Contraction News Entry Lookback Hours
What it does
How far back the contraction news entry engine looks for qualifying news signals, in hours. When evaluating a potential news-triggered entry, the bot checks whether a high-confidence news signal for this symbol appeared within this window. A shorter window means only very recent news triggers entries; a longer window allows entries based on news that arrived hours ago but has not yet been fully priced in.
When to change it
Lower to 1-2 hours to only trade on fresh news. Raise to 6-8 hours if you believe market reactions to news take longer to fully develop. This setting only matters when contraction_news_entry_enabled is ON.
Safe range
1 hour (very fresh news only) to 12 hours (broader lookback). Default 4 hours is a reasonable middle ground.
Example
A news signal arrives at 10:00 AM. With lookback_hours=4, the bot considers this signal eligible until 2:00 PM for potential entries on that name.