❓ Help & Documentation

The Strategy, In Plain English

This app watches for stocks that drop sharply at market open, then tracks whether they start recovering. The idea: a stock that opens down hard, keeps falling briefly, then reverses and climbs back above key levels is often showing genuine buying interest stepping in - not just noise.

1. Find it - scan the market for stocks down significantly from yesterday's close.
2. Watch it - track price, volume, and how much of the drop has been recovered.
3. Score it - combine recovery %, volume strength, VWAP position, and RSI into one weighted Reversal Score.
4. Buy it - only when every configured buy condition passes at once (recovery, RSI, volume, score, VWAP, consecutive positive samples).
5. Exit it - stop-loss, trailing stop, profit-lock, or a time-based exit, whichever triggers first.

Getting Started

Logging in

The dashboard is gated behind a single admin token, entered on the Login page. If you don't have the token, ask whoever set up this instance.

First-time setup

1. Log in with the admin token.
2. Go to 📈 Alpaca Setup and enter your Alpaca paper-trading API key/secret (see Connecting Alpaca below). Until you do, the app runs in mock mode with simulated data.
3. Click 📡 Update Watchlist on the dashboard to run a real scan.
4. Review ⚙️ Trading Settings and adjust thresholds to taste - nothing is hardcoded, every parameter is admin-editable.

Dashboard Overview

Key Metrics

Five live tiles: stocks currently on the watchlist, today's buy signals, open positions, total portfolio value, and current unrealized gain/loss across your real Alpaca holdings.

Click any stock symbol

Clicking a symbol row - in the watchlist or in Open Positions - opens a detail view with the reversal chart, a recovery-progress meter, the full buy-condition checklist, an intraday price chart with VWAP/EMA overlays (switchable between 1m/5m/15m/1h), and a 5-minute buy-justification chart.

Action buttons

• 🔄 Refresh Data - reloads whatever is already stored, no new scan.
• 📡 Update Watchlist - triggers a real scan: refreshes existing entries, looks for new candidates, drops recovered stocks, checks buy conditions.
• ⚙️ Trading Settings / 📈 Alpaca Setup - configuration pages, see below.

Managing the Watchlist

The watchlist normally fills itself - the scanner adds real candidates automatically. You can also manage it directly:

• Add a symbol manually - type a ticker in the box above the watchlist table and click ➕ Add. Pulls a live snapshot immediately, works for any real symbol.
• Remove a symbol - click 🗑️ Remove in that row's Action column.

Connecting Alpaca

Go to 📈 Alpaca Setup from the dashboard. You'll need a free Alpaca account and its paper trading API key/secret (found on your Alpaca dashboard, not the live-trading keys).

1. Paste your API Key and Secret.
2. Leave the environment set to Paper Trading (Live Trading isn't supported by this build).
3. Click Test Alpaca API Connection to confirm it works, then Save Credentials.

Credentials are saved to the database, not the browser - they persist across sessions and devices.

Trading Settings

Every parameter the algorithm reads is editable on the ⚙️ Trading Settings page - screening thresholds, buy conditions, reversal-score weights, position sizing, exit rules, and the optional Multi-Stage Entry system (three independent entry profiles: early/capitulation, mid/support-bounce, and safe/VWAP-confirmed). A CUSTOM badge marks any setting you've overridden from its default. Each section has its own Save Section button, or use Save All Settings at the bottom.

Public Watchlist (No Login)

The live demo page - and the "Today's Top 10 Watchlist" section on the home page - show real watchlist data with full chart access, no account needed. It's read-only: no settings, no add/remove, no trading. If the market is closed and there's nothing new to show, these pages automatically fall back to the last available data rather than showing a blank table.

FAQ