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Discipline Rules

Beta

Discipline Rules are in beta. Watch Alert History for your first few sessions with them on, and tell us how it goes in Discord or at support@crosstrade.io.

Discipline Rules are your own rules for the session, separate from any funding company rule. They live in each monitor's settings on both the NinjaTrader and Tradovate Account Managers: click the Pencil ✏️ icon on the account's row and scroll to Discipline Rules.

RuleWhat it does
Limit trades per sessionBlocks opening signals once the session's allowance is used
Stop after losses in a rowAfter the losing streak you set, blocks signals, allows closing orders only, or flattens and blocks
Cooldown after a lossBlocks new entries for the minutes you choose after any losing trade

All three apply to webhook signals sent through CrossTrade. Closing orders always go through: no Discipline Rule ever stops an exit. Trades you place by hand in NinjaTrader or Tradovate are not counted or blocked.

Sessions​

Each rule counts within one trading session, which starts at the 6 PM ET futures session open. At that open the trade count and the losing streak reset to zero on their own. There is nothing to rearm, so an alert you leave running every day picks up a fresh allowance each session.

Limit trades per session​

Turn on Limit trades per session and set Trades allowed. Each opening signal CrossTrade accepts for the account uses one trade. When the allowance is used, the next opening signal is blocked and Alert History shows:

Signal blocked, account 'PROP1234' has used its 1 trades for this session.

What counts:

  • Every opening signal that passes your other settings and is sent to the broker, including one that adds to a position you already hold.
  • A signal is counted when CrossTrade sends it. If the broker then rejects the order, it still uses the allowance.

What does not count:

  • Exits and closing orders.
  • A signal blocked by another setting (a trading window, a kill switch, an Entry Limit).
  • Orders you place by hand in your platform.

Example: one entry per session. Set Trades allowed to 1. Your strategy's first entry of the session goes through with its stop and target. Any later entry signal that session is blocked, while the stop, target and any exit signal still work. The allowance comes back at 6 PM ET.

If a signal uses flatten_first, a blocked entry still runs its closing leg, so the flatten part happens and the new entry does not.

Stop after losses in a row​

Turn on Stop after losses in a row, set Losses in a row, and choose what happens next:

Then...Effect for the rest of the session
Block signals for the sessionEvery signal to the account is blocked
Allow closing orders onlyOnly orders that close or reduce a position go through
Flatten and block signalsThe account is flattened, then signals are blocked

The rule stops the monitor for the session, the same way a loss limit would. Restarting the monitor resets the count.

A trade here is one round trip on the account, from flat to in a position and back to flat, graded by the change in realized P/L across it. Scaling in and out inside one position is one trade, and two instruments held at once and closed together are one trade.

Cooldown after a loss​

Turn on Cooldown after a loss and set the Minutes. After any losing trade, new entries are blocked for that long. Alert History shows the time left:

Signal blocked, account 'Sim101' is cooling down after a loss (4 min left).

Restarting the monitor does not shorten a cooldown that is already running.