Controls Overview

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Trading systems fail in predictable ways.

A strategy deploys with an incorrect configuration. A market event creates unexpected volatility. A runaway algorithm continues submitting orders after crossing risk limits. An operator forgets to disable a strategy before maintenance. A symbol begins behaving differently than expected. Anthid Controls provide a centralized risk and governance layer that sits between your application and your broker. Controls are evaluated before execution, allowing you to enforce operational safeguards without modifying application logic. Controls can be applied at three levels:

• Organization — Global controls that apply across your entire organization.
• Trading Account — Controls specific to a broker account.
• Symbol — Controls for individual symbols or instruments.

This layered approach allows broad protection at the organization level while enabling account-specific and symbol-specific exceptions where required.

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Why Controls Matter

Most trading platforms focus on order execution. Anthid focuses on both execution and protection. Controls allow engineering teams, operations teams, and trading teams to:

• Prevent accidental trading activity.
• Enforce risk limits consistently.
• Restrict trading to approved market hours.
• Protect against software defects and unexpected market conditions.
• Reduce operational risk without modifying strategy code.
• Apply changes immediately without redeploying applications.

Controls become increasingly important as organizations scale from a single strategy to multiple systems, accounts, brokers, and operators.

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Organization Controls

Organization controls provide the highest level of protection. These controls apply across every connected trading account and every strategy operating within the organization.

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Manual Controls

Organization manual controls provide a global trading kill switch. When disabled, trading activity is prevented across the organization regardless of account-level or symbol-level configuration. Common use cases include:

• Emergency trading suspension.
• Scheduled maintenance windows.
• Incident response.
• Compliance-driven shutdowns.
• Strategy rollout pauses.

Because organization controls sit at the highest level of the hierarchy, they provide a simple and effective way to immediately stop trading activity across your environment.

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Trading Account Controls

Trading account controls provide account-specific governance and risk management. These controls allow organizations to manage individual broker accounts independently while maintaining organization-wide standards.

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Manual Controls

Account manual controls enable or disable trading for a specific account. Examples include:

• Disabling a paper account.
• Pausing a live account during investigation.
• Restricting a newly onboarded account.
• Isolating a single account during an incident.

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Risk Controls

Account risk controls limit exposure before orders reach the broker. Available controls include:

• Maximum daily loss amount.
• Maximum daily loss percentage.
• Maximum position size.
• Maximum order size.

These controls help prevent excessive losses caused by software defects, unexpected market conditions, or operational mistakes. Rather than relying solely on strategy-level safeguards, account risk controls provide an independent enforcement layer.

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Time Controls

Account time controls restrict when trading is permitted. Available controls include:

• Trading start time.
• Trading end time.

Examples include:

• Restricting trading to regular market hours.
• Preventing overnight activity.
• Enforcing session-based trading windows.
• Blocking orders that have become stale.

Time controls help ensure trading activity occurs only during approved operating periods.

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Symbol Controls

Symbol controls provide the most granular level of protection. These controls allow organizations to manage individual symbols independently while inheriting broader organization and account protections. Symbol controls are particularly useful for volatile instruments, newly deployed strategies, and assets requiring additional oversight.

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Manual Controls

Symbol manual controls allow specific symbols to be enabled or disabled. Examples include:

• Disabling trading in a volatile stock.
• Restricting a symbol during earnings announcements.
• Temporarily suspending a problematic instrument.
• Limiting exposure during market events.

Risk Controls Symbol risk controls enforce limits on individual instruments.

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Available controls include:

• Maximum daily loss amount.
• Maximum daily loss percentage.
• Maximum position size.
• Maximum order size.

This allows organizations to apply stricter controls to higher-risk symbols without affecting the rest of the account. For example, a leveraged ETF may require significantly tighter limits than a large-cap equity position.

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Time Controls

Symbol time controls restrict trading windows for specific instruments. Examples include:

• Restricting trading around earnings releases.
• Limiting activity during specific market sessions.
• Enforcing custom trading windows for individual symbols.
• Blocking activity outside approved trading periods.

Symbol-level time controls provide precise operational control without impacting other instruments.

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Layered Protection

Anthid evaluates controls across the organization, account, and symbol hierarchy. This layered model enables organizations to implement defense-in-depth risk management:

1. Organization controls establish global policy.
2. Account controls enforce account-specific requirements.
3. Symbol controls provide instrument-level protection.

Together, these controls create multiple independent layers of protection between your application and the market. As trading infrastructure scales, controls become just as important as execution. Anthid Controls help ensure that strategies remain governed, risk remains bounded, and operational mistakes do not become costly incidents.