Establishing an exit strategy to realize gains and minimize losses are critical foundations of successful traders. Trade Armor, part of the next generation suite of ATP tools, makes initiating and managing your personal exit strategy simple. By combining common functionalities of trading into one easy to use tool, position management is right at your fingertips. Price targets are easily set using various types of stops and limits or place an alert to inform you when a particular price movement has occurred. Your potential Gain/Loss is prominently displayed as you enter your orders and on your position page. Quickly scan through your owned positions and determine which ones have exits and which ones need attention. The Trade Armor tool is accessible from the main navigation bar on ATP, in the right click menu on various tools, and via a link on a trade confirmation screen, allowing quick access to setup an exit strategy.
Trade Armor's chart displays open orders, alerts, and average position cost in context to the historical prices of the security. A dropdown menu offers a toggle for multiple chart timeframes from intraday to 5 years of data. In addition, support and resistance data points provided by Recognia, long, medium, and short-term timeframes, are configurable to display on the chart. 52 week high and low points display on the chart for further provide price context. Any open orders on a security will show at the order's limit/stop point on the price slider for the selected symbol. If any orders or alerts are out of the current range displayed an indicator will appear displaying off screen items. Closely priced orders will group together, hover over either of these indicators for quick management of the order, or simply change the timeframe of the chart to see a larger range.
Current news headlines are available for the selected symbol on the news tab. Hover on a headline for a snapshot of the story or click the headline for the full article. Scroll down through the headlines to load additional news items.
Set exit strategies or entry points using Trade Armor's visual trade ticket. Easily drag and drop stop orders to support levels or limit orders to resistance points. Potential Gain/Loss will display on the trade ticket for closing equity and ETF orders, allowing you to easily define the price or percentage points to target. There are multiple ways to access the trade ticket in Trade Armor. Clicking the trade button on the top bar will load a blank trade ticket from which you can trade equities, ETFs, single-leg options and select multi-leg options (buy write, collar and roll). Simply drag the trade flag to the desired limit price for equity/ETF orders or strike price for options and enter the trade details for quick access to the market. Use the tick arrow increments on the order flag to refine orders limit prices or strikes. A second access point is to hover on the price slider and select add trade, the trade ticket will prefill with the corresponding price on the slider. Third, by clicking on the bid/ask of the quote the trade ticket prefilled with the action and price. An additional trade access point is completed by right clicking within the tool. Once an order is placed, cancelling and replacing is as effortless as clicking the order flag on the slider and dragging to the new desired price for equity/ETF orders, you can also edit other trade details such as quantity or TIF. To cancel an order, hover over the order flag and click the red 'X.' Skip preview and skip confirmation can be applied in the trade section of settings.
Trade Armor allows simple entry and editing of price trigger alerts all in one place. Create a price alert from the alert button located under the account selector, hovering over the price slider and selecting 'Set Alert' or by right clicking within the tool. Price rises above and price falls below alerts can be set simultaneously by entering values in labeled fields. The same drag and drop functionality of the trade ticket exists with the alert flags, drag to the desired price point and submit. Once an alert is entered change the price of the alert by clicking on the flag and dragging to the new price point. Please note only one side of the price alerts can be edited at one time. Once an alert is triggered it will disappear from the price slider and will be sent to the destination(s) chosen within ATP. Delivery options can be managed by clicking the link on the alert entry screen. Alerts can be deleted by hovering on the flag and clicking the red 'X.'
On the positions tab, Trade Armor will display critical information on any open positions for the selected symbol and account. Gain/Loss data will show for the current day as well as the life of the position. Option positions will display as a strategy or single legs if unpaired. Select 'Strategy Detail' to display the position information for each individual option or stock leg. Open positions will also display on the price axis. Equity/ETF positions show a $ sign at your average purchase price and options with a C (call) or P (put) at the strike price. Open orders appear on the price axis as orange flags for option orders and blue flags for open equity/ETF orders.
Also displayed, when applicable, is any year-to-date realized gain or loss for the security. When trading both options and the underlying security, the YTD closed position information will be broken out by equity/ETF and option.
If there are open equity/ETF orders to close a position, your potential G/L on these equity/ETF trades will display. If no closing trades exist, quick links provide a shortcut to set a limit, set a stop, or put a bracket order on the equity/ETF position.
Use the Research tab within the Trade Armor tool to view the Equity Summary Score, Earnings and Dividends for equities and Basic Facts, Top 5 Holdings and Distributions for ETFs. Use the StarMine link to learn more about the Equity Summary Score methodology and use the View Details links to see additional information, including historical data.
The options tab incorporates option trading, positions and strategies into the Trade Armor tool. To begin, select a strike and all the available expirations for that strike will populate within the options view. Use the weekly toggle (w) to show or hide the display of weekly options. Click to expand each option contract to view additional details including probabilities, Delta, and implied volatility. Click the bid or ask to quickly populate a trade ticket. Key upcoming events to be aware of, including earnings and dividend dates will display between the appropriate expirations.
Available option orders include: buy/sell calls or puts, buy-write, covered calls, protective puts, collar, and roll. The order types will display dynamically based on the account's holdings and option level.
Open option orders appear as orange flags and will display at the respective strike price on the price axis within Trade Armor. Click on the order flag to edit or cancel. If you already know the contract you want to trade, click the trade button from the top navigation in the Trade Armor tool for quick market access.
QUICK TIP: Click the bid or ask from the positions tab to quickly close an open option position.
A Trade Armor indicator can now be added to your positions in order to easily identify which positions have open orders on them. Use settings or right click to add or remove the Trade Armor column to your views. The column will display a Trade Armor shield icon that will appear solid blue if you have any open orders on the security or hollow with a + sign if there are none. Click the icon to launch Trade Armor and set your exit strategy or manage your orders.
