What Happens If a Copy Trade Fails?

Copy trading is automated, but not every signal ends in a filled order, and that is often a good thing. A copy can fail or be skipped for clear reasons, and RelayTrades is built to make those reasons visible rather than leaving you guessing.

Why a copied trade might not go through

• Insufficient buying power: your account does not have enough to place the buy at your sizing.
• No matching position: a close or sell signal arrives but you do not hold the position to close.
• A risk limit is hit: maximum position size, exposure, or your daily-loss cap blocks the order.
• Outside your window: the market is closed, or the trade falls outside a time window you set.
• Broker rejection: the broker declines the order, for example due to permissions or volatility halts.
• Manual approval expired: in manual mode, the approval window passed before you confirmed.

What RelayTrades does when a copy fails

Instead of failing silently, RelayTrades records why the order did not place and marks it as rejected or retrying. Transient errors are retried a limited number of times, and you are notified of the outcome. Sell and close orders are capped to the quantity you actually hold, so a failed or partial copy cannot oversell or open an unexpected short. Every signal and routed order is logged.

Every copied order and its outcome is logged, so you can always see what happened and why, including the reason a trade was skipped.

What to keep in mind

A skipped copy is frequently the safeguards working as intended, a risk limit or a buying-power check doing its job. If copies fail often, review your buying power, sizing multiplier, and limits. Copy trading does not remove market risk, the trader you follow can lose money, and so can you. Past performance is not indicative of future results.