Flatten All and kill switches: what they can and can't do

When you copy one leader into many accounts, a mistake is multiplied by the number of accounts. A flatten-everything control, sometimes called a kill switch, is the fastest way to stop the damage. It's worth understanding exactly what it does before you need it.

What "flatten" really means

Flattening is two things: cancel working orders and close open positions. Closing means sending an opposite order for each position, and to make sure it fills, that's a market order. So flattening is not a magic undo; it's a burst of market orders across every account.

What can still go wrong

• Slippage. Market orders fill at the best available price. In a fast market that can be well away from the last trade, on every account at once.
• Rejects. A broker can reject an order: outside trading hours, a disconnected session, or a risk check on their side. A rejected close leaves that position open.
• Timing. Stops and targets that were working may fill in the moment before they're cancelled.
• Outages. If a broker's systems are down, no software can close a position there.

That's why after any flatten you should look at every account's positions, not just the confirmation message.

Manual versus automatic

A manual Flatten All is for when you decide. Automatic flattening is for when a rule decides: Edgeable's guardrails can flatten an account when it hits a limit such as max daily loss, and optionally lock it out for the rest of the day. Automatic actions act only on the accounts that hit the rule.

Habits that help

1. Know where the button is before the session starts.
2. Disarm copying first if the problem is the copying itself, then flatten.
3. After flattening, check Positions for anything still open and close it on the broker directly if needed.
4. Read the Activity log afterwards to find out what happened.

How it works in the Cockpit: Use Flatten All safely. And read the risk disclosure: guardrails are tools, not guarantees.