Option Alpha April 2023 Release

We are excited to announce the arrival of a new version of the platform with exciting new features and functionality. 

Before I get into all the new goodies, I'd like to take a moment to express how much we appreciate all the love, support, and understanding you’ve had as we’ve gone through our growing pains over the past few years. Anything new and innovative has a learning curve at first and requires a period of discovering what works and doesn't work. Your feedback and direction have been vital to that process.

Our mission is to leverage the power of automation to create an entirely new trading experience. We call it Trading 2.0. We believe something better than obsolete manual trading tools is needed to compete in a market dominated by high-speed computers. There is still work to be done to fulfill that promise to you but we are firmly dedicated to this mission. I'd like to personally thank all of you for being a part of it. Without you, we wouldn't be where we are today. 

We are a small team of 5 people fighting to disrupt an industry filled with big entrenched corporations that want to maintain the status quo. The more people that join this mission with us, the more resources we will have to make the platform better for everyone.  If you believe in our mission, help us by spreading the word. Share your passion for Option Alpha with your friends, family, and coworkers, and on social media. 

This new release is the result of a highly collaborative process between the Option Alpha team and many of you. We'd like to thank all the people who took the time to contribute ideas, feedback, and energy to the creative process. You are very much appreciated. Thank you!!

Exit Option Upgrades

Trailing stop option added to position Exit Options!

We also added additional safeguards, including the ability to disable the trailing stop if the position reverses below a minimum return % or too far from the high.

Personally, I enjoyed implementing this one more than any other part of this update because of the creative process in the community. Thank you to all those who contributed to the discussion including: @Reuben, @Jared T, @bellwar, @Viraj, @Dan Malone, @Gordono19705.

Read more about 1-minute Exit Option trailing stops here.

New safeguard to automatically disable exit options when the bid/ask spread gets wide

This solution gives complete control and flexibility to you - you set a specific bid/ask threshold. It will likely take us some trial and error to figure out the best settings to use. We will be tracking the results of various possible settings and will release research in the future covering the most effective values being used. Thank you to @Jared T, @bellwar, @Otto Mation, @Venerable Sage, @Dave M and everyone else who contributed to the creative discussion.

This solution gives complete control and flexibility to you - you set a specific bid/ask threshold. We will be tracking the results of various possible settings and will release research in the future covering the most effective values being used.

New option for Smart Pricing final price: $[X] slippage from mid price

This option gives you the ability to keep the final price for smart pricing close to the mid price, regardless of how wide the bid/ask spread is.

‍

‍

Example use case:

1. Bid: $1.10, Ask: $1.30, Mid: $1.20
2. Bid: $0.90, Ask: $1.50, Mid: $1.20

Although the mid-price is the same, using a percentage of the bid/ask spread can result in very different outcomes in these two scenarios because of how wide the spread is. A final price of "Up to $0.05 slippage from the mid price" will ensure a price of $1.25 or better in both scenarios.

Read more about the expanded SmartPricing settings to control slippage here.

New Expiration exit options choices

• 15 minutes
• 30 minutes
• 1 hour
• 2 hours before expiration

New action for updating a position's exit options from an automation

Fixed a rounding issue in the final price calculation

Rounding to the nearest penny created a final price that was slightly below the profit target (e.g. 49.7% instead of 50%).

User Interface Updates

Auto-update is finally here!

Many of the screens throughout the app now automatically update as P/L and other stats change, including the position and trade screens, main bots and position lists, and bot positions.

Improved automated flow when opening a new position

Since the introduction of Trade Ideas, I find myself placing significantly more manual trades. I'm happy to say goodbye to the cumbersome process of hitting the refresh button and closing automation logs. The flow when opening a position is now fully automatic and intuitive. Smart pricing is now on the top of the position screen so you can watch as it moves through the prices!

Updated bot dashboard

P/L stats are now on top and easier to find at a glance. The header now has a switch to enable/disable Exit Options for all positions managed by the bot in 1 click. It's also much easier to find the account the bot is using.

Updates to the main bots list

Includes totals back on top, bot allocation column and a new column to switch exit options on/off.

New Status filter to added to Closed Positions and Trades screens

Days in Trade added to all position lists

Trade Ideas

New symbols

We added many new highly active symbols to the Trade Ideas algorithm and removed less liquid ones like MU and OIH. The full list of symbols being used to find opportunities: 

AAL AAPL ABBV ABT ADBE AIG AMAT AMD AMZN APA ARKK AVGO AXP BA BABA BAC BBY BIDU BP BX BYND C CAT CF CHWY CLF CMCSA COF COP COST CRM CRWD CSCO CVS CVX CZR DAL DE DIA DIS DKNG DOCU DOW DVN EEM EFA EWZ EXPE F FCX FDX FITB FSLR FXI GDX GE GLD GM GOLD GOOG GOOGL GS HAL HD HPQ HYG IBM INTC IWM IYR JD JNJ JPM KMI KO KR KRE KSS LOW LQD LUV LVS MAR MCD MDLZ MET META MGM MO MOS MPC MRK MRNA MRO MRVL MS MSFT NCLH NEM NET NFLX NKE NVDA ORCL OXY PEP PFE PG PNC PYPL QCOM QQQ RCL RIG ROKU SBUX SCHW SHOP SLB SLV SMH SPY SQ T TGT TJX TLT TSLA TSM TTD TXN UAL UBER UPS USB USO V VFC VXX VZ WBA WFC WMT X XBI XHB XLB XLE XLF XLK XLP XLU XLY XOM XOP XRT

Ability to quickly include or exclude symbols from the results

The POP column with tooltip is split into 3 separate columns

1. POP (probability of profit)
2. PMP (probability of max profit)
3. PML (probability of max loss)

POP (probability of profit), PMP (probability of max profit) and PML (probability of max loss) to enable sorting and comparing of probabilities at a glance without needing to hover each opportunity 1 by 1.

‍

Added new filters for POP, PMP and PML

Learn more about the new probability and symbol filters added to Trade Ideas here.

Automation Editor

The automation editor got a major upgrade, including a new horizontal layout, color coding, and collapsing branches.

‍

New decision recipes for before/after/exactly a specific calendar date MM/DD/YYYY and for detecting FOMC meetings and CPI release dates

Thank you to @Reuben @Venerable Sage @SteveR @euriska @Pen @jon79063 for encouraging us to add this one!

Read more about the new FOMC meeting & CPI decision recipes here.

Notes can now be added to any action in automation editor

Ability to expand/collapse decision recipe groups

Read more about the new, more intuitive automation editor here.

Thank you again for all the feedback, suggestions and encouragement. I look forward to more collaborative discussions in the community. Together we are building the next generation of trading technology.