Do you keep a second broker connected just in case?

I keep one funded and idle. Not for the outage — for the day I need to close something and can't get in.

At my frequency an outage is an inconvenience, not a risk. Depends entirely on how fast your strategy needs to act.

The question I'd ask instead: can you close every open position by phone or web if your main path is dead? If yes, backup broker is optional.

Rita's framing is the right one. I'd add: test it once, don't assume. Log into the web portal and the phone line while nothing is going wrong, so you already know your account number and where the close button lives. I did that drill after an evening where I couldn't remember which email my login was under, which was embarrassing but cheap to find out on a quiet day.

Crypto side you kind of have to, exchanges go down exactly when everyone wants out. I keep spare margin on a second venue purely so I'm not the guy watching a liquidation load a spinner. Overkill for stocks at modest size probably, overkill for leverage never.

Interesting how much of this is about the feeling rather than the numbers. When I couldn't reach my positions for a bit, what got me wasn't the money, it was the helplessness. A second path calmed me down more than it ever changed a fill. How do you tend to sit with that kind of moment, Lee?

Fair, so it's less about redundancy and more about having an exit I've actually tested. I haven't, which answers my own question. Will do the web login drill this week.