Help and glossary

Every ? in the app links here. Nothing on this site is financial advice.

Portfolio value: Cash plus the current value of everything you hold. Your cash balance plus all open positions valued at their latest price. In paper mode this is play money, so nothing here is real.
Cash: Money not currently invested. Uninvested money available for new purchases. The cash allocation target on the Guidance page is how much of the portfolio you would like to keep in cash.
Total return: Gain or loss since the account started. Current portfolio value minus the starting balance, also shown as a percentage. It includes both gains you have locked in by selling and gains or losses still on paper.
Today's change: Gain or loss since the start of today. Compares the current portfolio value with its value at the first cycle of the day. The daily loss limit is measured against this number.
Unrealized P&L: Profit or loss on positions you still hold. Profit and loss is 'P&L'. Unrealized means you have not sold yet, so the number moves with the market until you do.
Realized P&L: Profit or loss from positions already sold. The total gain or loss from completed sales. Unlike unrealized P&L, it does not change with the market anymore.
Positions: What you currently hold. One row per symbol you own, with how many shares, what you paid on average, and what it is worth now.
Average cost: The average price you paid per share. If you bought at different prices, this is the weighted average. Gains are measured against it.
Last price: The most recent price the engine saw. Updated each time the engine runs a cycle, not tick by tick. It can be several minutes old.
Trade history: Every order the engine placed or declined. Includes filled orders and orders that were rejected by a safety rule, with the reason. Use the CSV link to download everything.
Filled vs rejected: Filled = executed. Rejected = blocked by a safety rule. A rejected order did not happen. The reason column says which rule stopped it, such as a position size cap, the daily loss limit, or not enough cash.
Portfolio progress: Portfolio value over time. One point per engine cycle. Hover a point for the exact value and time. A flat line usually means the engine is paused or the market is closed.
Engine status: Shows when the trading engine last ran for this account. The engine is a background service that checks the market every few minutes during US trading hours. If the time here is old and the market is open, the service may be stopped.
Mode: Paper = simulated, Paused = hold, Live = real money. Paper trades with pretend money so you can see how the strategy behaves. Paused stops the engine from doing anything so your positions are simply held. Live would place real orders and is not available yet.
Paper mode: Simulated trading with pretend money. Orders are filled instantly at the latest price and no real money moves. Real markets have delays and price slippage, so real results would be somewhat worse.
Paused: The engine does nothing. Positions are held. No buying, no selling, no stop-losses. Use it when you want to freeze everything without losing your positions.
Live mode: Real orders with real money. Not available yet. This will be enabled for the account owner only, after the Robinhood connection is built and tested. Everyone else stays paper-only.
Kill switch: Emergency stop: blocks every order, including sells. Stronger than Paused. Use it if something looks wrong. While it is on, nothing is bought or sold, even by safety exits such as the stop-loss.
Reset paper account: Wipes trades and positions and restores the starting cash. Starts the simulation over from scratch. Your settings, theme and login are kept. This cannot be undone.
Run a cycle now: Runs one trading cycle immediately instead of waiting. Useful for testing. It looks at the market once and places any orders the rules call for. It can take up to a minute because it downloads fresh prices.
Risk level: How big and how fast the engine is allowed to trade. A bundle of limits: how much goes in one position, how many positions, how much it may lose in a day, how many orders per day, and when to cut a losing position. You can change it at any time.
Conservative: Small positions, tight limits, picky about what it buys. Up to 5% in one position, 10 positions, stops trading after a 1% daily loss, sells a position down 5%. Needs a stronger trend and a stronger company before it buys.
Moderate: Balanced limits. Up to 10% in one position, 8 positions, stops trading after a 3% daily loss, sells a position down 8%.
Aggressive: Big positions and loose limits. Higher risk of large losses. Up to 20% in one position, 6 positions, stops trading after a 6% daily loss, sells a position down 12%. Accepts weaker trends and riskier companies. Wins can be larger, and so can losses.
Max position size: Most of the portfolio allowed in a single stock. Prevents putting too much in one company. An order that would push a symbol above this percentage is rejected.
Max positions: Most different symbols held at once. Limits how spread out the portfolio can be. New symbols are not bought once this many are held.
Daily loss limit: Stops new buying after losing this much in a day. If the portfolio falls this percentage below where it started the day, the engine stops buying until tomorrow. It is a circuit breaker against a bad day getting worse.
Daily order cap: Most orders allowed per day. A guard against runaway trading, for example from a bug or odd market data.
Stop-loss: Sells a position that has fallen this far below what you paid. Limits how much a single bad pick can cost. In fast markets the real exit price can be worse than the stop level.
Allocation targets: How much of the portfolio each type of investment may hold. Percentages by asset type. They must add up to 100%. An order that would push a type above its target is rejected, so 0% means 'never buy this type'.
Stocks: Shares of individual companies. Ownership in a single company. More potential upside, more risk than a fund.
ETFs: Funds that hold a basket of investments. An exchange-traded fund bundles many stocks or bonds into one purchase, which spreads risk.
Options: Contracts that can multiply gains and losses. Off by default. Options are high risk and can lose their entire value quickly. The engine does not trade them yet. The setting is here so the plan is visible.
Crypto: Cryptocurrencies. Off by default. Very volatile. The engine does not trade crypto yet. It will arrive with the official Robinhood crypto connection.
Cash target: How much to keep uninvested. Cash cushions bad days and funds new buys. The engine never lets stocks and ETFs use the cash target's share.
Strategy: The rules the engine follows to decide what to buy and sell. It buys stocks that are trending up and belong to financially healthy companies, and sells when the trend breaks, the company's numbers go bad, or the position loses too much. It follows fixed rules and does not guess or use AI to place orders. No strategy wins every day.
Momentum: How much the price has risen over the last 60 trading days. The idea is that things going up tend to keep going up for a while. The risk level sets the minimum rise required before a buy is considered.
50-day average: The average closing price over the last 50 trading days. Used as a trend check. A price above it suggests an uptrend. A price that falls below it is one reason the engine sells.
Company health checks: Basic financial checks on a company before buying. Looks at company size, price relative to earnings, debt, and whether it makes a profit. If the data source has no figure for something, that check is skipped. ETFs skip these checks.
P/E ratio: Share price divided by yearly earnings per share. A rough measure of how expensive a stock is. A very high P/E means investors expect a lot of growth, which is riskier. The risk level sets the highest P/E allowed.
Debt-to-equity: How much a company owes compared with what it is worth. Higher means more borrowing, which is riskier in bad times. The risk level sets the highest value allowed.
Market cap: The total value of all of a company's shares. A rough measure of company size. Larger companies tend to be steadier. The risk level sets the minimum size.
Watchlist: The list of symbols the engine looks at. The engine only considers these. Custom watchlists are planned for a later version.
Two-factor login: A 6-digit code from an authenticator app, in addition to your password. Even if someone learns your password, they cannot sign in without the code from your phone. Apps such as Google Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator, Authy or 1Password work. Scan the QR code once to set it up.
Invite code: A code from the site owner, if signup requires one. The owner may restrict signups. Ask them for the code.
Appearance: Light, dark, or match your device. 'System' follows your phone or computer setting and switches automatically.
Color theme: Pick the accent colors used across the app. Purely visual. Combine any color theme with light or dark appearance.
Starting amount: How much pretend money the paper account begins with. Choose any amount from $1,000 to $1,000,000. Returns are measured against it, so a smaller or larger amount does not make the strategy better or worse, it only changes the dollar figures. Resetting the account lets you pick a new amount.
Personal invitation link: A one-time link tied to the invited email address. The owner sends the link to one address. It works once, expires after a few days, and the account it creates is always for that address. If it is forwarded, it still cannot create an account for a different address, and after it has been used it stops working for everyone.
Password reset link: We email a one-time link to choose a new password. The link works once and expires within the hour. Resetting a password does not bypass two-factor: you still need your authenticator code to sign in. Other signed-in devices are signed out.
Digest emails: A summary of your account by email: daily, weekly or never. Daily goes out on weekday afternoons after the market closes, weekly on Fridays. It shows your portfolio value, the change, the trades made, and your top positions. Choose Off to stop them.
Change password: Needs your current password and an authenticator code. After changing it, every other device you were signed in on is signed out.
Delete my account: Permanently erases your login and all your data. Your paper account, trades and history are removed and cannot be recovered. You must enter your password and an authenticator code and type DELETE. The owner account cannot be deleted this way.
Invite someone: Email a personal sign-up link to a person. Enter their email address. They receive a one-time link that expires, and they choose their own password and set up two-factor. Sending a new invitation to the same address cancels the old link.
Account status: Active, setting up (no two-factor yet) or disabled. Setting up means the person created a password but has not finished adding their authenticator app. Disabled accounts cannot sign in; their data is kept until you delete it.
Disable or delete: Disable pauses access; delete erases everything. Disabling signs the person out immediately and blocks sign-in, and you can enable them again later. Deleting removes their login, paper account, trades and history for good. Reset 2FA is for a lost phone, and Send reset link emails them a password-reset link.
Delete a user: Type their email to confirm; this cannot be undone. Removes the user and all of their data. The activity log keeps a record that you did it.
Backup and moving servers: Download everything except the master key. The file holds all users (password hashes, encrypted two-factor secrets), accounts and trades. Encrypt it with a passphrase if it will be stored anywhere shared. The master key is deliberately left out: copy it separately from the server's configuration file, or users will need to set up two-factor again.
Fractional shares: Buy part of a share, by dollar amount, instead of whole shares only. With this on, the engine can spend its planned amount (down to $1) on any stock, so a small account is not shut out of stocks that cost more than one position's budget. Robinhood supports fractional shares for stocks and ETFs. Turn it off to see how the strategy behaves with whole shares only.
Custom: Your own limits, set in the Custom level card. Uses the values you enter in the Custom level card instead of a built-in preset. Choose it and save to switch.
Custom level: Create your own set of risk limits and entry rules. Starts as a copy of Moderate. You can change the position size, number of positions, daily loss limit, order cap, stop-loss and the entry filters. Each value has a safe minimum and maximum. Select Custom in the Risk level list and press Save for it to take effect; the other levels are left untouched.
Share of the position cap used: How much of the max position size each buy actually uses. If the max position is 10% and this is 75%, each new purchase targets about 7.5% of the portfolio. Lower values spread money across more, smaller positions.
Robinhood link: A read-only connection to your real Robinhood account. You enter your Robinhood login on the server's terminal (never on this website). Coin stores it encrypted and uses it only to look at your balances and holdings. It cannot place, change or cancel orders. Robinhood has no official stock API, so this uses an unofficial library that Robinhood's terms do not permit; they could limit or close the account, so use it at your own risk.
Read-only: Coin cannot buy or sell at Robinhood. This version only reads. Live trading stays switched off until a later release adds it behind extra safeguards.
Sync now: Reads your account from Robinhood and saves a snapshot. Limited to once a minute. If Robinhood asks for a code or an approval, run the setup command on the server again; after a failed sign-in Coin waits 6 hours before trying again so your account is not locked.
Preview: Shows what Coin would do with your real account, without doing it. Uses your Guidance settings (risk level, allocations, fractional shares) and today's market data on your saved snapshot. Each idea is also run through the same risk checks live trading will use. Nothing is sent to Robinhood.
Disconnect: Deletes the stored login and cached session. Asks for your password and a fresh authenticator code. You can link again later from the server terminal.
Recent activity: A record of owner actions and self-service deletions. Shows who invited, disabled, deleted or reset whom, and when backups were downloaded.