Trading is risky. Read this carefully.

HMM Trade is research software. You can lose money — possibly a lot of it — using it. Past performance, whether real or backtested, does not predict future results. We do not provide financial advice. The Service places trades using whatever configuration you give it; if that configuration is wrong, every trade is wrong.

Read this document in full. If anything below feels uncomfortable, stay on paper trading or stop using the Service. There is no obligation to go live, and there is no benefit to going live until you understand exactly what could go wrong.

HMM Trade is a software platform, not a regulated investment adviser, broker-dealer, futures commission merchant, money manager, or financial planner in any jurisdiction. Nothing on this site or in the Service — including signals, regime labels, strategy presets, documentation, blog posts, support replies, or email newsletters — is investment, legal, tax, or accounting advice, a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any instrument, or a solicitation to do so.

You should consult a qualified professional licensed in your jurisdiction before making any financial decision. Decisions you make about your own money are your own.

Any backtested, simulated, paper-traded, or historical performance shown by the Service or in our marketing materials reflects the behaviour of the strategy on the specific instruments, timeframe, and market conditions of the test. It does not predict, and is not a guarantee of, future results.

Backtests in particular have well-known limitations: they assume perfect fills, ignore borrow availability, may benefit from look-ahead bias, and almost always omit slippage and microstructure that materially affect live trading. Live results from the same configuration can — and often do — differ substantially from a backtest.

Trading is risky. Among other things:

• Markets gap, halt, and become illiquid without warning, sometimes during the very events that trigger trades.
• Stop orders are not guarantees — they may fill far from the trigger price during fast markets.
• Margin trading can produce losses larger than your initial deposit. You may receive a margin call requiring immediate additional funds, and your Broker can liquidate positions without your consent.
• Short sales expose you to potentially unlimited loss if the underlying rallies and to forced buy-ins if the position becomes hard-to-borrow.
• Currency fluctuations, regulatory changes, taxation changes, and corporate actions can each materially affect outcomes.

Automating trading adds a separate, serious layer of risk:

• Software defects. The Service may contain bugs, edge-case errors, or logical flaws that cause unintended orders, stuck positions, or runaway loops. Software is never bug-free.
• Configuration errors. A wrong sign on a position-size knob, an inverted condition, or a decimal-place mistake can cause the bot to do the opposite of what you intended.
• Model failure. The Hidden Markov Model and other statistical components fit historical regimes; the future may not look like that. Regime mis-identification during structural breaks (e.g. sudden vol spikes) is a known failure mode.
• Connectivity loss. Network outages between the Service, your Broker, and market-data providers can leave positions un-managed, stops un-acknowledged, or duplicate orders submitted on reconnect.
• Cascading failures. Multiple bots or multiple users can interact in ways that amplify a single error — e.g. simultaneous stop-loss triggers exhausting available liquidity.
• Lack of human judgment. A bot will trade through earnings announcements, market closures, geopolitical events, and exchange outages without pause unless its configuration explicitly tells it not to. You are responsible for that configuration.

Test new strategies in paper-trading mode for a period of time long enough to cover at least one volatile market session before going live. Maintain independent kill-switches at your Broker (revoke API keys; close all positions; disable margin). Monitor your bots — do not assume “set and forget” is safe.

The Service relies on third-party Brokers, exchanges, market-data providers, cloud-infrastructure providers, and public networks. We do not control any of these. An outage, rate-limit change, security incident, policy change, or unilateral termination by any of them can interrupt the Service, prevent your bot from trading, or cause orders to fail or duplicate. We are not liable for losses arising from third-party performance — see Section 13 of our Terms of Service.

Live trading uses your real money to place real orders that execute in real markets. Losses are real. Before you enable live trading we strongly recommend that you:

• Run the same configuration in paper trading for at least two weeks of active market sessions.
• Start live with the smallest position sizes your Broker allows, and increase only after you observe behaviour you understand.
• Use a separate Broker sub-account funded only with money you can afford to lose entirely.
• Keep margin and options-trading levels at the minimum your strategy actually needs.
• Set Broker-side daily-loss and concentration limits as a backstop independent of the Service.

You can also lose more than the amount in your account — margin and options strategies in particular may produce losses that exceed your initial capital and trigger margin calls or liquidation.

Cryptocurrencies are highly volatile. Prices can move tens of percent in minutes; networks can fork, freeze, or be subjected to regulatory action; tokens can be delisted or rendered unsupported by your Broker; stablecoins can de-peg. Crypto markets trade 24/7 — your bot can take losing positions while you sleep. There is no central authority to reverse erroneous transfers or fraudulent activity. You are solely responsible for understanding the technical and economic mechanics of any token your bot trades.

Options can lose value rapidly due to time decay (theta) and volatility changes (vega) even when the underlying does not move. Long options can expire worthless and lose 100% of the premium paid. Short options expose the seller to potentially large or unlimited losses. American-style options can be assigned at any time and may convert into a stock position you did not anticipate; assignment around dividends and earnings is particularly common. Options trading requires Broker approval at the appropriate level — your trading is constrained by that approval regardless of what configuration you set in the Service. Read your Broker's options-disclosure document before enabling options strategies.

Futures and foreign-exchange contracts are leveraged instruments. Small price movements in the underlying produce large swings in margin-equity. Margin calls are the norm, not the exception. Roll dates, settlement procedures, position limits, and exchange outages add additional operational risks. Most retail traders lose money in these markets. Confirm with your Broker that you are approved for the contract size and leverage your strategy implies.

We make reasonable efforts to keep the Service running but do not guarantee uptime. Maintenance windows, security incidents, cloud-provider outages, and Broker outages can interrupt the Service at any time. During an interruption your bot may not trade, may submit duplicate orders on recovery, or may be unable to manage existing positions. Plan for interruptions — do not run strategies whose risk depends on continuous Service availability.

Trading losses incurred while using the Service are not refundable, not reimbursable, and not a basis for a chargeback. We do not extend credit. The aggregate limitation-of-liability and indemnification provisions in our Terms of Service apply to any claim arising from trading losses or from use of the Service.

You — not HMM Trade — are responsible for:

• The strategies and configurations you choose to run;
• Whether your trading is lawful in your jurisdiction;
• Compliance with your Broker's, exchange's, and regulator's rules, including pattern-day-trader rules, market-data redistribution, options-approval levels, and tax-reporting obligations;
• The security of your account and your API credentials;
• Monitoring your bots and intervening when their behaviour is unexpected;
• All gains and losses, including the tax consequences of both.

By creating an account or using the Service, you confirm that you have read, understood, and accept this Risk Disclosure; that you have considered your financial situation and risk tolerance; that you are not relying on HMM Trade for financial advice; and that you accept full responsibility for the outcomes of your trading. If at any point this stops being true, suspend live trading and contact support@hmmtrade.com.