# Overview

**Margin Trade** offers perpetual markets across **crypto, equities, and commodities**.

A perpetual future lets you take leveraged long or short exposure without an expiry date. You never take delivery of the underlying asset.

### Market families

1. **Crypto perpetuals** for assets such as BTC, ETH, and SOL
2. **Equity perpetuals** for stock-linked markets
3. **Commodity perpetuals** for assets such as gold and silver

See [Markets](/perps-specs/markets.md) for the current listings and per-market parameters.

### How trading works

* Orders are placed on a **central limit order book**. See [Orders](/trading/orders.md).
* Accounts currently use **cross margin**. See [Margin](/trading/margin.md).
* **Funding** keeps perp prices aligned with the underlying market. See [Funding](/trading/funding.md).
* **Mark price** drives unrealized PnL and liquidation checks. See [Price Feeds](/trading/price-feeds.md).
* Distressed positions move through **liquidation**, **backstop**, and **ADL** stages. See [Liquidations](/trading/liquidations.md).

### What this page does not cover

This page stays high level. Detailed mechanics live in the pages above so each topic has a single source of truth.


---

# Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation

If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question.

Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter:

```
GET https://docs.margin.trade/trading/overview.md?ask=<question>
```

The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language.
The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation.

Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.