AutoScanTrade
User guideComing soon

AutoScanTrade user guide

What every window, button and setting in AutoScanTrade does, and how to use it. AutoScanTrade is a trading desk for Windows: a live scanner for fast-moving stocks, a manual trading panel with hotkeys, automated entries on your own rules, software-managed exits, and a journal of every trade.

The main AutoScanTrade window: account header and buttons at the top, filters and risk rows, the trading panel on the left, the scanner on the right and the order log at the bottom
The main window in paper mode. Symbols and prices are made up.

How the desk fits together

  1. The scanner finds movers. It watches the live market data from your own data subscription and lists stocks that pass your filters: price, gap, volume and relative volume.
  2. You arm a symbol. Click a scanner row or type a ticker. The trading panel, the trade ladder and the chart all follow that symbol.
  3. You trade it, or the desk does. Press BUY or SHORT (or a hotkey) yourself, or arm the automation so the desk enters when your entry rules match.
  4. Exits are managed on every price. Take profit, stop loss, trailing stops and the other exits run inside the software for every open position, manual or automatic.
  5. Everything is recorded. Each closed trade goes into the journal with its costs, so you can review days, sessions and profiles later.
Your stops are software stops

Take profit, stop loss, trailing stops and the other exits live in the program on your computer. They are not resting stop orders at your broker. Nothing protects a position while the program is closed, the computer is asleep, the network is down or the market data stops arriving. Read more.

Guide contents

Getting startedWhat you need, the first start, paper mode and switching to live. Scanner and market listsFilters, session sets, scanner columns, gappers, watchlist, new highs, news and halts. Trading panel and hotkeysOrder size, limit or market, buy, short, sell, cover, flatten, cancel, hotkeys and locates. Trade ladder and chartSee the trade's entry, stop, target and trail, and chart the armed stock with indicators. AutomationArming, entry rules, entry filters, profiles, the profile fleet and the paper schedule. Exits and risk controlsTake profit, stop loss, trailing stops, volume fade, halt rules and risk discipline. Journal and analysisRealized net, open and closed trades, the order log, the calendar journal, ANALYSE and export. Broker, keys and settingsBroker and commissions, API keys, paper and live, sounds, layouts and the risks window. AutoScanTrade LiteWhat Lite is, what the full desk adds, and why they are the same program.
Using AutoScanTrade Lite?

Everything in this guide applies, apart from the automation: AUTO/BOT, arming a side, the fleet and the schedule, and the journal and ANALYSE windows that read them back. The scanner, the trading panel, the exits, the ladder and the chart are identical — it is the same program. What Lite is, in one page.

Words used in this guide

TermMeaning
Armed symbolThe stock the trading panel, ladder and chart are following. You arm one by clicking a row or typing a ticker.
Arming (automation)Turning on an automatic entry engine. Nothing enters by itself until you arm it.
Paper / LivePaper fills orders inside the software against the live prices, with a virtual wallet. Live sends orders to your broker with real money.
SessionPremarket (04:00-09:30 New York time), market hours (09:30-16:00) and after hours (16:00-20:00).
RVOLRelative volume: how much a stock is trading compared with its normal pace.
ProfileA saved set of automation and exit settings that you can load, change and compare.
LocateShares your broker has found for you to borrow before you short a hard-to-borrow stock.