Option Alpha January 2023 Release

2023 is here and we’re excited to launch the first major platform release of the year. This release introduces on our newest tool, Trade Ideas, which helps you discover potential trading opportunities more quickly. It is unlike anything you’ve seen before.

The new release also includes many highly requested updates and improvements from our amazing Community. As always, our team works tirelessly for you, and we can’t wait for you to see all the new changes.

Let’s dive into the major updates…

Trade Ideas: A new way to find trades

Say hello to Trade Ideas, our newest tool for options traders.

Trade Ideas use real-time market data to calculate and rank millions of options spreads and automatically loads these trading opportunities for you. Rather than relying on hunches and gut feelings, you can finally uncover new ideas with data and probabilities, which means you can make smarter decisions about the trades you enter.

Plus, filters let you create a targeted list of potential trades easier than ever. Want to sort all neutral trades in your Watchlist, 31-45 days from expiration, avoid earnings, and rank them by their probability of profit? Done!

Choose your favorite trade idea, review the position’s details, enter your SmartPricing settings and 1-minute Exit Options, select a bot, and click “Place Trade.” No more guesswork and confusion, just data-driven trading that leverages the power of automation.

Exit Options get new upgrades

Customizable SmartPricing 

Speaking of SmartPricing and Exit options,  we’ve expanded the customization of Exit Options so you can use specific SmartPricing settings for every one of your exit criteria. This means you have complete control over how orders are sent to your broker for all situations.

Plus, you can now see a position's high, low, days to expiration and days to earnings on the Position Details page, in case you want to change the Exit Options using live performance metrics.

Exit Options ‘Presets’

But that’s not all; you can now save your custom Exit Options for future positions. We know you don’t want to re-set your Exit Options every time, so you now have the ability to save them as ‘Presets.’

New in-app help docs

Whether you’re new to Option Alpha or a seasoned autotrader, the new in-app help docs will be a great companion to guide you around the platform.

You’ll now see a helpful ‘Get Started’ checklist that will lead you through key milestones. Not only will the checklist automatically load and show you how to accomplish goals, you’ll also find easy-to-follow help docs throughout the app.

Expanded bot performance stats & charting

Tracking your bot’s results got an upgrade with more controls and new charts. 

Every bot now includes a win rate chart so you can quickly and easily see its win % along with P/L and capital at risk. The bot’s performance graph also gives you the option to look at your closed P/L, a great way to see only your closed position’s returns.

These enhancements will give you added clarity, and the upgraded visual tools provide detailed insight as you monitor your bots’ activity.

More OHLC decision recipes

We’ve added two super simple decision recipes you all asked for to help reference a symbol’s price action.

With the new decisions, your bots can now evaluate the OHLC for different time periods. You can reference a symbol’s price change using a specific dollar ($) or percentage (%) value. 

For example, you can check if a symbol’s opening price from 5 market days ago increased 2% from the closing price 1 market day ago.

New decisions for targeting earnings

Previously, you could only have the bot check for upcoming earnings. Now, you have two new earnings decision recipes to look backward for announcements. You even have the ability to check if earnings are ‘before the market open’ or ‘after the market close.’ 

Use these new decisions to have your bot only enter trades after earnings or close a post-earnings position a specific number of days after the announcement, for example.

Technicals added to the Screener

The Screener tool includes all the functionality you love, with one key addition. We added Technical Indicators (called “Techs”) to the list of filters. Now you can quickly and easily find symbols with Buy or Sell signals.

'Retry’ a position with a single click

We’ve experienced it, too - trying to open a new position that doesn’t fill and having to rebuild it all over again. So, we fixed that, and now you can simply ‘Retry’ any position that doesn’t open. 

Just click ‘Retry Position’ to reload the position with the same strikes and expiration. Then confirm your Order Details (in case the market moved) and Automation settings, and you can send orders back to the market faster than before.

Market orders & bid-ask spread max limit increase

Ok traders, we heard you loud and clear on this one, and we’re happy to announce that SmartPricing now includes the ability to send market orders.

Just be careful! Market orders are subject to wide bid-ask spreads and unfavorable fills, and we are certainly no fans of using them, but we want you to have the choice to use them or not if you wish.

Knowing that you often need to be aggressive in pricing to exit a position, we also expanded SmartPricing’s bid-ask spread range to allow up to 150% of the spread to give you a lot more choices when sending orders through SmartPricing.

These are just a few of the updates added in this release. You can check out the Changelog for a complete list of all the changes.

This is only the beginning, traders. 2023 promises to bring a lot of new and exciting upgrades to Option Alpha and autotrading. Stay tuned for more releases and let us know your favorite updates in the Community!