# Intro to Option Alpha

## Our Mission: Trade with discipline and consistency

We believe automation can help traders trade with more discipline and consistency. That is why we build tools for finding better opportunities, backtesting ideas, and automating strategies so traders can trade with conviction.

### Find Opportunities. Backtest Ideas. Automate Strategies.

#### Find Trades

* Use [Trade Ideas](https://app.optionalpha.com/tradeideas) to "shop" for trades with a positive expected value (EV)
* Scan for [0DTE trades](https://app.optionalpha.com/zdte) by backtesting position metrics against historical price movements
* [Screen](https://app.optionalpha.com/screener) for new symbols by options liquidity, technical indicators, momentum and more
* Innovative [Research Reports](https://app.optionalpha.com/research) updated nightly
* Find backtested earnings trades with [Earnings Edge](https://app.optionalpha.com/earnedge)

#### Backtesting

* [Backtest](https://app.optionalpha.com/zdte/backtester) a strategy to fine tune for maximum profits
* Search [Top Backtests](https://app.optionalpha.com/zdte/backtester/toptests) to find a new strategy

#### Automation

* Use bot [automations](/tools/bots/automations.md) to find, open, and manage positions that match your entry criteria
* Use [Exit Options](/tools/managing-positions/exit-options.md) to monitor and close positions when your exit criteria are met
* Leverage [SmartPricing](/tools/bots/smartpricing.md) to get trades filled at the best available price

#### Learn From Other Traders

* Explore the [Top Bot Templates](https://app.optionalpha.com/community/toptpls) in the OA community
* See the [Top Strategies](https://app.optionalpha.com/topstrategies) other traders are using to find success
* Get help and learn from the collective knowledge of the [OA community](https://app.optionalpha.com/community)

## Why Bots

Bots are like a trading assistants that perform trading tasks for you. Bots are consistent, emotionless and systematic. Bots can do many things including:

* Scan for new positions that match your entry criteria
* Initiate trades to open positions when they are available
* Place multiple orders between the bid/ask spread to get trades filled at the best possible price
* Monitor positions waiting for predefined exit conditions

Combine all of these to execute a fully automated trading strategy.

#### Automations

Your bot can use market data and indicators to make decisions, open and close positions, send you notifications and much more. Automations are the instructions you add to your bot that define the actions you want it to perform:

<div align="left"><figure><img src="/files/rOTC9Z6vFRiMWSTJcQH2" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure></div>

Automations can be scheduled to run continuously every 1 minute, based on a repeating schedule, when you click a button, and many more options:

<div align="left"><figure><img src="/files/sy0PYAaGWq1itI1p0Lfz" alt="" width="563"><figcaption></figcaption></figure></div>

#### Scanning for Positions

For example, add a scanner automation to your bot to watch for specific entry conditions and automatically open a position when it's available:

<div align="left"><figure><img src="/files/wslqh7dhrVn1QzMzVvHK" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure></div>

#### Monitoring and Exiting Positions

After your bot opens a position, it will monitor the position every 1 minute checking for your predefined exit criteria:

<div align="left"><figure><img src="/files/bYG9OVNFAEWQx6mms6II" alt="" width="563"><figcaption></figcaption></figure></div>

You can also add a monitor automation to your bot that checks for more specific exit conditions:

<div align="left"><figure><img src="/files/S7ZiKRMetUTJu8J4DLzd" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure></div>

#### Transparency

Everything the bot does is logged with full transparency. No black box here! Your bot's log has details of what happened each time an automation runs:

<div align="left"><figure><img src="/files/DEz8CfMFvs4nvjhNziIm" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure></div>

Including the actions executed in the automation:

<div align="left"><figure><img src="/files/e5IRyjScGfwzARaWuMHX" alt="" width="563"><figcaption></figcaption></figure></div>

You can even inspect the exact data the bot used when making decisions:

<div align="left"><figure><img src="/files/fUcizOuhwT5IwyMiBpa2" alt="" width="563"><figcaption></figcaption></figure></div>

and opening positions:

<div align="left"><figure><img src="/files/u5w5cqewJk3ZMiW779Xu" alt="" width="563"><figcaption></figcaption></figure></div>

#### Profit and Loss

Your bot logs the profit and loss for all of its positions so you can keep track of it's profitability:

<div align="left"><figure><img src="/files/DWZAsdFoyYn3h1i8uEQb" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure></div>

## Fully Automated Example Bots

The bot templates below include a step-by-step video showing how to set up a bot from scratch to find, open and manage positions automatically:

<table data-card-size="large" data-view="cards"><thead><tr><th></th><th></th><th data-hidden data-card-target data-type="content-ref"></th><th data-hidden data-card-cover data-type="image">Cover image</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><mark style="color:blue;"><strong>WiFly 1DTE $60 Wide</strong></mark></td><td>Daily SPX 1DTE iron butterfly managed at 15%</td><td><a href="https://app.optionalpha.com/community/member/jackslocum/post/wifly-1dte-60-wide">https://app.optionalpha.com/community/member/jackslocum/post/wifly-1dte-60-wide</a></td><td data-object-fit="contain"><a href="/files/q1iCH8YD9uLiOU1gTeTr">/files/q1iCH8YD9uLiOU1gTeTr</a></td></tr><tr><td><mark style="color:blue;"><strong>Auto Ideas - ETFs</strong></mark></td><td>Cherry picks credit spreads with favorable metrics from Trade Ideas</td><td><a href="https://app.optionalpha.com/community/member/jackslocum/post/auto-ideas-etfs">https://app.optionalpha.com/community/member/jackslocum/post/auto-ideas-etfs</a></td><td data-object-fit="contain"><a href="/files/D8RelXaVMeAmNQAcvLuP">/files/D8RelXaVMeAmNQAcvLuP</a></td></tr><tr><td><mark style="color:blue;"><strong>Peggie Bank</strong></mark></td><td>SPX 0DTE bot based on intraday price "pegging" research located in OA Labs</td><td><a href="https://app.optionalpha.com/community/member/jackslocum/post/peggie-bank">https://app.optionalpha.com/community/member/jackslocum/post/peggie-bank</a></td><td data-object-fit="contain"><a href="/files/Xf1Pg2B7wM8khHyolPiw">/files/Xf1Pg2B7wM8khHyolPiw</a></td></tr><tr><td><mark style="color:blue;"><strong>Rev Ninja ETFs</strong></mark></td><td>Simple RSI based mean reversion strategy + Trade Ideas</td><td><a href="https://app.optionalpha.com/community/member/jackslocum/post/rev-ninja-etfs">https://app.optionalpha.com/community/member/jackslocum/post/rev-ninja-etfs</a></td><td data-object-fit="contain"><a href="/files/2BFIXrqG1GZMMXNi7vlr">/files/2BFIXrqG1GZMMXNi7vlr</a></td></tr></tbody></table>

## New Ways To Find Trading Opportunities

Option Alpha provides several innovative ways for finding new trades, each tool designed to provide insights for a specific trading opportunity available to options traders...

### [Trade Ideas](broken://pages/KKpoHTAbu5W6THkf3q1c)

Finds trades with an edge based on EV and probabilities.

The Trade Ideas backend scans continuously during market hours (9:35 am - 3:55 pm) and finds trade ideas in 3 ways:

* Analyzes the top-performing position setups used by all traders in the platform.
* Analyzes every option series expiring in 45 days or less that falls on a Friday and matches up every possible combination of legs at common delta values.
* It examines all current open positions in the platform that are looking for opportunities.

<div align="left"><figure><img src="/files/0c6M5qWTjCg4J4X2R7Dn" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure></div>

### [0DTE Oracle](broken://pages/amyfya6ntiwdR6ffuATs)

Find and analyze 0DTE and next-day trading opportunities.

It aims to solve the problem of probabilities and expected value (EV) being less accurate for 0DTE trades by providing backtest results to help us identify quality trades instead of relying on probabilities.

Each trade's metrics are backtested against the underlying's previous 1 year of intraday minute data to see how trading a similar position daily would have performed over that time.

<div align="left"><figure><img src="/files/rGYtuPHN62kaPJyZW7nL" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure></div>


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