News Gate
10 settings on this page.
News Gate Enabled
What it does
Master toggle for the news intelligence gate. When ON, ACondor monitors the live news feed and can close or reduce positions when a high-confidence opposing headline arrives. The news gate is defensive only: it never opens new positions. When OFF, news has no effect on position management.
When to change it
Turn OFF only if you do not have a TradingNews API key or Anthropic API key configured. Leaving it ON with missing API keys will cause errors.
Safe range
ON or OFF.
Example
You hold a short put spread on AAPL. A high-confidence negative headline arrives (confidence 0.92, above the 0.90 close threshold). News gate closes the position immediately to avoid the anticipated move down.
News Close Confidence
What it does
Confidence floor that triggers a full position close. When the classifier's confidence for an opposing headline reaches 0.90, the entire position is closed immediately regardless of current P&L or loss depth. Breaking news receives a 0.10 confidence boost (urgency_breaking_boost), so a breaking article at 0.80 effective confidence acts as 0.90 and triggers a close.
When to change it
Raise to 0.95 to require higher certainty before closing. Lower to 0.85 to act on less certain signals. The high default prevents noise from triggering closes.
Safe range
0.80 (sensitive) to 0.95 (only very high confidence).
Example
Classifier returns confidence 0.88 on a negative MSFT article (non-breaking). Below 0.90 close threshold. No close. Same article tagged breaking: effective confidence 0.88 + 0.10 = 0.98. Close fires.
News Reduce Confidence
What it does
Confidence floor that triggers a 50% position reduction (halve the contract count; remainder stays open). A 1-lot position cannot be halved; it is fully closed instead. The reduce tier has a loss-depth cap: positions already underwater by more than 2x the credit collected are not reduced (left to stop/DTE/delta rules instead of panic-reducing).
When to change it
Lower to 0.65 to reduce on less certain signals. Raise to 0.85 to reserve reductions for stronger signals only.
Safe range
0.65 (more reductions) to 0.85 (fewer, higher confidence only).
Example
Classifier returns 0.77 confidence on opposing news, above the 0.75 reduce threshold but below 0.90 close. 2-contract position: close 1 contract, keep 1. The remaining position continues under normal management.
News Flag Confidence
What it does
Confidence floor for flag-only action. When opposing news hits 0.60-0.74 confidence, the bot logs a flag and surfaces it in the dashboard but takes no trade action. Flag-only signals let you see what the news gate is seeing without automated closes.
When to change it
Lower to 0.50 to flag more headlines. Raise to 0.70 to reduce dashboard noise from weaker signals.
Safe range
0.50 (noisy, many flags) to 0.70 (fewer, stronger-signal flags only).
Example
Article about NVDA supply chain issues scores 0.63 confidence. Below the 0.75 reduce threshold. Flag logged: 'NVDA: opposing news confidence 0.63, monitoring'. No position change.
News Gate Min Move %
What it does
Minimum underlying move percentage required to corroborate a news event before the gate fires. The underlying must have moved at least 5% in the news direction. Prevents the news gate from firing on headlines that have not yet moved the stock.
When to change it
Lower to 2-3% to act faster on early-move news. Raise to 7-10% to require stronger price confirmation before acting.
Safe range
2% (act early) to 10% (require strong confirmation).
Example
Negative AAPL article, confidence 0.92. AAPL is down 3.2% on the day. With news_gate_min_move_pct=5%, the close does not fire: the underlying has not moved enough to corroborate. AAPL down 6% would trigger.
News Gate Min Hold Minutes
What it does
Minimum number of minutes a position must have been open before the news gate may fire on it. Prevents the news gate from closing a position that was just entered: the bot would otherwise enter and immediately close the same position on the same article.
When to change it
Lower to 5 minutes if you need faster news-gate response. Raise to 30 to give new positions more time before news actions are allowed.
Safe range
5 (fast) to 60 (slow).
Example
Bot enters an iron condor at 10:03 AM. Negative news arrives at 10:10 AM (7 minutes after entry). With news_gate_min_hold_minutes=15, the gate does not fire. At 10:18 AM the gate becomes eligible.
Contraction News Entry Enabled
What it does
When ON, allows the contraction engine to enter a single-sided credit spread (instead of a full iron condor) when a high-confidence directional news catalyst is present on a contraction-eligible symbol. This is an offensive extension of the news system. Off by default until validated.
When to change it
Leave OFF until the news engine has been observed in live conditions. The offensive news entry is more speculative than the standard contraction entry.
Safe range
ON or OFF.
Example
AMD IV Rank at 82 (contraction-eligible). Classifier: high-confidence bearish catalyst. With contraction_news_entry_enabled=ON, bot enters a bear call credit spread instead of an iron condor. With OFF, standard iron condor only.
News Trigger Entries
What it does
When enabled, breaking news classified with high confidence can open new positions immediately, bypassing the standard cycle scanner. Keep OFF until the news-triggered entry path has been validated on live fills.
When to change it
Leave OFF until the news engine has been observed in live conditions and classification accuracy has been confirmed. Enabling this allows the bot to enter positions outside of the normal scan cycle based solely on news signals.
Safe range
ON or OFF. Default OFF.
Example
A HIGH-confidence breaking news article on NVDA fires an entry even if NVDA wasn't in the scanner's candidate list that cycle.
News Entry Veto
What it does
When on, fresh high-confidence company news on a symbol makes the bot stand aside from opening new premium positions there until the window passes. It is a deterministic rule layered over the AI headline classification, and it is fully independent of the news-trigger entry switch, so the defensive veto can run with news-driven entries off.
When to change it
Turn it on when you want headline risk to suppress new entries without adopting news-driven entries. It only blocks opening new positions. Existing positions are untouched, so this is not a defensive exit mechanism.
Safe range
on or off. Off by default because it reduces entry count, and the benefit depends on how much you trust the classifier on your universe.
Example
A high-confidence headline lands on AAPL and the bot skips opening any new AAPL premium position until the freshness window expires. Existing AAPL positions are left alone.
News Badge Freshness
What it does
Controls how far back the open-positions table looks for a classified news article when deciding whether to show the small sentiment badge next to each symbol. This setting is display only.
When to change it
Purely cosmetic. Lower it to badge only very fresh news, raise it to keep the badge lit longer. It changes nothing about how the bot trades or when the news gate acts, so it is safe to adjust at any time.
Safe range
1 to 48 hours. No trading impact at any value.
Example
Set to 6 and a symbol shows its news badge only if a classified article on it arrived within the last 6 hours.