Trade Rules — Templates (BETA)

Related:

• SOAP2 Help Guide
• Trade Rules user guide (full reference)
• Trade Rules — Beginner's Guide
• Trade Rules — Templates
• Trade Rules — Hybrid Trades

Requires: Regular edition or above (not available in the Free edition)

A template is a named set of rules you can add to any trade with two clicks. This guide lists every ready-made template, explains each rule in plain words, and shows how to tune, replace, remove and create templates. If you have not yet put rules on a trade, read SOAP2 Trade Rules Beginner's Guide first.

Important: Every level below is an example, a common starting point. None of it is advice. Tune the numbers to your own plan, and expect to.

1. How Templates Work

• Applying is copying. Templates copies the template's rules into the trade on screen. Changing or deleting the template later never changes a trade you already set up.
• Nothing counts until Save. The copy lives on a private draft. Press Save in the editor to start monitoring.
• No double rules. If a rule with the same name is already on the trade, it is skipped, so applying a template twice does not duplicate anything.
• It labels the trade. A strategy template also fills in the trade's Strategy (only if you have not set one) and adds Tags to yours. Nothing of yours is replaced or removed. Applied to a leg group, only the rules are added.
• Every copied rule remembers where it came from. That is what makes Switch and Remove possible (section 5).

Where the menu is

Open the trade's rules (Trade List: right-click ▸ Trade rules..., or Alt+X), then click Templates ▾. Strategy templates are grouped by family. Your own templates appear in the same list. At the very bottom, Edit templates... opens the Template editor.

2. Reading the Tables Below

Each template is a list of rules. A rule is shown as what it watches · when it triggers · level → action.

Rules shared by many templates mean the same thing everywhere:

3. The Ready-Made Strategy Templates

Butterfly family

Butterflies profit from the market staying put and lose their edge close to expiry, so the time ladder starts at 21 days.

For a broken-wing butterfly, losing the lean means the short strike is being tested, which is why the cushion rule sits beside it.

Credit spreads and condors

Short premium: you collect money now and are exposed to the market moving into your short strike. These templates watch how close the short strike is, how fast its delta is growing, and time. The ladder ends in Roll at 14 days rather than Reduce, because the usual plan for a credit spread is to move it out in time.

Debit spreads

You paid money for a directional view with defined risk. Time works against you, so the ladder is shorter and the stop is tighter.

Time spreads

The near leg's expiry drives the plan, so the ladder is much shorter than for a single-expiry trade. A double diagonal or double calendar also uses this template.

Ratio spreads

Profitable on a small move, exposed beyond the extra short strikes. Set the trade's Planned Capital, or the margin rule reads n/a.

Long options

Short options

Note on the Covered call: the trade holds stock, and SOAP2 cannot compute P&L % for a trade with a stock or futures leg. Its Profit target therefore reads n/a. The other rules work normally.

4. The General-Purpose Templates

These are not tied to a structure. Use them alone, or add them to a strategy template.

Planned Capital stands in for your account value on a single trade. It is stored with the trade, and the box in the Options Analysis window and the box in the rules editor are the same value.

5. Switching, Removing and Undoing

All three act on the draft and none asks for confirmation. Nothing is saved until you press Save.

Details that matter:

• Strategy follows a Switch only while it still equals the old template's name. A Strategy you typed yourself stays.
• Tags are only ever added, never removed, by Apply and Switch.
• Rules you wrote yourself stay through every one of these operations.
• Rules from the new template start fresh: their crossover state and acknowledgements are new, and those of the removed rules are dropped when you save.
• Rules saved before this feature existed carry no "came from" stamp. If the trade was set up from that template, they are matched by the template's rule names.

6. Making Your Own Template

Quick way: save what you already tuned

1. Tune a trade's rules in the editor until they match your plan.
2. More ▾ ▸ New template from these rules.... The Template editor opens on a new template holding them. Check the name, optionally pick a category (Family), or type a new one.
3. Press Save template. It now appears in Templates for every trade.

It keeps the trade's Strategy and Tags too. With a category, it appears in a submenu of that name, next to the built-in ones if you reuse a built-in family such as Butterfly. Without one it stays in the flat list. For a quick save without leaving the trade, right-click a profile in the tree on the left and choose Save as template.

Bringing trades in line after you edit a template

Applying copies the rules, so editing a template later never changes a trade by itself. When you do want the trades to follow, open the template in the Template editor: its status line says how many trades use it, and the template menu offers Re-apply to the N trade(s) using it.... It lists the trades and asks first; in each one, the rules that came from the template are replaced by its current rules (rules you wrote yourself stay, and a rule that did not change keeps its running state). This is saved at once.

Full way: the Template editor

Open it from Templates... on the dashboard toolbar, or Edit templates... at the bottom of Templates. It is the same editor as for a trade, switched into template mode: there is no trade to evaluate, so there is no Now column, and the save button reads Save template.

• What it opens on. From a trade, the template that trade was set up from. From the dashboard, the template you saved last. Only if you have none does it open on a blank one.
• The list on the left shows all templates: yours first, then the built-in ones grouped by family. Click one to open it. It asks first if you have unsaved edits.
• The header fields:

• Rules are edited in the grid exactly as for a trade. A template needs a name and at least one rule.
• New template starts empty. Delete this template removes one of yours.

Ready-made templates are never overwritten

A built-in template always opens as "… (copy)", and its own name is refused on save. To tune one: open it, change the levels, rename it if you like, and save. You now have your own version, and the original is untouched.

7. A Default for Accounts

For accounts (not trades), a template saved under the exact name Default account rules is pre-filled into the rules of any account that has none yet, the first time you open its editor. Nothing is stored until you press Save, and an account that already has rules is never touched.

8. Where Templates Live

Your own templates are one small file each under your SOAP2 data folder (normally %AppData%\SOAP2): Rules\Templates\{name}.json. The ready-made ones ship inside SOAP2 and cannot be edited.

9. Tips for Choosing Levels

• Start with the template, change what surprises you. If something is red on a healthy trade, ask whether the level is wrong for how you trade, then change it.
• Use the Note column. Writing down why a level is 21 and not 14 is more useful in six months than the number.
• Keep the ladder in order. Mildest first: down for "falls below", up for "rises above".
• Do not stack too many rules. Three or four that you act on beat ten you ignore.
• Use two rule sets if your stance changes: tight while you are nervous, loose when you are not (see the Beginner's Guide, section 10).

Learn More

• SOAP2 Trade Rules Beginner's Guide for your first trade
• SOAP2 Trade Rules Advanced: Hybrid Trades for trades made of several combos
• Full documentation: Trade Rules user guide on the SOAP2 documentation site