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SOAP2 First Session — From a Fresh Chain to a Watched Trade

Related:

Requires: the Trade Builder and Trade Rules need Regular edition or above (not the Free edition). Rewind needs Premium (the Free Trial includes it). Trade Report has no edition restriction. Everything else in the walk-through is part of the core Options Analysis window.

Where You Are Starting

SOAP2 is connected to TWS, an Options Analysis (OA) window is open for your symbol, the chains have loaded, and an expiry tab is selected. This guide walks you from that screen to a trade that SOAP2 watches for you, and then shows you the tools for looking back at it.

Important: SOAP2 never sends an order by itself and never acts on a rule. It prepares, it warns, it reports. Every order is reviewed and transmitted from TWS. Trade Builder and Trade Rules are new (BETA), and every number the examples use is an example to tune to your own plan, not advice.

The Route in One Minute

  1. Build a trade as a model, with the Trade Builder.
  2. Look at it on the Risk Graph and adjust.
  3. Commit it, so TWS holds the order for you to review and send.
  4. Set rules for it, from a template.
  5. Let SOAP2 watch: the alert panel, Windows notifications and the Rules Dashboard tell you when a rule is breached.
  6. Look back: Trade Report for the P&L and margin history, Rewind for the whole chain as it was.

Step 1 — Get Oriented in the OA Window

Step 2 — Build a Trade (Trade Builder, Ctrl+B)

Instead of choosing four strikes by eye, say what you want and let SOAP2 propose it.

  1. Press Ctrl+B (or click the Builder button on the toolbar). A window opens beside the OA and stays open while you work.
  2. Strategy: choose the shape, for example Iron condor. Lean says which way you lean: Neutral, Bullish or Bearish.
  3. Target delta: the whole trade's gain or loss per point of market move. Neutral is about 0, bullish is positive, bearish negative. The target only sorts the list; the range beside it is a hard wall. If unsure, keep the defaults.
  4. Width: the distance between each short and long strike. Leave the unit on Points, in steps of the chain's strike spacing.
  5. Read the candidates. Each row is a real trade on the chain, best first: strikes, net delta, net credit or debit, max loss. Click one to see each leg, break-evens and any warning below the list.
  6. Press Copy Combo Candidate. The legs are placed as model legs and the Risk Graph draws. Your own model legs on other tabs are cleared first unless you untick that box.

If the list is empty, the line above it says why. The usual causes are a delta range that is too tight or a width that does not fit the chain. Widen them and it fills in.

Two more things worth knowing now:

Step 3 — Look at It and Adjust

Press Ctrl+U to refresh the Risk Graph from whatever is on the grid, and G to show the Greeks. Change strikes by hand if you want: the Trade Builder's output is a starting point, not a commitment. If you wish to test the effect of a change in volatility, the Vol button (Ctrl+Y) on the Risk Graph shifts the IV the graph prices with. It is a what-if only: grid prices and stored results stay on market data.

When the shape is right, press T to open Commit. It turns the model into an order set you review, then send from TWS. Once the fills come back, the trade appears in your Trade Log and Trade List.

Step 4 — Give the Trade Rules (Alt+X)

A rule is a sentence about a trade, for example "fewer than 21 days left: Alert; fewer than 14: Reduce; fewer than 7: Close." You do not write them from scratch.

  1. Open the trade's rules: Alt+X in the OA (or the Rules... button), or right-click the trade in the Trade List ▸ Trade rules.... Rules belong to a recorded trade, one with a trade number, so this works once the trade exists (after Commit and the fills, or Convert). A model that has not been committed cannot carry rules.
  2. Click Templates. If you are unsure which one fits, choose Templates ▸ Suggested for this trade: SOAP2 names what your legs form and suggests a template. Strategy names are the same as in the Trade Builder, so an iron condor you built is an iron condor here too.
  3. Read the Now column. It already tells you what each rule thinks of your trade today. Nothing is saved yet, so look around freely.
  4. Change a level by clicking it and typing. Now updates at once. Margin rules need the trade's Planned Capital filled in first.
  5. Press Save. This is the moment SOAP2 starts watching. Until you save, nothing counts. Closing without saving throws the edits away, and Ctrl+Z undoes step by step.

What the five actions mean: Alert (look at it), Adjust (change the position), Roll (move to a later expiry), Reduce (make it smaller), Close (get out). They are recommendations; you place any order yourself.

You do not need to read long ladders. A rung that cannot matter yet is dormant and hidden by itself: with 64 days left you only see the 21-day rung, and the 14 appears once 21 is breached. More ▸ Show dormant rules shows them all.

Trade Rules also gives every trade a category (iron condor, butterfly, and so on) from its open legs. It appears in the rules editor, the Trade List and the dashboard filter. You can override it with a pick in the editor.

Step 5 — How SOAP2 Tells You: Three Layers

Rules are checked all day against your real positions, with or without the rules window open. There are three layers, from quietest to loudest.

1. The alert panel (inside the OA). When a rule is breached, a panel appears at the top of the Options Analysis window of any symbol, one line per breached rule, most severe first:

14:32 SPX #7: Time exit -> REDUCE

It shows what is wrong right now, nothing more. The x hides what is listed; it comes back if the rule gets worse. Open Dashboard > takes you to the details.

2. Windows notifications. When a rule newly escalates to Adjust, Roll, Reduce or Close, Windows shows a notification (tray balloon and sound), at most once per rule every 15 minutes. Alerts, step-downs and start-up states never notify. Clicking the notification opens the dashboard on that trade. The switch is the Notify button on the dashboard, or Windows notifications from live Rules in General Settings. It is on by default.

3. The Rules Dashboard (Alt+J, or Trades ▸ Trade rules dashboard). Every watched trade on one line with its worst open rule.

A missing number is never shown as safe: if a price is missing or stale the rule says n/a or stale, not green.

Step 6 — Looking Back

Trade Report: how did this trade evolve?

Press Alt+R in the OA (or the dropdown next to Rewind ▸ Trade P&L / Margin history). It rebuilds the trade's closed and unrealised P&L and its margin from your executions and hourly price bars, even if the OA was not open the whole time. It is a static picture drawn when you open it: Refresh updates it, Save keeps a snapshot, TLog opens the raw executions. The first time it downloads the bars, and progress shows in the OA's status line, so a trade that has been open for months takes a while. The margin line is a guide to how margin evolved, not your broker's requirement.

Rewind (Premium): what did the whole chain look like?

The Rewind button only appears on Premium (and the Free Trial), and it is hidden at the Beginner interface level in General Settings (which also blocks Ctrl+Shift+R). It is enabled once the OA holds legs, either a trade's or model legs. Click the Rewind button (or Ctrl+Shift+R) and pick a bolded date on the calendar. The OA shows historical prices, Greeks, IV and the Risk Graph as of that moment; drag the scrollbar to move between bars. Click the button again (it now reads Resume) to go live. Orders cannot be sent while you are in Rewind. It is a review tool, not a backtester.

Trade Report shows you your trade; Rewind shows you the market around it. They share the same hourly history, so a symbol backfilled for one costs nothing for the other.

Where to Go Next

Quick Reference

I want to...Do this
Explain what I am looking atCtrl+I (Quick Help)
Build a trade from a shapeCtrl+B (Trade Builder), then Copy Combo Candidate
Refresh the Risk GraphCtrl+U; Greeks with G
Prepare the orderT (Commit)
Edit a trade's rulesAlt+X
See every watched tradeAlt+J (Rules Dashboard)
See a trade's P&L and margin historyAlt+R
View the chain at a past momentCtrl+Shift+R (Rewind, Premium)

Learn More