Directional Engine

What this engine does

The directional engine takes biased positions when a strong directional signal is present: chain skew, news bias, or explicit manual bias on a symbol. It is off by default. It must be explicitly enabled in Settings before it will ever evaluate a candidate.

The engine prefers credit-funded pair structures: sell a credit spread on one side to subsidize the directional debit on the other. The funding spread collects premium that offsets the cost of the long option, turning a pure-debit bet into something closer to a credit trade with directional exposure.

The structure cascade follows a strict priority: a funded pair spread is scored at 1.20× (preferred), a standalone debit spread at 1.0×, and an outright long option at 0.80× (penalty). The bot will reach for a long option only when nothing else is available and the bias signal is strong.

Entry conditions

Engine enabled in Settings. Off by default.
Strong bias signal: chain skew mark ratio > 2.0, high-confidence news bias, or explicit manual bias.
IV Rank floor for the funding leg: the credit spread that funds the pair needs enough premium to be worth selling.
DTE 30-45 in normal mode; 7-21 in swing mode with an ATM long leg.
Minimum reward-to-risk ratio on the proposed structure.
Buying power dry-run passes and risk layer clears.

Exit rules (priority order)

Profit target hit: 82% of max for defined-risk structures, return-on-risk basis for uncapped longs. Swing mode uses 40%.
Delta take-profit on the long leg: when the long has gone deep ITM, harvest before extrinsic decays.
News gate fires: high-confidence contradicting headline forces close.
Time-based exit (swing only): close at 50% of original DTE elapsed if profit target not yet hit.
Stop loss: percent-of-premium-paid stop on the directional component.
DTE backstop: close at the configured manage-DTE regardless of P&L.

When to use it / when to disable it

Enable it: when you specifically want directional exposure and you trust the bias signals (skew, news classifier, your own manual bias). It is the only engine that takes a side, so it is the only engine that benefits from a directional view.

Keep it disabled: if you want a pure premium-selling, market-neutral strategy. Directional trades introduce a different risk profile: theta-negative when the long dominates, gap-sensitive in either direction.

Swing mode: tighter DTE band (7-21), at-the-money long leg, 40% profit target, and a time-based exit at 50% of original DTE elapsed. Use when you want faster, more aggressive directional exposure on a short horizon.

What this engine does

Entry conditions

Exit rules (priority order)

When to use it / when to disable it

Settings that control this engine

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