Trade Rules (BETA)

BETA: Trade Rules is new since the v1.1 release. The engine and levels are built and working, but it hasn't had the same length of real-world use as the rest of SOAP2 yet — treat its recommendations as a second opinion, verify against what you already track, and let us know if something looks wrong.

Editions: Trade Rules is part of the Regular edition and above (and the Free Trial). It is not available in the Free edition.

Trade Rules let you write down, once, how you want each trade to behave — how close to expiry you are willing to hold it, how much delta or vega it may carry, how far the short strikes must stay from the market, when to take a profit — and then let SOAP2 watch every trade against those rules for you. When a rule is broken SOAP2 tells you, and where you asked for it, recommends an action: Adjust, Roll, Reduce or Close. Everything else stays a plain Alert.

SOAP2 never places or changes an order because of a rule. A rule is a reminder with a recommendation; the decision, and the order, stay yours.

New to Trade Rules? Start with the Beginner’s Guide (your first trade with a ready-made template), then the Templates guide (every template, rule by rule). Trades made of several combos: Hybrid Trades. Word versions: Beginner, Templates, Advanced, Quick Start.

Related:

• Trade Rules — Beginner’s Guide
• Trade Rules — Templates
• Trade Rules — Hybrid Trades
• SOAP2 Help Guide
• Portfolio (Trade Tiles)
• Trade List Guide
• Options Analysis overview

Quick start (five minutes)

1. Open the Trade List, right-click a trade that has open positions and choose Trade rules.... (In an Options Analysis window you can instead click the small Rules... label at the end of the position-summary strip.). Alternatively, the keyboard shortcut is Alt+X.
2. As an example: In the editor click Templates ▾ and pick Time exit (DTE ladder). One rule appears: Alert at 21 days to expiry, Reduce below 14, Close below 7.
3. Look at the Now column: it already tells you what that rule says about the trade today, before you save anything.
4. Adjust the levels if you like (they are plain text: 21 Alert, 14 Reduce, 7 Close) and press Save.
5. Open Trades → Trade rules dashboard. Your trade is listed with its status. From now on SOAP2 checks it every minute and writes a line to the Message Log whenever a rule changes state.

Where everything is

How a rule is written

A rule states a condition that must hold, the way you would say it aloud:

• Days to expiry must be ≥ 14.
• Delta must be > −25.
• Theta ÷ Vega must be > 0.5.

When the condition stops holding, the rule fires. Each rule has one or more levels, from mild to severe, and every level carries its own outcome. Your DTE ladder is a single rule:

The rule's state is the most severe level that is currently failing. The outcomes, from mildest to most severe, are Alert, Adjust, Roll, Reduce, Close. Alert is a plain warning; the other four are calls for action.

The columns of a rule

What you can measure

Time

Time rules need no market data, so they keep working even when TWS is disconnected.

Note: the DTE a rule uses counts only legs that are still open. The DTE on a Portfolio tile is the earliest expiry anywhere in the trade's history, so for a trade you have rolled the two can differ — on purpose. A rule must not fire “Close” because of a leg you closed weeks ago.

Greeks

delta, gamma, vega, theta — the same position totals the Options Analysis summary shows. Ratios such as Theta ÷ Vega are made with the Divided by column.

Financial

The account-level ratios from the Risk Metrics note can be built at trade level with Planned Capital standing in for equity: margin ÷ capital (the Margin-to-Equity idea) and capital ÷ vega (Equity/Vega). The built-in Risk metrics (RegT) template does exactly that.

Positioning: strikes, breakevens and units

Positioning rules look at where your strikes and breakevens are relative to the market. Every distance is a cushion: positive means safe (out of the money, or profitable at expiry), negative means the market has gone past it.

Units

• % — percent of the underlying's price (the default).
• points — index/price points.
• sigma — a one-standard-deviation move to the nearest expiry: spot × ATM IV × √(DTE÷365). It answers “how many standard deviations away is my short strike?”. It needs an ATM implied volatility and days to expiry; if either is missing the rule shows n/a, never a guess.

An example: “lower the short puts when they are above ATM”

Rule Short puts above ATM: metric short_put_vs_atm, unit %, must be <=, levels -2 Alert, 0 Adjust. While your highest short put is more than 2 % below ATM the rule is fine; as it gets within 2 % you get an Alert, and once it is at or above ATM the rule recommends Adjust (lower the short puts).

How breakevens are found

Breakevens are the prices at expiry where the whole trade — your open legs plus P&L you have already realized on this trade — is exactly zero. They are computed exactly from your legs, not read off a chart. A large realized gain can push the breakevens out, or remove them altogether if the trade can no longer lose money. Commissions are not included.

If a leg cannot be priced (for example a stock hedge with no price), breakevens are unknown and the rule shows n/a rather than a wrong number.

Butterflies, condors and other multiples (per-unit rules)

SOAP2 divides a trade's option legs by the greatest common factor of their quantities. Ten butterflies (+10 / −20 / +10) are 10 units of one butterfly. Set a rule's Basis to Per unit and it is measured for a single butterfly — so “Theta per fly ≥ 4” is still correct after you reduce from 10 to 6. The editor shows the unit count at the top.

Distances (cushions, breakevens), time, and percentages are the same for one unit or ten, so they are never divided.

Rule sets (your stance)

A trade can have several rule sets — for example Conservative, Balanced and Aggressive — because your mindset about a trade can change. Only the active set is monitored, shown on the dashboard and reported to the AI assistant; the others wait unchanged until you switch to them. Leg groups and Planned Capital belong to the trade and are shared; each set has its own rules for the trade and for each group. New to rule sets? See Trade Rules — Rule Sets for Beginners.

• In the rules editor, the Rule set: … menu in the toolbar switches the set you are editing and creates, renames or deletes sets. New rule set – copy of this one is the quickest way to make a tighter or looser variant. Leave the name box as it is to get the next unused Conservative / Balanced / Aggressive name, or type your own. You must fix any invalid rule before leaving a set. Nothing takes effect until Save.
• On the dashboard, select a trade and use Rule set in the toolbar for a one-click switch. A trade on a set other than the default shows it in square brackets after its name.
• After a switch every rule starts fresh: you are not flooded with “breached” messages for the new set, and acknowledgements of the old set are dropped. The change is written to the Message Log.
• The active set can’t be deleted; switch to another one first.

Account rules

Besides rules about one trade, you can set rules about a whole account — how hard the account is being run. On the dashboard use Account rules in the toolbar, pick the account, and edit its rules like a trade’s (the built-in template Account risk (MtE, Equity/Vega) is a good start). An account with rules then appears on the dashboard as a row named after it, with the same status, acknowledge and snooze behaviour, rule sets, strategy and tags.

How the stress is estimated. Every open option leg is repriced with Black-Scholes at the shocked underlying price, each leg keeping its current implied volatility; stock and futures legs move by their own price times the shock. It is a T+0 estimate, so treat it as a floor on the loss: in a real crash implied volatility rises and a short-vega book loses more. Volatility underlyings (VIX, VXM …) are left out because they would move the other way; the editor says what the stress covers and what was left out. If a trade has no underlying price or an option leg has no implied vol yet, or a trade is in another currency than the account, the stress reads n/a rather than a partial figure. The template Account stress (example) has example levels only — set your own.

• Margin and net liquidation come from IB’s account summary, so the account must be connected and linked to its IB account in the Accounts list.
• Vega and theta cover only the trades SOAP2 tracks (open trades in the Trade List). Positions you hold at IB that are not a SOAP2 trade are not in them, so equity/vega and margin/theta can look better than the true account figure.
• If the book has no vega (or theta) the ratio is n/a, never “fine”. If IB is disconnected the rules read stale. If one of the trades’ data is degraded, the account’s rules can only reach an Alert until it recovers.
• Interactive Brokers’ other account figures (ExcessLiquidity, AvailableFunds …) are not offered: they would need your own input on how you want to use them.
• Time and position metrics don’t apply to an account and read n/a. There are no leg groups or Planned Capital for an account.
• The AI assistant is told an account rule’s state, your levels and the outcome you configured, but never the measured values (they are derived from your balances).

Strategy, tags and filtering

Two labels help you organise and find trades. Both are yours: SOAP2 never works them out from the trade, so a trade you tag Non-directional stays that way until you change it, even if you later manage it directionally.

• Strategy — one label per trade saying what kind of trade it is (“Iron condor”, “BWB 45 DTE”). In the rules editor, top right; the drop-down offers strategies already used on your other trades, or type a new one.
• Tags — any number of labels, separated by commas, for things that overlap: Pos Theta, Pos Vega, Neg Vega, Bullish, Bearish, Non-directional, Earnings, Hedge… The tooltip lists tags you have used before.
• They belong to the trade, not to a rule set, so switching stance doesn’t change them. Nothing takes effect until you Save.
• On the dashboard, the Filter menu has tick lists for Rule set, Strategy and Tags (built from the trades you have). Several ticks in one list mean “any of these”; different lists must all match — e.g. Strategy Iron condor and Tags Pos Theta or Bullish. (none) finds trades you haven’t labelled yet. Clear filter shows everything again.
• A filter only changes what the dashboard shows: every trade keeps being monitored and alerted, and the filter is forgotten when you close SOAP2. The dashboard shows the strategy after the trade name; hover for the rule set and tags.
• The AI assistant sees the same labels and can filter by them (“which of my Pos Vega trades are breached?”).

Leg groups

A trade that is really several positions (two butterflies at different strikes; a butterfly plus a hedge) can be split into leg groups, each with its own rules. A group's rules see only that group's legs, so each can have its own time exit. Groups appear in the editor's tree on the left and their rules are edited there.

To define groups click Leg groups… in the editor's toolbar (the trade needs to have data, so its legs are known):

• The list on the left starts with the Full basket (every leg of the trade), followed by the groups. The Full basket shows all the legs on the right, which is where you give legs to a group. Select a group and the right-hand side shows only that group’s legs; the line at the bottom summarises it (legs, units).
• Split group (select a group first) replaces it by smaller groups: By side (a puts group and a calls group, so a double diagonal becomes a Put diagonal and a Call diagonal) or By expiry. Each piece gets a copy of the group’s rules (edit them afterwards) and is named after the group (“Double diagonal – Puts”).
• Split group → Butterfly: credit and debit spread turns a butterfly (three legs of one right and expiry, +1 / −2 / +1, straight or broken-wing) into two spreads that share the body: each takes half of it. A put butterfly becomes a put credit spread (lower strikes) and a put debit spread (upper strikes); a call butterfly the other way round. No rules are copied, because a butterfly’s rules do not fit a spread: apply a template to each piece (Suggested for this trade does this for you, see below).
• Sharing a leg, any way you like. A leg can belong to several groups as long as the shares add up to 100% at most. The Share % column does it: in a group’s list type the percentage of the leg that group holds (0 removes the leg from the group); in the Full basket the column shows the total held by all groups, and a leg split between groups reads “Credit 50% + Debit 50%” in the Group column. Add leg (select a group first) adds a leg to it with the part of it no other group holds, so the usual order is: lower the share in one group, then Add leg in the other. More than 100% in total is refused. Rules read the quantity times the share, so a split follows later changes of the position.
• Type a name and click Add group (you stay on the Full basket, ready to pick the new group in the Group column of its legs). Rename and Delete work on the group selected in the list: for Rename, select the group, press Rename once to put its name in the Name box, edit it and press Rename again. Deleting a group that has rules asks first; its legs become ungrouped.
• Each open option leg has a Group drop-down. Choosing a group puts the whole leg in it (taking it out of any other group); to share a leg between groups, use the Share % column. Legs left as (ungrouped) are covered by the trade-level rules only. The stock/futures leg is never grouped.
• Per unit is how many contracts of that leg make up one unit of the group (a butterfly’s body is 2). It is filled in for you from the open quantities and can be typed over; it is what keeps a “per unit” rule right after you reduce the position.
• Propose groups suggests a split — one group per expiry, or a puts group and a calls group — using only legs that are not in a group yet. Nothing is created until you say yes, and existing groups are never changed.

Nothing is saved until you press Save in the editor.

For a group, time, strikes, delta, Greeks and an unrealized P&L are available. A group’s Greeks are n/a if any of its open legs has no implied volatility yet (a partial sum would understate the exposure), and gamma/vega/theta are model estimates that will be close to, not identical with, the Options Analysis figures. Margin and breakevens are n/a for a group. A group whose leg has since been closed or rolled is marked “(review)” in the tree and shows n/a with “review the group” instead of quietly re-fitting itself; open Leg groups… and set that leg to (ungrouped) or assign the new one.

Planned Capital

The Planned Capital box in the Options Analysis window is now remembered per trade. Type an amount and press Enter (or click elsewhere) and it is saved with the trade; it is there again the next time you open the trade, and it is also available to rules that have no Options Analysis window open. Leave it blank or 0 to have none.

Planned Capital is used as the trade's max margin and as the stand-in for equity in the built-in Risk-metrics template. The Planned Capital box in the editor and the one in the Options Analysis window are the same value.

Changed behaviour: the box used to keep one amount as you switched trades inside a window; it now follows the trade. The Model Trade has no saved value.

Templates

A template is a named set of rules you can add to any trade. Applying one copies its rules into the trade, so changing a template later never silently changes trades you already set up. If a rule with the same name is already there it is skipped, so applying a template twice does not double the rules.

How templates work, step by step

There are two different jobs, done in two different windows. Mixing them up is the usual source of confusion.

The Template editor is the same window as the rules editor, switched into a third mode. The rules editor has three modes, chosen by how you open it: a trade (from the Trade List or an Options Analysis window), an account (from the dashboard), or a template (from the template routes above). Only the template mode shows the template’s own fields, in a panel under the header: Name, Family, Bias and Description (plus the Strategy and Tags boxes that every mode has). In the other two modes that panel is not there. The title bar says Template editor, the save button reads Save template, and there is no Now column because no trade is being evaluated.

1. What it opens on. From a trade, Edit templates… opens the template that trade was set up from (or, failing that, one whose Strategy is the trade’s). From the dashboard button it opens the template you saved last. Only when you have no templates of your own does it open on a blank new one. The title bar always names it (“Template editor – CDS Hedged Put BWB”).
2. See them all. The pane on the left lists every template: Your templates first, then the built-in ones grouped by family, with the open one highlighted. Click one to open it (it asks first if you have unsaved edits; a built-in opens as a copy). The Template editor works the same whether or not any trade is involved: open it from the dashboard to work on templates on their own.
3. Pick what to work on. The button to the right of the toolbar reads Template: … (this is the template picker; in a trade it is the Rule set button). New template starts empty; your own templates are listed next, the open one ticked; the shipped ones are under Built-in (opens as a copy), grouped by family.
4. A built-in always opens as a copy, named “… (copy)”. You cannot change a shipped template; saving creates your own under the name shown. To tune a built-in, open it, change the levels, rename it if you like, and save.
5. Fill in the fields. Name is what appears in the menu. Family is the submenu it is listed under in Templates (type a new one to start a family; leave it blank for the generic list). Bias is a short phrase (“Bullish lean with a downside tail”) shown in the tooltip. Description is the longer explanation, also in the tooltip. The two boxes in the header row are labelled for what they do on a template: Sets trade Strategy to and Adds trade Tags. They are not part of the template’s identity; they are what a trade receives when the template is applied (the Strategy only if the trade has none).
6. Edit the rules in the grid exactly as for a trade, then press Save template. A template needs a name and at least one rule.
7. Switch or delete. The picker also switches to another template (asking first about unsaved edits) and has Delete this template (your own only).

Applying a template is always a copy: editing or deleting a template later never changes a trade that already used it.

Taking a template back out

Every rule copied from a template remembers which one it came from. Three ways to undo, none of which asks for confirmation:

• Undo. Right after Templates (or after removing a template’s rules, below), open the Templates menu and choose Undo ‘template name’. It removes exactly the rules that apply added and puts back the Strategy and Tags it set, unless you have changed those since. Rules you added or edited afterwards are kept. Choose it again to go back another step: every apply, switch and removal is its own step, newest first. The steps are forgotten when you switch rule set or reload.
• Switch to template. A trade’s plans change; when its strategy has gone sour you will often want to try another. Switch to template ▸ (same menu, templates grouped by family) removes the rules that came from the template(s) the profile is on and applies the one you pick, as one step. The Strategy follows the new template only while it still equals the old template’s; a Strategy you typed yourself stays. Tags are only ever added, never removed. Rules you wrote yourself stay. It is made for trial and error: nothing is saved until you press Save, so switch, read the Now column, Undo (or switch again), and save only the one you want. Rules from the new template start fresh: their crossover latches and acknowledgements are new, and those of the removed rules are dropped when you save.
• Remove rules from template. In the same menu, pick a template under Remove rules from template: every rule that came from it is deleted from the profile on screen (rules you wrote yourself stay). The status line lists what went, and Undo brings it back in place. Rules saved before this existed carry no stamp; if the profile was set up from that template they are matched by the template’s rule names.
• Delete. Select one or several rules (Ctrl-click or Shift-click the rows) and press Delete. It acts at once; nothing reaches monitoring until you press Save, and closing without saving discards the edit. Delete also works in the All rules (combined) view, where it removes the selected rules from the trade or the group they belong to.
• Clear. Removes every rule of the node shown (in the combined view: of the trade and all its groups) so you can start again from scratch. It asks first, and Undo brings the rules back until you save.

Profit target and stop loss use P&L %. For a trade you monitor (status 1) it is calculated from the trade log (current P&L over the position cost, or over the trade’s Planned Capital when you set one — the same figure the Options Analysis window shows), so no window needs to be open. It reads n/a (never “ok”) while a leg has no price or when the trade holds a stock or futures leg.

Strategy templates

Templates starts with your trade’s kind of strategy. The menu groups ready-made templates by family (Butterfly, Credit spreads and condors, Debit spreads, Time spreads, Ratio spreads, Long options, Short options). Applying one adds its rules and labels the trade: its Strategy is filled in if you have not set one (a strategy you chose is never replaced) and its Tags are added to yours (nothing of yours is removed). Applied to a leg group, only the rules are added.

Template editor. Create, edit and delete your own templates in the Template editor: open it from Templates… on the dashboard toolbar or Edit templates… at the bottom of the Templates menu. It is the same rules grid as the trade editor, with the template’s Name, Description, Family (the submenu it appears under), Bias, and the Strategy and Tags it gives a trade. The Template: button switches between templates, starts a new one or deletes the open one. A built-in template opens as a copy (“… (copy)”): saving creates your own template and the built-in one is never changed.

Every strategy template lives in the same list as your own: change the levels on the trade, or save your version with More → New template from these rules… (it keeps the trade’s Strategy and Tags too).

The simple view and the Advanced view

The rules editor opens in a simple view: On · Rule · Metric · Unit · Fires when · Level · Action · Also · Now · Note. A rule reads like a sentence: Delta · crosses above · 0 → Adjust, or Days to expiry · falls below · 21 → Alert. The Fires when choices are falls below, rises above, falls to or below, rises to or above (the rule is on while the condition is true) and crosses above, crosses below, crosses either way (once, then flagged until re-armed). They replace the old “Must be” column, which read backwards from “alert when”.

A rule that uses a setting the simple view hides (divided by another metric, absolute value, per unit, re-arm, hysteresis) says so in the Other settings column, so nothing is hidden silently. Press Advanced in the toolbar for every setting (the old columns); both views edit the same rule. More holds Leg groups…, Rule sets and New template from these rules….

On the dashboard the trade list shows the trade, its status, DTE, the counts and the worst open rule in one line (“Time exit: REDUCE − 10 (needs ≥ 14)”, or “Delta lean: ADJUST − crossed above 0, now 3”). Details adds the account, acknowledged count, data quality and evaluation time.

Suggested for this trade

The editor’s Templates ▸ Suggested for this trade button looks at the trade’s open legs and says what they form: a butterfly, an iron condor, a credit spread, a strangle, a calendar … It lists suggestions and does nothing until you click one. Whole position applies the matching template to the trade. When the trade log shows the legs were bought at different times (within a few seconds = one combo), each part is offered as its own leg group with its own template — useful for a butterfly plus a hedge. Legs already in a group are left alone. A shape SOAP2 recognises but has no template for (a straddle, say) is named and can still be grouped; anything it is not sure of is not guessed. Groups made this way show their template in brackets in the tree. Besides the single-expiry shapes it recognises a double diagonal (a put diagonal and a call diagonal on the same two expiries: short the near leg, long the far leg, all of one size) and a double calendar (the same with equal strikes); both use the Calendar / diagonal template. For a double diagonal Suggested for this trade also offers Group as a Put diagonal and a Call diagonal: two groups, one per side, each with the template’s rules (or make the split by hand in Leg groups… and apply a template to each group). For a butterfly (straight or broken-wing) it offers Group as a credit spread and a debit spread: two groups that share the body, each with the template of its shape (Put credit spread, Put debit spread, …), in one undoable step. When every open leg is already in a group it says so.

A trade made of several combos (a hybrid)

Say one trade holds a put broken-wing butterfly and a double diagonal. Each combo gets its own leg group and its own template, one at a time:

1. Open the trade’s rules editor and open Templates ▸ Suggested for this trade. It offers one Group … and apply … line per combo it found. Click the first one (the butterfly): a leg group is created, with the butterfly template’s rules. The trade’s own rules are not touched.
2. Open Templates ▸ Suggested for this trade again. Legs that are in a group are no longer looked at, so what is left is offered as Group the remaining legs: Double diagonal … and apply ‘Calendar / diagonal’. Click it: a second group, with the calendar template’s rules. (If what is left is not a standard shape you can still group it without a template.) Once any group exists, a template found this way always goes on a new group, never on the trade as a whole: trade-level rules would also cover the combos that already have their own.
3. Choose Check rules (next section), then Check rules ▸ Mark this combination as validated, then Save.

Everything is a draft until you press Save. Undo (toolbar button or Ctrl+Z) walks back through every change you made since the last save, newest first, one at a time: a rule edited, added, duplicated or deleted; a template applied, switched or removed; groups created, split or edited; Strategy, Tags, Planned Capital; a rule set created or switched; a validation; duplicates removed. Going all the way back returns the editor to what is saved (the “unsaved changes” mark disappears). Pressing Save (or reloading the rules from disk) ends the history: what is saved cannot be undone from the editor. In a cell or text box Ctrl+Z still undoes the typing, as usual. Templates → Undo is the same command.

Check rules

Check rules reads the trade’s own rules together with those of every leg group and lists what looks wrong. It never changes anything by itself.

The combined view and validating the rules

The rules of a hybrid trade live on its groups, so the Trade node can be empty while the dashboard lists real rules. To see everything in one place, select All rules (combined) under Trade in the tree. It lists the trade’s rules and every group’s together, each row marked [Trade] or [Group name], with their current values. It is read-only: edit a rule on its own group (Add rule there adds to the Trade node). When a trade has no rules of its own but its groups do, the editor opens on this view. If only one group has rules, those are simply the trade’s rules.

Check rules ▸ Mark this combination as validated (the last item of the Check rules menu) is your sign-off on the combination. With findings it lists them and asks whether to validate anyway (an overlap, for instance, can be intentional). The button then shows a green tick, and Save keeps it. Any later change to a rule’s substance or to the groups (a level, an action, enabling or disabling, a leg) cancels the validation and the tick goes; renaming a rule or editing its note does not. Validation is advice, not a gate: the dashboard monitors and alerts on the rules whether or not they are validated. (The dashboard does not show the validated state yet.) The button’s caption also counts the findings: Check rules (3).

The toolbar, left to right: Add rule, Duplicate, Delete, Undo, Check rules, Templates (with Suggested for this trade at the top), then More (Leg groups…, Rule sets, New template from these rules…) and Advanced. The Rule set button appears once a trade has a second rule set. Keys: Ins or Ctrl+N adds a rule (measuring what the selected rule measures), Del deletes the selected rules, Ctrl+S saves, Ctrl+Z undoes.

Crossover rules

The When column turns a rule into a crossover: Crosses above, Crosses below or Crosses either way. A crossover fires once, the first time the value passes the level, and then stays flagged however often the value hovers back and forth over it. It needs one earlier reading on the other side, so it never fires right at start-up. To let it fire again, select it on the dashboard and press Re-arm (or choose Daily in the Re-arm column and a new UTC day re-arms it). For a crossover, Must be and Hyst % are not used. Threshold rules also have an absolute re-arm band in the model (for levels at 0, where a percentage band is zero).

The numbers in the example templates are only starting points — set your own. To keep your own set, use More → New template from these rules… in the rules editor (the Template editor opens with them: name it, pick a category, Save template), or build it from scratch in the Template editor (see How templates work, step by step above); it then appears in Templates for every trade. Built-in names cannot be overwritten.

Categories. When you save a template (in the Template editor, or with a quick save from a right-click on a profile in the tree on the left) you can also give it a category: pick one already in use or type a new one. The Templates menu then lists it in a submenu of that name (next to the built-in ones if you reuse a built-in category such as Butterfly); templates without a category stay in the flat list. The Template editor’s left pane and its template menu group Your templates by category too. Saving a template under an existing name keeps its category unless you choose another; to change one later, open the template in the Template editor and edit its Family box.

For accounts, a template saved under the exact name Default account rules is pre-filled into the rules of any account that has none yet, the first time you open its editor (nothing is stored until you press Save). Accounts that already have rules are never touched.

The rules editor

• Add rule / Duplicate / Delete work on the selected profile (the Trade or one of its leg groups in the tree on the left).
• Edits are made on a private copy. Nothing you type affects monitoring until you press Save; closing without saving asks first, and discarding throws the edits away.
• The Now column evaluates your rules as typed against the real trade every few seconds, coloured by what it would say: green = fine, yellow = Alert, orange = Adjust/Roll, red = Reduce/Close, grey = cannot be evaluated. Use it to check a rule against reality while you write it.
• The line above the grid shows how many identical units the trade has and how good its data is.
• Save checks every enabled rule (metric exists, at least one level, levels in the right order, unit known). A rule you have switched off is allowed to stay incomplete.
• A rule written by a newer version of SOAP2, or using a metric this version does not know, is shown as ? name, evaluates to n/a, and is kept exactly as it is.

The dashboard, acknowledging and snoozing

Trades → Trade rules dashboard lists every monitored trade that has rules. The top grid has one row per trade, most worrying first:

Select a trade to see its rules underneath: the current value, the levels (Must be), the state, how long ago it entered that state, any acknowledgement, and your note. The toolbar:

• Acknowledge — “I have seen this.” The breach stops counting as open (the row dims and the trade's status drops) until the rule's state changes. If the rule gets worse, or recovers, the acknowledgement ends by itself, so an old click can never hide a worse situation.
• Snooze (1, 4 or 24 hours) — the same, with a time limit; when it runs out and the rule is still breached, it is open again.
• Clear acknowledgement — take it back.
• Evaluate now — do not wait for the next one-minute pass.
• Edit rules... (or double-click a row) and Open trade (its Options Analysis window).

Acknowledgements and snoozes are kept across restarts (for up to 60 days): after a restart a breach you had acknowledged is still acknowledged, and a 24-hour snooze keeps counting. They still end by themselves the moment the rule’s state changes (a worse level, recovery, going stale), and a snooze that ran out while SOAP2 was closed is not restored.

The indicators on Portfolio and in the Options Analysis window

• Portfolio tiles get a small coloured dot beside the trade name (hidden for trades with no rules). Hover for the list of open breaches.
• In an Options Analysis window the summary strip shows Rules... (this trade has no rules yet) or Rules: REDUCE, tinted. Click it to open the editor.
• Green = fine, yellow = Alert, orange = Adjust/Roll, red = Reduce/Close, grey = nothing could be evaluated.

How much to trust a number

A rule that cannot honestly be evaluated is never shown as “ok”. SOAP2 records how each trade's figures were obtained:

A n/a also appears when a metric has no value (for example P&L % while a leg has no price, or on a trade holding a stock or futures leg), when a ratio's denominator is zero, when a sigma distance has no IV, or when the rule uses something this version does not know. The reason is shown in the Now / Note column.

Where your rules are saved

Under your SOAP2 data folder (normally %AppData%\SOAP2):

SOAP2 is careful with these files: a file it cannot read is copied aside and never overwritten; a file that belongs to a different symbol than the trade now holding that number is moved aside (your old rules are kept); and anything a newer SOAP2 wrote that this version does not understand is preserved when you save. If you rename a trade its rules stay with it.

Good to know

• Which trades are watched. A trade with Status = Monitored is always watched. An Unmonitored trade is watched whenever it is loaded in any Options Analysis window — even a hidden or minimized one, and even if its data is not active. Only trades that have rules are evaluated.
• Rewind and CBOE playback. A trade loaded in a Rewind or CBOE-playback window is skipped, and the stored last-known state is never overwritten by playback.
• Timing. A pass runs every 60 seconds, and immediately after you save rules or the connection changes. Time rules work offline.
• Margin is an estimate. The margin metric is SOAP2's worst-case at expiry, not your broker's requirement.
• Max margin is your Planned Capital. (Using the trade's own historical peak when no Planned Capital is set is not implemented yet.)
• The 21/14/7, 25 %, 50 %, 3 %, 5 % numbers in the templates are examples, not advice.

FAQ

I saved a rule but nothing appeared in the Message Log. The Message Log only records changes. A rule that is already fine says nothing; one that is already breached when you save is logged once. Open the dashboard to see every rule's current state.

A rule says n/a. Read the Note: it says exactly what is missing (no price, no IV, zero denominator, unknown metric...).

The dashboard is empty. No monitored trade has an enabled rule yet, or the trades you gave rules are Unmonitored and not loaded in an Options Analysis window.

The Rules label is not in my Options Analysis window. It is hidden for the Model Trade; select a real trade.

Can a rule place an order for me? No. Rules only notify and recommend.

Can the AI assistant see my rules? A read-only call for the assistant is planned; the stored state file above is what it will read.