This article is a guide on opening and closing positions on Single-Collateral Derivatives. To read about the differences between the available contracts, see Single-Collateral & Multi-Collateral Derivatives Contracts.
Opening a position
Placing an Order
The order form by default has a Limit order chosen on the Buy side.
You can toggle between order types, order direction and additional order options.
The quantity is denominated in contracts which are equal to $1 USD. 1 contract = 1 dollar’s worth of the underlying asset.
Opening a Position and Placing a Stop Loss Simultaneously
You can also place Stop Loss or Take Profit orders for your position simultaneously by checking the box for Stop Loss or Take Profit, which will be reduce-only market orders by default.
To place Stop Loss or Take Profit Limit orders instead, place a separate order after opening your position and click on the “Stop Loss” drop-down below the Buy and Sell buttons to select your desired order type.
Here’s an example of a Limit Buy order with a Stop Loss:
After clicking “Place Buy Order” you will see the order placed below in the Account Activity window; the Limit order under “Open Orders” and the Stop Loss under “Trigger Orders”.
Clicking on either “Open Orders” or “Trigger Orders” will show you the unfilled order’s details.
Cancelling or editing open orders
You can cancel or edit any unfilled or partially filled open orders.
When viewing your orders under “Open Orders” (Limit orders) or “Trigger Orders” (Stop Loss, Take Profit and Trigger Entry orders) you will see the buttons to edit or cancel on the right-hand side.
To cancel an order, simply click on the red “cancel” button next to your order and it will be removed from the order book.
If you have multiple open orders and you wish to cancel all of them, click on “Cancel All Orders”. There is no confirmation pop-up – orders will be cancelled immediately on clicking these buttons.
To edit an order, click on the “Edit” button. A pop-up box will appear where you can modify your order’s details.
Only price and quantity can be edited on open limit orders and trigger orders – in order to change the order type and or the trigger signal, the open order/trigger needs to be cancelled and re-submitted with updated parameters.
Note that adjusting the price can cause the order to immediately execute or be rejected depending on market conditions. For example, editing a Limit buy order to a price above the current market price will cause that order to execute immediately as a Taker order (or rejected if post-only is checked).
Closing a position
To close a position, place an order in the opposite direction. If you opened a long (buy) position your closing order must be a short (sell) order, and vice versa. This can be done with a limit or a market order, whether submitted directly or attached to an activated trigger order such as stop loss or take profit. See Order Types.
To close the entire position the quantity for your closing order must match the size of your position. Alternatively you can reduce the size of your position with several smaller orders.
While your closing order can be placed via the order form with an opposite-direction order, you can also close it by clicking on “Limit” or “Market” on the right-hand side of your position under “Open Positions”.
Placing closing orders directly from “Open Positions” helps you quickly exit a position provided there is sufficient supply/demand on the order book. The order direction and quantity is selected automatically. When clicking “Market” here a confirmation pop-up box will appear so you can cancel in case you clicked by mistake.
Setting Leverage
The Single-Collateral trading wallets operate on the basis of cross margin with a single accepted collateral asset (the base currency of the trading pair selected for inverse contracts as collateral.
The system itself offers no options to predetermine the leverage level when opening a position. The leverage level is determined by the size of your position(s) versus the collateral balance of the trading wallet.
There are 5 separate trading wallets, one for each of the assets with Single-Collateral contracts. Each wallet has both perpetual and fixed contracts for that asset and collateral in the wallet is shared for positions on all of an asset’s contracts. Note that opening positions on multiple different contracts of the same asset will increase the effective leverage for all of those positions.
Additional Information
Transferring funds to the Single-Collateral Wallet
Before you can trade you will need to fund your wallet. See Funding your Derivatives Account for more details.
Collateral & Fees
The base currency is used as collateral for Inverse contracts. For details on available collateral currencies, see Derivatives Collateral Currencies.
For the complete fee schedule and information on other fees, see Fee Schedule.
Margin requirements
Kraken Derivatives allows trading with up to 50x leverage but initial margin and maintenance margin differs depending on the contract and position size. See Margin schedule and maximum leverage.
PLEASE NOTE:
Any funds held in your trading wallets are at risk. If you move funds out of your trading wallet after opening a position your effective leverage will increase which may lead to liquidation. See Portfolio Management.