Four trading patterns fail an Eiger account on sight: trades closed in under 3 seconds, more than 5 open positions on one symbol, more than 3 size-ups in a row after losses, and opposing positions on the same symbol. Each has a hard number on the trading rules page, and each is detected automatically from your trade history.
Key takeaways
- A closed trade held for fewer than 3 seconds breaches the account.
- Five open positions on one symbol is the ceiling. The sixth breaches.
- You may increase size after a loss up to 3 times in a row. The fourth increase breaches.
- A buy and a sell open at the same time on the same symbol breaches, whatever the sizes.
- The same four rules apply during the evaluation and on the funded account.
How these rules are checked
The rules page puts it in one line: the prohibited strategies are "detected automatically from the trade history" and "each one breaches the account". Your account is a Simulated Demo Trading Account, a digital product and not a financial one, and the fee pays in part for the software that checks your trades against the rules. That software does not judge intent. It reads your orders, open times, close times and sizes, and compares them against the four limits below.
That has a practical side. A trade does not have to be part of a deliberate grid or martingale plan to trip the rule. If the numbers in your history cross the line, the account fails, and the rules page is clear that there are no warnings, no partial penalties and no soft strikes. What a breach does to the account, and what you can do next, is covered in what happens when you breach.
| High-frequency trading | 3 seconds | A closed trade held for less than this breaches. |
|---|---|---|
| Grid trading | 5 positions | More than this many open at once on one symbol breaches. |
| Martingale | 3 | Increasing size after a loss more than this many times in a row breaches. |
| Hedging | Enforced | Opposing buy and sell positions on the same symbol breach. |
High-frequency trading: the 3-second minimum hold
Every closed trade has to stay open for at least 3 seconds. A position opened at 10:15:02 and closed at 10:15:04 was held for 2 seconds. That is one trade, and it is enough to fail the account.
The rule is about the hold time of each closed trade, not about how often you trade. The Terms say scalping and intraday styles are welcome within the risk limits, so a short-term style is allowed. The floor is simply 3 seconds per trade. If you close positions by hand, a fast double click on open and close is the realistic risk. Anything automated that trades faster than that falls under the separate ban on HFT bots, covered in copy trading, signals and EAs.
Grid trading: 5 positions per symbol
The grid rule counts positions open at the same moment on one symbol. Five is allowed. A sixth open position on that symbol breaches.
A worked example on a €50,000 account. You hold 4 buy positions on EURUSD from different entries. A limit order you placed earlier fills, which makes 5. You are at the ceiling. If a second pending order fills while those 5 are still open, that sixth position fails the account, even though you did not click anything at that moment. Pending orders count once they turn into positions, so it is worth counting them before you leave them working.
The count is per symbol. Five positions on EURUSD and three on XAUUSD is 5 on one symbol and 3 on another, and neither crosses the line. Separate from the grid rule, the lot limits still apply: no single position above 100 lots, no more than 100 lots combined on one symbol, and no trade above 3 times your baseline size, which is the median lot size of your closed trades, checked from your 4th closed trade. The lot size limits article has examples of those.
Martingale: 3 size-ups after a loss
The site words it like this: increasing size after a loss more than 3 times in a row breaches. So the question for every new trade after a losing one is whether it is larger than the last, and how many times that has happened in a row.
| Trade 1 | 1.00 lot | Loss. |
|---|---|---|
| Trade 2 | 1.20 lots | Loss. First size-up after a loss. |
| Trade 3 | 1.40 lots | Loss. Second size-up in a row. |
| Trade 4 | 1.60 lots | Loss. Third size-up in a row, still within the rule. |
| Trade 5 | 1.80 lots | Fourth size-up in a row: breach. |
In that sequence, placing trade 5 at 1.60 lots or less would not have been a size-up. The rules page does not spell out what resets the count beyond the words "in a row". If a sequence in your own history looks close to the line, ask support before you trade it rather than after.
Hedging: one symbol, one direction at a time
Holding a buy and a sell on the same symbol at the same time breaches. A 2-lot buy on XAUUSD and a 0.5-lot sell on XAUUSD, open together, fail the account. The sizes do not need to match.
The rule as published names one symbol. It does not mention positions on different symbols, such as a buy on EURUSD and a sell on GBPUSD. The Terms also have a separate rule on accounts: mirrored or inverse positions across accounts are treated as group trading, which is a different breach covered in the copy trading article.
What happens to profit from these strategies
A breach fails the account. The payout section of the rules adds one more line: every payout request is reviewed against the trade history, and "profit generated through prohibited strategies is deducted from the payable amount". So a trade pattern that crosses one of these four lines does not earn a reward, and the account itself fails. The full list of what a payout request has to meet is in payout conditions explained.
The limits are numbers, and your trade history is where they are read.
The Terms also mention one pattern that has no fixed number: reckless full-margin, all-in positioning "may be flagged as gambling behaviour". And trading during extreme low liquidity may be reviewed if the execution could not be replicated in live market conditions. Neither of those has a threshold on the site, so there is nothing to calculate. They are listed here so you know they exist.
Frequently asked questions
Is scalping allowed on Eiger?
Yes. The Terms say scalping and intraday styles are welcome within the risk limits. Each closed trade still has to be held for at least 3 seconds, every position needs a stop-loss within 10 minutes, and positions must be closed by 22:00 UTC.
Do these rules apply during the evaluation?
Yes. The rules page says every rule applies during the evaluation too, except the drawdown limits, which are wider while you evaluate. The four prohibited strategies are the same on every program and on the funded account.
Can I have 5 buy positions and 5 sell positions on one symbol?
No. Having a buy and a sell open on the same symbol at the same time is hedging, which breaches on its own. The grid limit of 5 positions per symbol is a separate ceiling.
Will I get a warning before a breach?
No. The trading rules say there are no warnings, no partial penalties and no soft strikes. The check runs automatically on the trade history.
Read the rules, then pick a program
Every rule that can fail an account is published in full before you pay. Three programs, five sizes, an 80% reward and no time limit on any step.