Accidental hedging when you copy trades: how it happens and how to prevent it

Hedging across prop firm accounts means holding opposite positions at the same time: long on one account, short on another. Prop firms ban it, and most traders who break the rule never meant to.

How it happens by accident

• Two copiers on one account. Each sends its own orders, and a reversal can leave the account on the wrong side.
• A manual trade on a follower. You close or reverse a follower by hand while the leader keeps its position.
• A failed exit. A follower's exit is rejected, the leader reverses, and the follower ends up the other way.
• Two groups, two directions. You lead one group long and trade another group short in the same market.
• Mini against micro. Long NQ on one account and short MNQ on another is still opposite positions in the same market.

How to prevent it

• One copier per account. Turn off any other copier, including your platform's own, on accounts you copy into.
• Leave followers alone. Trade the leader; close everything with a group Flatten rather than account by account.
• One direction per market. Do not run two groups in opposite directions in the same contract.
• Check after a rejected order. If a follower's order is refused, look at that account before the next trade.

Where Replica fits

Replica's Prevent hedging setting is on by default for every group: a follower is never long and short at once. When the leader flips from long to short, each follower closes its old side and waits for the broker to confirm flat before opening the new one, and a copy that would open against an opposite position in the Mini or Micro of the same contract is not sent. When the leader goes flat, followers still holding that contract are closed. A fill on a follower that Replica did not send is flagged in the activity log. See follower protection and safety rules.