Risk Disclosure

Last updated: 2026-06-14. Read this before using TradeByBar. It is not optional.

Trading futures involves substantial risk

Trading futures, options, and other leveraged instruments involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for every investor. You can lose more than your initial deposit. Past performance is not indicative of future results. You should carefully consider whether trading is appropriate for you in light of your circumstances, knowledge, and financial resources.

Automated trading amplifies that risk

TradeByBar executes orders automatically based on rules you define. A rule that performed well historically may perform poorly going forward. A rule with a small bug can place many losing trades faster than you can react. The Service can and will execute trades while you are asleep, away from your computer, or otherwise unable to intervene.

Autonomous trading (Intelligence Mode) carries additional, distinct risks

The Intelligence tier operates with minimal human input. Once you arm it, it weighs your validated strategies together into a single decision on each bar, sizes positions using its own conviction measure, and can manage exits for you. You may not be able to predict, in advance, which way it will trade, or at what size, at any given moment. It can open, reverse, scale, and close positions while you are asleep or away from your computer. You remain fully responsible for every order it places in your account. Autonomous operation does not reduce risk. It removes a layer of human review that would otherwise catch errors before they reach the market. Weighing and combining strategies is not investment advice and is not a prediction that any strategy will be profitable. Do not allocate capital to Intelligence Mode that you are not prepared to lose in full while you are not watching.

Intelligence Mode can misjudge the market

Intelligence Mode classifies the current market into regimes (such as trending, mean-reverting, volatile, or quiet) and weighs your strategies together using a recent-performance and historical-fitness score. This classification can be wrong. The engine can put weight on a read that then loses, can shift its weighting at the worst possible moment, and can keep trading a regime that has already changed. Its conviction sizing can increase your position, and therefore your loss, exactly when its read of the market is mistaken. Any fitness score, conviction level, calibration number, or similar figure the Service shows is a model estimate derived from historical data, subject to the hypothetical-performance limitations described below, and is not a prediction or guarantee of future results.

Backtest results are not promises

Backtest output (P&L, win rate, profit factor, prop-firm verdicts) describes how a strategy would have performed on the specific historical bars used, with the specific assumptions used (commission, slippage, fill model). Real markets behave differently. Slippage in live markets is often worse than modeled. Liquidity gaps, halts, broker outages, and your own internet connection can all turn a "passing" backtest into a real-world loss.

Hypothetical performance disclaimer (CFTC Rule 4.41)

All backtest, simulated, and paper-trading results shown in the Service are hypothetical performance results.

Hypothetical performance results have many inherent limitations, some of which are described below. No representation is being made that any account will or is likely to achieve profits or losses similar to those shown; in fact, there are frequently sharp differences between hypothetical performance results and the actual results subsequently achieved by any particular trading program. One of the limitations of hypothetical performance results is that they are generally prepared with the benefit of hindsight. In addition, hypothetical trading does not involve financial risk, and no hypothetical trading record can completely account for the impact of financial risk of actual trading. For example, the ability to withstand losses or to adhere to a particular trading program in spite of trading losses are material points which can also adversely affect actual trading results. There are numerous other factors related to the markets in general or to the implementation of any specific trading program which cannot be fully accounted for in the preparation of hypothetical performance results and all of which can adversely affect actual trading results.

Research survivors can still be overfit

The research engine searches many candidate strategies and keeps the ones that pass its walk-forward, multiple-testing-penalty (deflated Sharpe), and held-out checks. Searching a large number of candidates inherently increases the chance that a strategy looks good by luck. These safeguards reduce that risk; they do not remove it. The held-out test is a single observation, and any "probability-of-real" or similar score is a statistical estimate, not a guarantee that an edge exists. A strategy that cleared every check can lose immediately in live trading. All research output is hypothetical performance subject to the CFTC Rule 4.41 limitations above. Paper-trade any survivor before committing real money.

Prop-firm rule presets are not your contract

The prop-firm rule presets included in the Service (Lucid Trading, Topstep, Apex, FTMO, and any others) are best-effort summaries of publicly published rules at a point in time. The actual rules of your funded-trader account live in your contract with your prop firm and may differ. Always verify against your contract. A backtest reporting "PASSED" against a preset does not mean your prop-firm evaluation will pass. TradeByBar is an independent software vendor, not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Lucid Trading, Topstep, Apex, FTMO, or any prop firm; these names are used only to identify the rule presets they describe.

You bring the broker keys, you own the orders

You connect your own broker account. Every order placed is in your name with your broker. We do not have custody of your funds. If you choose to give the Service permission to trade your account, you are responsible for every order that is placed, including orders placed by automated strategies you configured, signals you imported, or webhooks you authorized.

Always have a broker-side stop

The Service can fail. Networks fail. The engine can crash. Our database can be unavailable. Your broker's API can reject orders. Configure broker-side protective stops on any position you cannot afford to leave unmanaged. Do not rely solely on software-side risk gates.

News-aware entry skipping and flattening can fail

Intelligence Mode can skip or shrink new entries, and attempt to flatten open positions, around scheduled high-impact news using a third-party economic calendar. This protection is best-effort, not a guarantee. It depends entirely on that calendar being accurate, complete, and correctly timed. Calendars can be late, list the wrong time, or omit an event, and unscheduled news is not covered at all. Medium-impact events only reduce new entry size and do not flatten existing positions, and flattening can be disabled in your strategy settings. A position can be open across a violent news move despite this feature. Treat news handling as a convenience, not a safety net, and keep broker-side protective stops on anything you cannot afford to leave exposed.

Automated exits are not guaranteed

Intelligence Mode and managed-exit strategies place protective stops and targets, move stops to breakeven, trail them, and apply time stops. These are convenience features, not guarantees. A stop order does not guarantee a fill at the stop price. In gapping, halted, or fast-moving markets your fill can be far worse, and your loss can exceed the level the stop implies. Moving a stop to breakeven does not ensure a winning trade stays a winner. All of this also depends on the engine running, your broker accepting order modifications, and live market data flowing. If any of those fail, the stop may not move or may not fire. Maintain independent broker-side protective stops on every position.

No advice

TradeByBar is software. We do not give investment advice. We do not recommend specific strategies, symbols, position sizes, or risk parameters. We do not know your personal financial situation. Decisions about what to trade and how much to risk are yours alone. If you need advice, consult a licensed investment professional. Automated features you enable, such as the ensemble decision engine and conviction sizing, execute mechanically within the settings you configure. They do not assess suitability, are not advice, and do not change the fact that you remain responsible for the configuration and every order.

By using the Service you acknowledge:

• You understand that automated trading can result in rapid and substantial losses.
• You accept full responsibility for every trade executed in your account.
• You will not rely on backtest, simulated, or research results, including any strategy the Service surfaces as a "survivor," as a prediction of future performance.
• You will verify prop-firm rules against your actual contract before trading.
• You will maintain broker-side risk controls independent of the Service.
• You understand that TradeByBar is software, not advice.
• You understand that Intelligence Mode can weigh strategies, decide, size, and exit trades autonomously, including while you are unable to intervene, and you accept responsibility for those orders.
• You understand that the engine's market-regime detection, strategy selection, and position sizing can be wrong and can increase your losses.
• You understand that news-aware skipping and automated exits (breakeven, trailing, and time stops) reduce but do not eliminate risk and are not guarantees against loss.

If any of this is unclear, do not use the Service with real money. Use the paper account first.