Bots execute trading strategies inside your portfolio. Bots are the home for your positions, risk management, and automations. You are in complete control of your bot's activity and tell them what to do and when to do it. You can automate all of your strategy from entry to exit, or create hybrid manual-automated strategies.
Charles Schwab requires all traders to manually reauthorize their broker connection every 7 days. This is a security measure enforced by Schwab, and failure to re-authorize will temporarily break the connection between your Option Alpha account and Schwab.
To re-authorize your Schwab account:
If you don't reauthorize your account at least once every 7 days, your Option Alpha account will no longer communicate with Schwab. Your bots will stop managing open positions and will not open new trades until the connection is restored. Tracking of Exit Options (profit targets, stop-losses, etc.) will stop until the connection is restored.
As soon as you successfully reauthorize your Schwab connection, your bots will immediately resume normal activities and begin monitoring, managing, and executing trades per your automation settings.
We'll send you email reminders prior to your connection expiring. You may also see a notification inside the OA homepage prior to your connection expiring. You can see when your current authorization expires in your Settings > Trading Accounts.
When creating a bot, you must select an account. Simply connect the bot to an authorized live brokerage account. All bot orders will automatically be sent to your broker for execution.
Automations are the instruction manual for your bots. You can use automations to scan the market for opportunities, open positions, manage your trades, and more.
Of course. You can still open and close positions in your broker's app. You can also import existing brokerage positions into your Option Alpha account, as well as open and close positions manually in the autotrading platform.
You can find everything you need to get started with bots and automation in our autotrading resources and Help Center.
Yes, you can find everything you need to get started with bots and automation in the Option Alpha Fast Track.
Yes, you have total control. You can choose to send a specific limit order, price your trade a certain percentage of the bid-ask spread, or use our proprietary SmartPricing technology to try multiple prices for you.
Yes. You can choose to run multiple automations within each bot, every automation looking for a different set of criteria to enter a trade.
Yes. You have the ability to filter trading opportunities before entering them inside your bots. For example, you could create an automation that only enters a short put spread IF the return on capital is greater than 30% AND the the bid/ask spread is less than $0.05 AND the probability of profit is great than 70%. This is just a small sample, but as you can see, there's a lot of flexibility and power in what you can do.
Your Option Alpha account can be connected to as many available and compatible brokers as you like. Each broker allows one API connection, which means you can connect one login per broker. Using multiple sub-accounts with the same broker requires the accounts be linked together in a single login. Speak to your broker for details on linking sub-accounts.
You bet! We provide a set of “sample” bots that can be cloned to help you get started and learn how bots work. Plus, you can always browse hundreds of templates and strategies shared in the Community by fellow traders.
tastytrade, TradeStation, Tradier, and Charles Schwab are integrated and supported brokers. If you want access to a different broker, please request an integration with your favorite broker using the links on the Broker Integrations page. We will continue to announce new agreements with additional brokerages as they are signed and confirmed.
