One account, several strategies
A paper account can run several strategies at once. Each deployment has its own budget, the most it may have invested at once. It also has caps on its entries and a profit and loss of its own. The money stays one pool at the broker: Trade enforces the limits on each strategy's entries and keeps a ledger of its fills.
One stock has one owner on an account at a time. A strategy's entry in a stock that another strategy, or you, already holds is refused. See Positions.
The four limits
You set the limits in the deploy review (see Deploy a strategy) and change them later on the deployment's page.
| Limit | What it does | Empty means |
|---|---|---|
| Budget | Most it can have invested at once. 100% is the whole account. | Required |
| Max per trade | Most one new trade can use. A percentage is of budget. Selling to exit is never capped. | Required |
| Open positions | Most stocks it holds at once. | No limit |
| Daily loss pause | Pauses new trades after this loss in a day, until it is resumed or stopped. A percentage is of budget. | Never pauses |
A budget in dollars is fixed. A budget as a percentage is taken of the account's equity each time an entry is checked, so it moves with the account.
Budgets on one account may add up to more than the account holds. The deploy review then warns, for example, Budgets on this account total 120%, but never refuses. Under This account it lists what is already budgeted there, with budgets from other projects as one row, Another project.
How entries are checked
The limits do not size trades: the strategy sizes each entry itself, from the account's balances. An Agent strategy's agent names shares or dollars; a Rules or Program strategy uses its own position sizing. An entry larger than Max per trade, or than the budget left, is refused, not trimmed.
The budget left is the budget minus what the strategy already has out. That is the market value of the stocks it owns, plus its open entry orders that carry a price: a dollar amount, or shares at a limit price. An open market order sized in shares counts as nothing until it fills. If a cap applies and nothing prices the entry, it is refused.
Open positions counts the stocks it holds plus open entries in new stocks. An entry in a stock it already holds is not a new position.
Daily loss pause is checked each time the strategy tries a new entry. It adds the day's realized loss on its own fills to the unrealized loss on the stocks it holds. A stock bought on an earlier day counts with its whole unrealized loss, so the total is not the drawer's Today figure. If such a stock is sold in full that day, the whole sale amount counts as a gain, which can offset the day's other losses.
If the total has reached the limit, that entry is refused and the deployment pauses itself. The Deployments drawer reads New trades paused, with the reason: it reached its daily loss limit. The person who deployed it is notified. It pauses only when it tries an entry, and it never closes a position. After Resume, it pauses again if the loss still holds.
Exits are never checked against the limits, and they keep working while the deployment is paused.
A refused entry shows in Activity under Needs attention with the limit's name, for example Refused · Limit open positions. On the Orders tab, History lists it as Rejected, with the reason under Note: Over its budget, Over its largest-order limit, Over its open-positions limit or Its daily loss limit paused it.
Budget in use
In the Deployments drawer, each running row shows Budget in use: the market value of the stocks the strategy owns, out of its budget, with a bar. Positions is the stocks held of the limit, such as 2 of 5.
The Capital allocated tile on the Overview adds up the budget of every running deployment on the account, in every project, plus the cost of the Manual positions. It shows the total as a share of account value, split into Strategies and Manual. A paused or stopping deployment still counts until it has stopped.
Profit and loss per deployment
Each deployment's Today, Realized gain and Trend come from its own fills since it started. See A deployment's own P&L.
Pausing or stopping one strategy
Pause and Stop each act on one deployment, and the others on the account keep running; see Pause and resume. Stop everything… in the account menu acts on the whole account instead.
Change a deployment's limits
A running deployment's limits can be changed on its page, and the new ones apply from its next trade. See Change the limits.