Entry Filters: Underlying, VIX, and Custom Conditions
Entry filters let a bot check market conditions before it opens a trade. If any active filter says no, the bot stands down for that attempt and tries again later in its entry window.
Where filters live: the Trade Conditions section
The Trade Conditions section of the bot form is the bot's rulebook for when trading is allowed at all. The master Entry Filters toggle reveals the underlying, VIX, and custom filter panels described below. Around it sit standalone gates that work whether or not filters are on: Max Concurrent Trades (caps how many of the bot's trades can be open at once with staggered or Multi-Entry setups), Max Trades Per Day, Max Profit Targets Per Day, Max Stops Per Day, minimum and maximum trade value bounds, and more. Every gate in the section is documented field by field in Bot Settings: Trade Conditions and Entry Filters.
Skip Event Days and Trade on Special Days
Scheduled market events move markets, and Skip Event Days (its own toggle in Trade Conditions, separate from the Entry Filters toggle) lets a bot sit them out. Enabling it reveals the Trade on Special Days panel, where the days you leave selected are the days the bot will trade. For each event you can allow or block the Day Before, Day Of, and Day After:
- FOMC Press Conferences
- Monthly CPI Report
- Monthly OPEX
Alongside those are toggles for All Other Days and the Last Trading Day of the Non-Quarter-End Month or Quarter. To trade only around events, deselect All Other Days and leave your target event days selected. When one calendar day carries multiple events, all of that day's event types must be selected for the bot to enter. The event calendar itself lives at Event Days and Market Holidays, so you can see exactly which dates each rule covers.
Underlying Entry Filters
These eight filters read the bot's own underlying before entry. Most use a shared pattern: a greater than bound and a less than bound, each with its own on switch, entered as the change from the first time to the second time, positive if up and negative if down. Turn on one bound or both.
- Intraday Change: how far the underlying has moved since today's open, in percent. Example: enter only if the market is down less than 1 percent on the day.
- One-Day Change: the move from yesterday's close to the current price, in percent.
- Overnight Gap: the gap from yesterday's close to today's open, in percent. Example: stand down after a large gap in either direction by requiring the gap to sit between -0.5 and +0.5 percent.
- Market Value Between: the underlying's price itself must fall inside a range you set.
- Moving Average Range: the price must sit a chosen percent above or below a moving average you define: Simple or Exponential, measured Daily at Close, Daily at Current Time, Hourly, or by Minute, with your period count.
- Moving Average Crossover: one moving average must be above or below another, a classic trend check built from the same period controls.
- RSI: the Relative Strength Index over your chosen periods must be above or below your bounds, a common overbought or oversold gate.
- Opening Range Breakout: the bot tracks the underlying's high and low over an Opening Time Period you set (60 means the first hour) and will not enter until that period has elapsed. Then the Breakout Direction (Higher, Lower, Either, or Both) and Breakout Condition decide whether entries require the price to be outside the range right now, to have crossed it at any point since the range formed, or, for fade styles, to have stayed inside it. The ORB percentage range widens or tightens the breakout threshold.
Each filter has its own enable switch, so you can combine checks: an overnight gap limit plus a moving average trend check plus an RSI bound all have to agree before the bot enters.
Volatility Index (VIX) Entry Filters
Six of the same filter types are available against the VIX rather than the bot's underlying, so a bot can require calm or elevated volatility before it trades: Intraday Change, One-Day Change, Overnight Gap, a Range Between bound on the VIX level itself, a Moving Average Range, and a Moving Average Crossover. There is no RSI or Opening Range Breakout filter for the VIX. VIX filters are popular for keeping premium-selling bots out of fast markets, for example by requiring the VIX to be below a level you choose before entering.
Custom Entry Filters
User-Hosted Entry Filters hand the final entry decision to you. The bot calls a web address you host, and your endpoint answers with a simple yes or no trade decision in a JSON response with a filterStatus value of true or false. You can compute anything you like behind that endpoint before answering.
How filters fit the entry flow
Filters run at entry time, after the bot's schedule says go and before any order is sent. They never close an open trade; exits remain the job of your profit target, timed exit, and stop settings. If a filter blocks an attempt and the entry window is still open, the bot simply re-checks on its next attempt. To see the exact live numbers your filters are evaluating right now, open the Bot Filter Values page, covered in its own guide. For the scheduling side of entries, see Entry Timing: Windows, Days, Speed, and Staggering; for exits, start with Profit Targets and Timed Exits.