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Perpetual Trading
Learn how to trade perpetual contracts on Vertex.
This tutorial will walk you through placing trades on one of Vertex’s Perpetual markets, including:
- An introduction to perps on Vertex.
- Selecting/switching markets.
- Selecting your Trade Leverage.
- Using a market or limit order.
- Entering the trade details.
- Finish placing the trade.
- Monitoring & closing positions.
- Canceling open orders.
Perpetuals are derivative contracts on an underlying spot asset. On Vertex, all perpetual contracts trade against USDC. Given their leveraged nature, they can amplify profits and losses and should only be used by those familiar with how they work.
If you are unfamiliar with perpetual markets, please head to the perpetual page to learn more about this product, Perpetual Trading, Universal Margin, and PnL & Settlements.
Trading Tip: if there are any unfamiliar terms on the trading page (entry or market info), try hovering to see the tooltip message.
To trade perpetuals, navigate to the Perpetuals page using the top navigation bar on the app or the hamburger menu on mobile (top left).
- If on mobile: navigate to the Trade tab below the chart.
- First, select the perp contract to be long or short.
- Click on the All Markets drop-down in the top left (beside the Orderbook price).
- Select the perpetual to trade.
- Similar to popular CEXs, Vertex allows traders to set max leverage per trade before executing.
- Trade Leverage is based on your Free Collateral. Select the multiple to apply to Free Collateral (denominated in USDC) to give a max position.
- To adjust Trade Leverage:
- Click on the Cross _x below the market selection.
- Select leverage.
- Max long/short positions for the market will be displayed based on that leverage.
- Press confirm.
Note on Cross Margin - Trade leverage is not to be confused with Account Leverage. Since Vertex supports universal cross-margining between balances and positions, setting leverage on a per-trade basis is simply a tool to help traders assess risk. It does NOT reflect the holistic risk associated with an account.
- To go long (buy) or short (sell) the perp, simply click on Buy/Long or Sell/Short.
- Perp trades do not show in balance changes, being simply margined vs. overall portfolio health.
- Traders now decide what type of trade (order) to place:
- Limit – Set a limit price to buy or sell the asset. The order will fill at that price or better.
- Market – The trade immediately executes against the best price across the orderbook and AMM pools.
- Click on either Limit or Market to choose.
- When choosing to place a market order, users may wish to adjust the slippage tolerance
- Slippage is the max deviation from the current orderbook price a trader is willing to execute.
- Default slippage is set to 0.5%.
- To adjust slippage:
- Click on the Gear icon to the right of the order types.
- Click on the entry box.
- Type in your desired slippage.
- Now enter the trade details.
→ IF placing a limit order, first enter the limit price.
- To enter trade size, traders can either:
- Type in the amount of Asset.
- Type in the $ value.
- Use the leverage slider (intervals of 10%) to decide the percentage of the max position.
- Press on the Place Long/Short Order button.
- Confirm the trade (transaction) in your wallet.
Limit Order – Cancelling an Open Order
- To cancel open orders:
- Navigate to the Open Orders sub-page in Portfolio or the Open Orders table below the chart on the Perp trading page.
- Press Cancel to cancel the order.
- Confirm in your wallet.
Monitoring Positions
- After successfully placing a trade, it will be reflected in the perp positions tables, where you can monitor and close open positions.
- Perp positions are shown in the portfolio overview, perp positions sub-page, and on the Perp trading page under the chart.
- Each table will show you the size and value of the position, mark price and entry, PnL and funding, and margin usage.
- You will also be able to close positions by pressing on close to the far right of the position.
Closing Position
- To close a position, press the close button on a position in the perp table.
- Select the amount of a position to close (25, 50, 75, or 100%).
- Press close and confirm in the wallet.
Taking Profit / Stop Loss
- At the moment, there are no trigger order types on Vertex, such as Take Profit or Stop Loss.
- However, TP can be manually approximated by adding a limit order against existing positions.
- Stop losses will be added at a later date.
Vertex is working on delivering TP, SL, and multiple other order types in the coming weeks. Please stay tuned for updates on the timeline of the new order-type releases.
Last modified 2mo ago