**.

## Position Limits

| Asset Class                               | Maximum Position (USD Notional) |
| ----------------------------------------- | ------------------------------- |
| **FX (50× leverage)**                     | \$50,000,000                    |
| **Indices & Gold (30× leverage)**         | \$10,000,000                    |
| **Commodities excl. Gold (20× leverage)** | \$5,000,000                     |
| **Individual Equities (10× leverage)**    | \$2,500,000                     |

During Market Close:

* Position size per participant is limited to the **Max Position Percentage** of normal size.
* Participants exceeding this limit can only **reduce exposure**:
  * For long positions: only sell orders accepted.
  * For short positions: only buy orders accepted.

| Trading Period | Max Position % of Normal Limit |
| -------------- | ------------------------------ |
| **Overnight**  | 50%                            |
| **Weekend**    | 10%                            |

## Price Bands

We implements price bands to protect users against:

* their own fat finger errors;
* manipulative practices from other market participants.

For all products, buy orders at a price greater than the upper band, and sell orders at a price less than the lower band, are rejected by the system before reaching the matching engine. The bands are set by taking a fixed percentage above and below the last known Market Data Price of the product, set every minute. The percentages are as follows:

* US equities: 10%
* US indices: 5%
* Commodities: 5%
* FX: 2%

Price bands may be relaxed at the sole discretion of QFEX for the following reasons:

* Exceptional market volatility
* Stock splits or reverse stock split of equities

## Open Interest Limits

Once any product has around *\$1M USD* worth of open interest, each user is capped to *10%* of the open interest.

QFEX currently maintains a *\$10M USD* open interest limit per product.