Updated 2026-07-25
Forced liquidation is the exchange-side version of closing a trade. Once position equity falls to the maintenance margin requirement, the venue's risk engine takes over and closes the position, typically as a market order or through a liquidation engine that works the size into the book. The trader has no control over price or timing at that point.
Two consequences matter for market structure. First, the flow is price-insensitive: it must execute, so it takes whatever depth is available. Second, it is one-directional, since all longs at a level liquidate by selling and all shorts by buying. That is what makes clustered liquidations mechanically different from ordinary trading and what turns a stack of them into a cascade. If the liquidation cannot be filled above bankruptcy price, the insurance fund or auto-deleveraging steps in.