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Keyboard hotkeys beat mouse clicks for speed. They also bring a failure mode that mouse trading doesn't have: key repeat.

Hold a key down a fraction too long, and the operating system sends repeated key events. In some platform configurations, each repeat triggers a new order. A single buy hotkey pressed for half a second can open five or six positions.

It's more common on computers with a short repeat delay, or when the system is lagging and a key press is processed late, so that the release event comes after several repeats.

Safeguards exist. Platforms often have a setting to ignore repeated key events. Third-party tools can add a minimum interval between orders. And a small test on a demo account, pressing and holding the key, shows right away whether the setup is vulnerable.

Another variant: a hotkey that's mapped to a common key and triggers when typing in a chat window or a note. A trade placed by accident because focus was in the wrong window is a story told many times.

Keyboard remapping tools also let a hotkey be restricted to fire only once per key press, regardless of how long the key is held. That small change removes the whole category of accidents.

Anyone who has experienced a hotkey stack-up, and what stopped it from happening again?

It happened to me on a laggy afternoon when I had too many charts open. I pressed my buy hotkey on GBPUSD, nothing seemed to happen for a moment, so I held it a bit longer, and when the platform caught up I had four positions open instead of one. Luckily price moved my way for a few seconds and I closed the lot for a tiny profit, but it could easily have gone the other way at four times my normal size.

The fix came in two parts. I found the setting in my trading panel that ignores repeated key events and turned it on, then I added a minimum gap of one second between orders through the same tool, which is slow enough to block accidents and fast enough for how I trade.

The second variant you mention also bit me once. I was typing a note in a window I thought was my journal and the focus was actually on the platform. Now my hotkeys use a modifier combination that I would never type by accident, so a stray letter can't open a trade.