Post-Trade Risk | NinjaTrader Partner API

Post-trade risk is evaluated after positions are open. When an account breaches a threshold (like a daily loss limit or trailing max drawdown), the system automatically liquidates positions and can lock the account.

Configuring Post-Trade Risk Settings

You can configure post-trade risk in two ways:

At account creation, by providing a postTradeRisk object on the account object.
At any time after creation, by calling updateUserAutoLiq.

Both methods let you configure the following settings:

All these fields are optional. Omitting a field will simply ignore calculations for that liquidation type. For example, an account without a dailyLossAutoLiq has no daily loss limit applied.

Field	Description
marginPercentageAlert	Margin percentage that triggers an alert to the permitted user.
dailyLossPercentageAlert	Daily loss percentage (of the day’s starting balance) that triggers an alert to the permitted user.
dailyLossAlert	Dollar-value daily loss that triggers an alert to the permitted user.
marginPercentageLiqOnly	Margin percentage that triggers `Liquidate Only` mode. The account can close positions but can’t open new ones.
dailyLossPercentageLiqOnly	Daily loss percentage (of the day’s starting balance) that triggers `Liquidate Only` mode.
dailyLossLiqOnly	Dollar-value daily loss that triggers `Liquidate Only` mode.
marginPercentageAutoLiq	Margin percentage that triggers automatic liquidation.
dailyLossPercentageAutoLiq	Daily loss percentage (of the day’s starting balance) that triggers automatic liquidation. Unlocks at the next market open.
dailyLossAutoLiq	Dollar-value daily loss that triggers automatic liquidation. Unlocks at the next market open.
weeklyLossAutoLiq	Dollar-value weekly loss that triggers automatic liquidation. Unlocks at market open on Sunday.
flattenTimestamp	Flattens and cancels all open positions at this date-time. This is a one-time event, not a recurring schedule. Once flattened, nothing prevents the user from re-opening positions.
trailingMaxDrawdown	Maximum loss the account can sustain before automatic liquidation. The threshold trails upward as the account profits.
trailingMaxDrawdownLimit	Equity level at which trailing stops. For example, if set to $50,100 on a $50,000 account, the trailing drawdown level won’t increase beyond $50,100.
trailingMaxDrawdownMode	Which trailing max drawdown mode to use. See Drawdown Modes for more information.
dailyProfitAutoLiq	Dollar-value daily profit that triggers automatic liquidation. Unlocks at the next market open.
weeklyProfitAutoLiq	Dollar-value weekly profit that triggers automatic liquidation. Unlocks at the next Sunday open (5 PM CT).
doNotUnlock	When `true`, the account stays locked after a daily loss limit breach instead of auto-unlocking at the next market open. You must manually unlock the account by calling `setAdminAutoLiqAction` with `adminAction` set to `Normal`. Only affects daily loss limit breaches; standard trailing max drawdown violations lock the account permanently regardless. In a bounced-market scenario where volatility pushes the balance back above the drawdown threshold, `doNotUnlock` keeps the account locked and prevents auto-unlock. There is no bulk endpoint to unlock accounts locked with `doNotUnlock` set to `true`, so accounts must be unlocked one at a time. If you’re managing the `doNotUnlock` workflow, plan for a backend process that resets accounts individually before each session.

Checking Liquidation Status

To check where an account currently stands, call accountRiskStatus/list. It returns the following information for each account you can access: its current status (adminAction), the reason code for that status (adminActionReasonCode), the start and stop timestamps of the most recent auto-liquidation period (autoLiqStarted and autoLiqStopped), and how many times the account has been auto-liquidated (autoLiqCounter).