Strategy builder

The strategy builder turns a 0DTE setup into a saved, testable strategy using a structured form — no coding required. As you build, the panel beside the form shows real results for the exact configuration you've assembled; saving keeps the strategy (and those results) on your list. The builder is available to every registered user.

Building from a template

Start from a template — a single long leg, a vertical spread, an iron condor, and other common structures — then customize it. The template seeds the legs so you only adjust the parts you care about.

Defining legs

Each leg specifies:

• Side — buy or sell.
• Type — call or put.
• Quantity — number of contracts.
• Strike selection — how the strike is chosen at entry. Options include by delta (e.g. the 16-delta strike), a number of points OTM, by premium (the strike whose price is closest to a target — the ask when you buy the leg, the bid when you sell it), at the money, or a multiple of the expected move. Choosing strikes relatively (rather than as fixed numbers) means the strategy adapts to where the market is each day.

Every short leg must be covered by a long leg of the same type, so the builder only accepts defined-risk structures. A short put is covered by a long put (capping the downside) and a short call by a long call (capping the upside) — a long call does not cover a short put, and vice versa. An uncovered (naked) short — a lone short put, say, or selling more puts than you buy — is rejected; add the matching long leg (a cheap, far out-of-the-money one for $0.05 premium will do) to turn it into a spread.

Entry rules

• Entry time — the time of day the strategy enters (for example, shortly after the open). A strategy opens one trade per session — a single entry, ever. To run several entries in a day, build one strategy per entry time and combine them in a portfolio, which backtests each entry independently and aggregates the results.
• Day-of-week filter — optionally restrict to specific weekdays.

Exit rules

Define how each position closes:

• Profit target — exit at a percentage of maximum profit.
• Stop loss — exit at a percentage of maximum loss.
• Time — exit at a set time, or hold to the 4:00 PM ET close.

The live preview is the real thing

The preview panel doesn't run a watered-down estimate — every configuration you assemble is a real backtest over the full history, at the standard $100,000 per-session capital, with your fee schedule applied to what you see. Results stream in session by session for a new configuration, and appear instantly when you come back to one you've already tried. If the form still has errors, the preview is covered with a prompt to fix them first.

Saving — and cloning instead of editing

Save keeps the strategy on your list with the results it already has; nothing re-runs. Saved strategies are immutable — the configuration that produced the results can never drift out from under them. To iterate on a saved strategy, clone it: the builder opens pre-filled, and your changes become a new strategy (which may already have results if you previewed that variation before).

Tips

• Change one thing at a time. The preview re-runs on every edit, so iterate like an experiment: adjust only the short delta, watch the metrics move, then adjust only the exit. Two changes at once and you won't know which one mattered.
• Prefer relative strikes. Fixed strike numbers stop making sense as SPX drifts over months of history; delta, points-OTM, and expected-move selections adapt to each day's market, which is what makes a strategy testable across the whole archive.
• Interrogate the drawdown, not the return. Two configurations with similar total return can have wildly different max drawdowns and losing streaks. The one you'd actually keep running through a bad week is the better strategy.
• Clone from your own leaderboard. When a variation works, save it and clone again from there rather than mutating one work-in-progress — the strategy list becomes a family tree of what you tried, each entry with results attached.

Next steps

Open the strategy's page to explore its results in depth — equity curve, calendar, per-session drill-downs. To run several entries a day side by side, combine strategies in a portfolio; to run one hands-free against the live session, watch for bots — coming soon.