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.

Since 2026-08-02 the engine has followed a trend plan and a swing plan. Trend trades enter 45 to 60 days out and manage at 30 DTE. Swing trades enter 21 to 35 days out with an at-the-money long leg and are judged on pace: at half the trade's life, anything below half its target is closed.

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 45 to 60 in trend mode, managed at 30 DTE; 21 to 35 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 gain for capped debit spreads; a 70% return on premium paid for uncapped singles. Swing singles target 100% of premium paid.
Early take-profit: closes when the position is up a settable percent of the premium paid, ahead of the target. Off by default, the mirror of the 50% stop.
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.
Pace rule (swing only): at half the trade's life, close anything below 50% of its target.
Stop loss: close when the position has lost 50% of the premium paid.
DTE backstop: close at 30 DTE in trend mode (5 DTE for swings) 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: shorter DTE band (21 to 35), at-the-money long leg, 100% of premium paid target on singles, and a pace rule that closes any swing below half its target at half its life. 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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