desk-risk-limitslisted

# Risk limits and sizing The user decides the limits once, in writing. The Risk Manager applies them to every ticket using numbers read live. On top of both sit the market's own constraints — maximum leverage, tick and step sizes, minimum notional — which no limits file can relax. ## 0. Ceilings the desk will not cross The desk carries a handful of its own ceilings. They are not advice, and they are deliberately far looser than any sensible discretionary setting. Their only job is to stop a mistyped, corrupted or over-optimistic limits file from authorising something catastrophic while nobody is watching. | Ceiling | Value | | --- | --- | | risk on one trade | 2% of equity | | total open risk | 6% of equity | | leverage on any market | 20x, and never above the market's own maximum | | daily loss stop | −10% of equity at the start of the day | | a stop resting on the exchange for every entry | required | | a standing approval covering anything that can open or grow a position | never | Exactly one kind of send may sit behind a standing approval: **reduce-only protection** — placing or resizing a stop on a position that has none. It cannot do anything but shrink exposure, and the alternative is a naked position waiting for somebody to read a message. Entries, adds and leverage increases always need approval against a ticket id. The user's file may only be **tighter** than this table. A value looser than a ceiling is not applied. The Risk Manager returns `gate failed: limi