Allocation & Position Sizing
17 settings on this page.
Risk Profile
What it does
One choice that sizes every dollar limit from your account value. The profile and the account's current net liquidation value set the per-trade cap (as a percent of the account), how much of the account may be deployed, the buying-power ceiling, the position counts, the number of trades per cycle, and which engines run. Conservative deploys 20% at 3% per trade with the premium engines only. Balanced deploys 35% at 5% per trade and adds the earnings engine. Active deploys 50% at 7% per trade and adds the directional engine. Custom turns derivation off and leaves every value to the Advanced screen. Limits re-derive only when account value moves 20% from where they were last derived, so a good week does not quietly raise the cap, and the change is written to the decisions log.
When to change it
Pick it once at setup and revisit when your view of the account changes, not when a trade goes badly. A value you set by hand on the Basic dials or in Advanced is never overwritten by the profile; it is labelled as yours, and a reset link hands it back. Switching profiles shows every setting that would change before anything changes, and warns when a new limit would sit below what is already open. Open positions are never touched; new limits apply to new entries only.
Safe range
A 10-wide index condor risks $700 to $900, so the default trade fits the per-trade cap from about $18,000 of account value on Balanced and $30,000 on Conservative. Below that the account still trades, taking the cheaper structures that fit, and the screen says so.
Example
Balanced on a $100,000 account: $5,000 per trade, $35,000 deployed at most, room for about 38 positions at $900 each, two new entries per cycle. Drag risk per trade to 4% and that one value becomes yours at $4,000; the rest stay on the profile.
Max Allocation %
What it does
Caps the total buying power ACondor may deploy across all open positions at once, expressed as a percentage of net liquidation value. If your account NLV is $50,000 and this is set to 10%, the bot will not open new positions once deployed buying power reaches $5,000. Before placing any order, ACondor runs a margin dry-run at tastytrade to learn the exact buying power effect of the proposed trade. It never estimates. On the Basic screen this is the "how much of the account to use" dial, shown in both percent and today's dollars.
When to change it
Start at 10% and raise it only after you have observed the bot through a full market cycle. The appropriate level depends on your account size, risk tolerance, and how many concurrent positions you want to run. Values above 35% are aggressive for a premium-selling strategy.
Safe range
5% (very conservative, few concurrent positions) to 35% (aggressive, high position count). Above 35% leaves little cushion for unrealized losses on existing positions.
Example
$100,000 account at 10% allocation = $10,000 max deployed. At 10-wide iron condors requiring roughly $700 buying power each, that supports about 14 simultaneous positions, fewer than the default 20-position count cap, so the allocation cap binds first.
Max Allocation Dollars
What it does
Fixed dollar cap on total deployed buying power. When set above 0 it takes precedence over Max Allocation %, whatever the percentage would allow, so it is an absolute ceiling regardless of account size. A risk profile sets it to 0 so the percent cap governs; a shared dollar figure sized for one account is exactly what idled a $100,000 paper account at $3,568 deployed in September 2026.
When to change it
Set this only if you want a hard dollar ceiling regardless of account size, and set it per account. Leave it at 0 to use the percent cap.
Safe range
Any positive dollar value above your minimum position size. Setting too low means the bot never enters.
Example
$500,000 account, max_allocation_pct=10% would allow $50,000 deployed. Setting max_allocation_dollars=20000 caps it at $20,000 instead.
Max Buying Power %
What it does
Ceiling on total buying power in use across the whole account, measured against the broker's own remaining buying power. This is a different limit from Max Allocation %: allocation caps what ACondor itself deploys, while this counts everything the account is using, including positions you opened yourself. Before each entry the bot checks that the trade would still leave at least (100% minus this figure) of net liq free. If it would not, the entry is declined and the reason is recorded. Set it from the Settings tab (max buying power %); the Overview allocation card shows the resulting dollar floor as "free bp floor".
When to change it
Lower it if you trade the same account by hand alongside the bot and want a larger untouched cushion. Raise it only if the account is dedicated to ACondor and you are comfortable running closer to fully deployed.
Safe range
20% (conservative, large free cushion) to 50% (aggressive). Above 50% leaves little room for existing positions to move against you before margin becomes tight.
Example
$50,000 account at 35%. The bot requires $32,500 of buying power to remain free. If you are separately holding positions using $20,000, ACondor can only add trades until the total reaches $17,500, whether or not its own allocation cap has been reached.
Beta-Weighted Delta Gate
What it does
Keeps the book from leaning too far in one direction overall. Every position carries directional exposure, and a book that is individually well-sized can still be collectively one-sided, which is when a single market move tests everything at once. This gate measures the whole account's exposure in dollars per one-point move in the S&P, and once that figure passes the configured band it only allows new positions that bring the book back toward balanced. It never closes or shrinks anything you already hold: it only decides whether to open something new.
When to change it
Leave it on. Turn it off only if you are deliberately running a directional book and want position-level risk to be the sole control.
Safe range
ON or OFF. ON is recommended for any account running more than a handful of concurrent positions.
Example
The book is leaning bullish beyond its band. A new put credit spread (which would add more bullish exposure) is declined; a call credit spread on the same underlying is allowed, because it moves the account back toward neutral.
Beta-Weighted Delta Band
What it does
How far the account may lean before the gate above starts steering. Expressed as a percentage of net liquidation value per one-point move in the S&P. Inside the band any qualifying trade is allowed; outside it, only trades that reduce the imbalance pass.
When to change it
Widen it if you want the bot to trade more freely and accept a more one-sided book. Tighten it toward a stricter delta-neutral posture, but be aware that a very tight band on a small account can be exceeded by a single position, which would leave the gate permanently engaged.
Safe range
0.5% (tight, close to delta-neutral) to 2% (permissive). Below roughly 0.3% a single one-lot position can exceed the band on a small account.
Example
$50,000 account with a 1% band. The account may lean up to $500 of profit or loss per one-point S&P move before the gate begins requiring balancing trades.
Max Concurrent Positions
What it does
Hard cap on the number of open positions across all accounts at once. The scanner stops entering new positions once this count is reached regardless of available buying power.
When to change it
Lower it when starting out. 5 to 10 is easier to monitor. Raise it as you get comfortable with the system and have enough buying power to support more positions.
Safe range
3 (minimal) to 50 (high-volume). Above 30 requires significant account size to avoid over-concentration.
Example
At 20 positions with 1 contract each at roughly $700 BP per iron condor = $14,000 deployed on a $140,000 account.
Max New Entries Per Cycle
What it does
Limits how many new positions the bot can open in a single 3-minute scanner cycle. Prevents the bot from deploying all available capital at once during a strong entry signal session. News-triggered entries count toward this limit too, so a news flurry cannot bypass it.
When to change it
Lower to 1 if you want to observe individual entries before the bot adds more. Raise above 3 only on large accounts where deploying 3 positions per cycle is slow relative to opportunity.
Safe range
1 (one at a time) to 5 (aggressive deployment). Above 5 rarely adds value.
Example
Scanner fires at 10:03 AM with 8 qualifying candidates ranked by score. With max_new_entries_per_cycle=3, only the top 3 are entered. At 10:06 AM the next cycle may enter 3 more if still qualifying.
Max Positions Per Sector
What it does
Caps the number of simultaneous positions in any single sector. Prevents concentration risk when multiple underlyings in the same sector all trigger entries at once during a sector-wide vol event. The cap applies to each bucket independently, so a full Technology bucket has no effect on Healthcare or Energy. ACondor uses thirteen buckets: Technology, Financial Services, Energy, Healthcare, Industrials, Consumer Defensive, Consumer Cyclical, Utilities, Basic Materials, Real Estate, Communication Services, Broad Market, and International. Broad Market covers whole-market index products such as SPY and IWM, and International covers single-country and regional funds, because neither is one sector but each carries its own correlated exposure. A leveraged or inverse fund is bucketed by its underlying exposure rather than its structure. Each symbol's sector is resolved once from the instrument's own published company name and then cached, so classification stays stable across restarts and does not need hand-maintaining as new symbols enter the universe. A symbol that cannot be classified confidently goes into a shared Unknown bucket that is capped the same way, so nothing accumulates without limit merely because its sector could not be determined. A sector can be set manually per symbol, and a manual assignment is never replaced automatically. Adjustable globally or per account from the dashboard.
When to change it
Raise to 4 on larger accounts where diversification across sectors is naturally limited. Lower to 1 or 2 for stricter sector diversification.
Safe range
1 (strict sector isolation) to 4 (permissive). Above 4 provides minimal additional diversification.
Example
Tech sector has AAPL, MSFT, NVDA, and AMD all scoring above threshold. With max_positions_per_sector=3, only the top 3 by entry score enter. AMD waits until one tech position closes. A qualifying Healthcare or Energy candidate is unaffected and can still enter, because each bucket is counted separately.
Max Positions Per ETF Symbol
What it does
How many mechanical positions the bot may hold at once on a single index or sector ETF. At the default of 1 it holds one position per symbol and will not re-enter that name until the position closes. Above 1 it may hold that many on the same ETF, and each one has to sit on a different expiration: when the bot builds the next position it is told which expirations it already holds and must choose another, and a position that would still land on one already held is refused. The trade itself does not change. Strikes, wing width, delta and every entry filter are identical, so an additional position is the same trade on a later expiration, not a looser one. Single stocks are never laddered this way and always keep one position each, and the bot adds at most one new position per symbol per scanner cycle. The limit applies to the index, sector, commodity, bond and country funds the bot treats as ETFs.
When to change it
Raise to 2 or 3 when a quiet market leaves only a handful of index funds clearing your entry filters and the account sits idle with buying power free. Keep it at 1 if you would rather hold one position per name, or if the account is small enough that a second position would crowd out a different opportunity.
Safe range
1 (one position per name) to 5. Each position uses its own buying power, so raise it only as far as the account can fund without crowding out other names.
Example
The bot holds a QQQ condor expiring October 30, and QQQ still clears every filter the next day. At the default of 1 it does nothing. At 3 it opens a second QQQ condor on a different expiration, November 20, at the same delta and width, and reports the symbol as full once it holds three.
Contracts Per Position
What it does
Number of contracts the bot uses for each new position entry. This is a flat per-entry contract count, not a percentage. The bot multiplies this by the buying power requirement of the structure and checks against the allocation budget before submitting. Each engine (mechanical, earnings, contraction, directional) has its own default of 1; earnings especially should stay at 1 because it involves binary event risk.
When to change it
Start at 1. Raise to 2 or 3 only on larger accounts where 1-contract positions represent too small a dollar amount. Custodial accounts are capped at 5 contracts regardless of this setting.
Safe range
1 (minimum, appropriate for most accounts under $50k) to 5. Above 10 is aggressive for any account.
Example
10-wide iron condor with contracts_per_position=1 requires roughly $700 buying power. At 2 contracts, $1,400. On a $20,000 account with 10% allocation ($2,000 cap), 2 contracts per position allows about 1 simultaneous position before the allocation cap binds.
Account NLV Override
What it does
Net liquidation value used by the percentage-based circuit breakers and allocation caps. ACondor fetches the real NLV from tastytrade at the start of every cycle and caches it. This field lets you manually override the NLV if the broker fetch fails or if you want to run the bot against a hypothetical account size for testing. In normal operation, leave this blank: the bot keeps it current automatically.
When to change it
Only set manually if broker NLV fetching is consistently failing and you need the circuit breakers to function. Clear it once the broker connection is restored so the real value takes over again.
Safe range
Any positive dollar value representing your account's approximate net liquidation value. A value too low makes the allocation cap too tight; a value too high makes it too loose.
Example
$75,000 account. Bot fetches NLV automatically each cycle. If you set account_nlv=75000 manually, the bot uses that instead of the broker fetch. If the broker later fetches $74,800, the cached broker value wins again.
Loop Interval (seconds)
What it does
How often ACondor runs a full scan-and-manage cycle, in seconds. The default is 300 seconds (5 minutes). Each cycle: fetches market data, evaluates all open positions against the exit state machine, runs the scanner for new entries, and submits any orders. Shorter intervals mean more frequent management and faster reaction to market moves, but also more API calls to tastytrade.
When to change it
Lower to 180 (3 minutes) if you want faster position management. The dashboard shows the current interval and last cycle time. Do not set below 60: tastytrade rate limits API calls and the bot needs time to complete each cycle cleanly.
Safe range
60 seconds (aggressive, high API usage) to 600 seconds (10 minutes, slower management). Default 300 is a good balance for most account sizes.
Example
With loop_interval_seconds=300, a position that hits its 50% profit target at 10:03 AM will be closed by 10:08 AM at the latest. At 180 seconds, by 10:06 AM.
Entries Paused
What it does
Manual pause switch for new entries. When ON, ACondor stops opening any new positions across all engines but continues managing and closing existing positions normally. This is the same as clicking the pause button on the dashboard. Use it when you want to let the book run off naturally without adding new exposure, for example ahead of a major macro event, during a vacation, or while reviewing bot behavior.
When to change it
Turn ON any time you want to stop new entries without stopping management. Turn OFF to resume normal entry scanning. The dashboard pause button toggles this same setting.
Safe range
ON or OFF.
Example
FOMC day. You pause entries at 9:30 AM so no new positions open during the announcement. Existing positions are still managed and will close at their profit targets. After the announcement you unpause.
Max Loss Per Trade Mode
What it does
Chooses how the per-trade risk ceiling is expressed: a fixed dollar cap that never moves, or a percentage of your live account value that scales as the account grows or shrinks. Dollar mode needs no account value at all, so it still applies when the broker figure is unavailable. Percent mode needs a live NLV and is skipped entirely if none resolves.
When to change it
Use dollars when you want a hard, predictable ceiling per trade. Switch to percent when you want risk to scale with the account without revisiting the setting. Note the failure modes differ: if the broker NLV is unavailable, dollar mode still enforces while percent mode silently stops enforcing, leaving only the allocation cap.
Safe range
dollars or pct. Dollar mode is the safer default because it keeps working when account value cannot be read.
Example
Set to dollars and every trade is checked against the dollar cap. Set to pct and a $50,000 account with a 2% cap allows $1,000 of risk per trade, rising to $2,000 once the account doubles.
Max Loss Per Trade $
What it does
Sets the most money a single trade may put at risk when the mode is dollars, measured as the defined max loss of the structure for the whole sized lot. A candidate above this ceiling is skipped, not shrunk to fit. The bot will not resize a trade to squeeze under the cap.
When to change it
Lower it to tighten per-trade risk, but watch that standard structures still qualify. Set it too low and ordinary condors stop clearing the bar entirely, so the bot goes quiet without an obvious reason. Raise it and it stops functioning as a guardrail.
Safe range
$300 to $1,500 for most accounts. The default of $700 accommodates a standard 10-wide defined-risk structure.
Example
Set to 700 and a 10-wide iron condor risking $700 is allowed, while a wider structure risking $1,200 is skipped entirely rather than resized.
Max Loss Per Trade %
What it does
Sets the most a single trade may put at risk as a percentage of live account value, used when the mode is percent. The ceiling recomputes every cycle from the broker NLV, so it scales with the account. A candidate above it is skipped, not resized down to fit. On the Basic screen this is the "risk per trade" dial, shown with the dollar figure it works out to today.
When to change it
Adjust when you want per-trade risk to track account size automatically. Be aware of the quiet failure mode: if no account value resolves, this check is skipped entirely and only the allocation cap guards the entry. If that concerns you, use dollar mode instead. Moving the dial makes the value yours; the profile stops governing it until you reset it.
Safe range
The profiles use 3% (Conservative), 5% (Balanced) and 7% (Active) because a 10-wide index condor risks $700 to $900: at 5% the default trade needs about $18,000 of account value, at 3% about $30,000. Below that the cap refuses the richer index condors and the bot takes cheaper structures. On a large account 1% to 3% is plenty.
Example
Set to 5 on a $100,000 account and the cap is $5,000, so an $875-risk QQQ condor passes five times over. The same 5% on a $14,600 account is $730, which refuses that QQQ condor and takes a $711 SPY one instead.