Bot Settings: Trade Conditions and Entry Filters

The Trade Conditions section is the gatekeeper of the bot form: every setting here decides whether an entry is allowed to happen at all, from daily trade caps to market-based entry filters.

Trade limits and entry gates

The top of the section is a row of independent gates. Each one has its own Enabled toggle, and a trade must pass every enabled gate before it opens.

Entry Filters

The master switch for the underlying, VIX, and event-day filters further down the section. When it is off, none of those filters are evaluated. When Enter By in Trade Entry is set to When Triggered, this toggle is locked: entry filters are not evaluated for webhook and Launch Now entries, so switch Enter By back to Bot Settings if you want them.

Daily and concurrency caps

Min Trade Value and Max Trade Value

Dollar bounds on the value of the position itself. The bot will only attempt to open a trade whose price is at or above the minimum and at or below the maximum. These price checks run against live pricing on every entry, including webhook, Launch Now, and triggered entries.

Short/Long Ratio Limit

Min and Max bounds on the short/long ratio: the sum of the mark price of all short legs divided by the sum of the mark price of all long legs. A ratio of 2.0 means the shorts are worth twice the longs; 0.5 means half. The trade only enters when the ratio at entry pricing is greater than the Min bound and less than the Max bound. Leave either bound blank to ignore it. Like the trade value bounds, this is checked on every entry type.

Check Closed First

A safety switch. When enabled, the bot only opens a new trade after every trade opened that day has closing trades assigned to it, so the bot is certain the previous trade actually closed rather than the position simply going missing from a brokerage report. If a trade was closed outside tradeSteward, you may need to assign the closing trade to the bot's strategy on the Trade Log page (see Your Account Trade Log) before the bot will open again. Disable it if you want the bot to fire a new order whenever a position is detected as missing or closed. On a Multi-Entry bot this runs per entry time, so each entry waits only on its own trades, not on the other entries.

Open as Credit or Debit

Choose Any, Credit, or Debit. Credit only opens the trade if it would fill for a net credit; Debit only for a net debit; Any opens regardless.

Opening Quote

Chooses which tick counts as the underlying's opening quote for the day: the 9:30:05 tick or the First Tick of the day. This applies to every entry filter that references the open and to the opening quote recorded for the bot's trade.

Skip Event Days

Enables the Trade on Special Days panel described next. Off means the bot treats event days like any other day.

Trade on Special Days

Shown when Skip Event Days is enabled. The rule to remember: trades will be opened on days that are selected. Deselect an event type to skip it.

• All Other Days: ordinary days with no event. Deselect this while leaving event days selected to trade only on event days.
• FOMC Press Conferences, Monthly CPI Report, and Monthly OPEX: each offers Day Before, Day Of, and Day After toggles.
• Last Trading Day of the...: separate toggles for the Non-Quarter-End Month and the Quarter.

The calendar of event days themselves lives on the Event Days and Market Holidays page.

Underlying Entry Filters

Shown when Entry Filters is enabled. Most filters here share one pattern: a Greater Than bound and a Lower Than bound, each with its own On switch, so you can require a move above a floor, below a ceiling, or inside a band. For the change-based filters, input the change from the first time to the second time: positive if up, negative if down.

Intraday Change, One-Day Change, and Overnight Gap

Underlying Intraday Change compares the current price to today's open. Underlying One-Day Change compares to the prior close a full day back. Underlying Overnight Gap compares the prior close to today's open. All three take percent bounds.

Underlying Market Value Range

Plain price bounds: only enter when the underlying trades above the Greater Than value, below the Lower Than value, or between the two.

Underlying Moving Average Range

Only enter when the price sits a chosen percent above or below a moving average you define:

• Moving Average Type: Simple or Exponential.
• Period Type: Daily at Close, Daily at Current Time, Hourly, or Minute.
• Periods: how many periods build the average.
• Period Length: the duration of each period, only for Hourly and Minute period types. For a moving average on 5 minute candles, set it to 5.

Then set the bounds: open the trade when the underlying market price is greater than or less than your chosen percent above (below) the moving average.

Underlying Moving Average Crossover

Builds two moving averages with a shared type and period type: Periods in Moving Average 1 and Periods in Moving Average 2. The trade opens only while Moving Average 1 is Above or Below Moving Average 2, your pick of direction.

Underlying RSI

Gates entry on the relative strength index. Choose the RSI Type (Wilders, Simple, or Exponential), the Period Type, the Periods, and the Period Length for Hourly and Minute periods, then open the trade when the RSI is greater than or less than your bounds.

Underlying Opening Range Breakout

The ORB filter watches the range the underlying sets right after the open, then gates entries on whether price has escaped it.

• Breakout Direction: base the breakout on the Opening Range Higher side, the Lower side, Either side, or Both sides.
• Opening Time Period: minutes after the open used to build the range; the high and low marks during this window become the Opening Range High and Low. The bot will not enter until this period has elapsed. For one hour, enter 60.
• ORB percentage range: the minimum percent beyond the range high or low that price must move before entry. Positive values sit beyond the range, negative values sit inside it, and 0 simply requires the range to be breached.
• Breakout Condition: the state the market must be in at entry time.

Volatility Index (VIX) Entry Filters

Six filters mirror the underlying set, but read the VIX instead of your symbol: Intraday Change, One-Day Change, Overnight Gap, Range (open the trade when the market value of the VIX is within your bounds), Moving Average Range, and Moving Average Crossover. The moving average controls work exactly as described above. There is no VIX version of the RSI or Opening Range Breakout filters.

Custom Entry Filters

User-Hosted Entry Filters lets the bot ask a service you run whether to enter. Enable the toggle and fill in the User-Hosted Entry Filter Endpoint with a full URL including the http:// or https:// prefix. At entry time the bot queries your endpoint, which can compute anything you like before answering.

The endpoint must return a valid JSON document containing a key named filterStatus set to true (allow the entry) or false (block it). An invalid JSON response results in an error and the bot will not open a trade.

This page is the field-by-field reference. For a practical tour of choosing and combining filters, see Entry Filters: Underlying, VIX, and Custom Conditions, and for the settings that control when the bot tries to enter in the first place, see Bot Settings: Trade Entry and Multi-Entry.