TradeMate — User Guide

TradeMate is a Windows application.

Getting the installer. After your purchase, sign in to your MyAlgoMate account and open your subscriptions. Your TradeMate subscription is listed there with a Download button.

1. Download the installer from that page.
2. Run it. Windows asks for administrator permission.
3. Choose the folder, or keep the one suggested.
4. Open TradeMate from the desktop or the Start menu.

Sign in with your MyAlgoMate account. That is the email and password you registered with. These are not your broker details. You log in to your broker in the next step.

Figures shown in screenshots throughout this guide are sample data for illustration, not results.

The sign-in screen has a switch for the mode: PAPER TRADE or LIVE TRADE.

• Paper trade simulates every order inside TradeMate. Nothing reaches your broker.
• Live trade sends real orders to your broker. A red border runs round the whole window.

TradeMate remembers the last mode you chose. To change it, restart TradeMate and pick the other one when you sign in.

Remember me is ticked to begin with. It saves your email and password on this computer, so the next sign-in is quicker. Untick it to save nothing.

Try a new way of working in Paper mode first. It is the safest way to see what each button and rule does.

Everything happens in one window.

• The session bar at the top. It holds the index selector and the live numbers: Spot, Syn Fut, ATM Straddle, Pos Value, VIX and MTM. On the right are MTM, Payoff and Indices, text size, theme, Ticket, the Settings gear and START.
• The option chain in the middle, with the Rules panel beside it. The Rules panel has four tabs, Risk, ATM, Rolling and Price, with the Active Rules list below them.
• The books at the bottom: the Positions and Orders tabs.
• The status bar at the very bottom. It shows the last message, the BROKER and FEED lights, the date and the time. When the feed drops, FEED RECONNECTING blinks.

You can drag the line between the chain and the books to give either more room.

After you sign in, the Add broker account window opens. You log in to your broker each time you start TradeMate.

1. Select your registered account. This list shows the accounts on your TradeMate licence. Each row shows the broker, the client ID and the days left.
2. The Broker and Client ID fill in by themselves. The account you used last time is selected for you.
3. Fill in your credentials. The fields depend on your broker. See What each broker asks for.
4. Press Login.

TradeMate then checks your licence, logs in to the broker, reads your funds, downloads the day's contract list and connects the live feed. Each step shows below the form. When it is done you see Broker login, instruments, and market feed are ready.

• An expired account cannot be picked. Use the renew button on its row.
• After buying or renewing, press Check for New Accounts to refresh the list.
• The edit button on a row changes the broker or client ID on your licence. You can do this once a day.
• Your credentials are saved on this computer each time you press Login. Next time, they fill in by themselves.

Every broker asks for an A/C Name, which is any name you choose, and your Client ID. The rest depends on the broker.

XTS brokers have a few extra settings:

• Enable TOTP — turn it on if your account uses TOTP. It unlocks TOTP Secret and Password.
• Base URL — your broker's API address.
• Binary Market URL — on to begin with.
• Host Lookup — with its URL and version, if your broker uses one.
• User Type — Pro to begin with. If you are not Pro, fill in Dealer Code.

The link under the form, How to get your broker's credentials, opens your broker's own setup guide.

Some brokers only accept orders from a registered IP address. If yours does, use a proxy.

1. Tick Enable Static IP / Proxy.
2. Fill in Host, Port, Username and Password.
3. Press Test & Copy IP. TradeMate checks the proxy and copies the IP address it uses. Register that address with your broker.

The proxy is saved with the account you are logging in to.

Settings ▸ Subscription shows your plan for the account you are logged in with: the client ID, the broker and the dates it is valid. It warns you when seven days or fewer are left.

1. Press Renew Plan.
2. Choose the Duration, and the No. of Accounts if your plan allows more than one.
3. Check the total and press Submit.
4. A checkout window opens. Complete the payment there.

The checkout window closes by itself when the payment goes through. TradeMate then shows Subscription updated.

When your plan is about to end. In the last 7 days of your plan, TradeMate reminds you once each time it starts. Press Renew now to open Renew Plan, or Skip to be reminded next time. Until you renew, a Renew button with the days left sits beside START.

Press the gear in the session bar. Settings also opens by itself after you log in to your broker, on the Instruments page.

• The list on the left has three groups: Trading, App and Housekeeping. Tickets, under App, opens MyAlgoMate support.
• Find a setting searches every page.
• A dot next to a page means it has unsaved changes.
• Save saves every page at once. Save & close saves and closes the window in one press.
• Close or Esc closes the window. If anything is unsaved, TradeMate asks first.

Once the session is running, a banner at the top says which settings are locked.

Choose what you trade today. There is a table for NSE and BSE indices and a table for MCX commodities.

On and Expiry cannot be changed once the session starts. Turn on every instrument you want today before you press START. Strike gap and Max qty / order can be changed at any time.

If an expiry says it is still downloading, wait a few seconds. The list refreshes by itself.

Decide how TradeMate prices its orders. Pick Entry, Exit or Stop loss at the top. Each has one row per instrument.

The copy button on a row gives every instrument that row's settings.

Entry and exit orders are always limit orders. Stop-loss orders are always stop-limit (SL) orders.

Choose what happens when your broker rejects an order. This applies to every instrument.

• Retry rejected orders — place the order again by itself. On to begin with.
• Max retries — how many attempts. 3 to begin with.
• Wait between retries (seconds) — 1 second to begin with.
• Retry only with a reduced quantity — only retry when the quantity has been reduced. Off to begin with.

• Work out ATM from — how the ATM strike is found: Spot / index, Index future or Synthetic future. The session bar and the rules use it. The option chain keeps its ATM until you press ATM ⟳.
• SL, TSL and target step — how much the up and down arrows change a stop loss, trailing or target price in the books. 0.1 to begin with.
• RMS step — the same for the levels on the Risk and ATM tabs. 1 to begin with.

Choose which actions ask "Are you sure?" before they run. All nine ask to begin with.

Ticking Don't show again on one of these questions turns it off here too.

TradeMate sends alerts through a Telegram bot that you create.

1. Create a bot in Telegram with @BotFather and copy its token.
2. Paste it into Bot token.
3. Put your chat ID or @channelname in Channel or chat ID.
4. Tick Send Telegram alerts.
5. To get your MTM regularly, tick Send live MTM every and pick an interval.
6. Press Save.

When you save, TradeMate sends a test message. If it does not arrive, check the token and the chat ID. Live MTM is not sent while the market is closed or when MTM is zero.

Press START at the top right. If you are not logged in to your broker yet, the login window opens first, and START carries on after you log in.

1. TradeMate lists the instruments that are on and asks you to confirm them. Press Continue, or Review indices to go back to Settings.
2. Read the user consent and press I accept.
3. TradeMate checks your broker login, your internet and the contract list. Then it loads the option contracts and waits for the first prices.
4. When it is ready you see Session active.

If you close Settings after picking your instruments, TradeMate offers to start straight away. Press Start now, or Not now to start later.

• If no instrument is on, TradeMate opens Settings for you.
• Once the session runs, instruments cannot be turned on or off and expiries cannot be changed. Restart TradeMate to change them.
• If your broker session expires during the day, log in again from the top bar. The session carries on.

The consent form appears each time you start a session.

Read the agreement and press I accept (or Enter) to start. Disagree (or Esc) closes it and the session does not start.

Pick the mode with the tabs at the left of the chain toolbar. Pick the index from the selector in the session bar.

• Straddle — each row is the call and the put at one strike.
• Strangle — each row is a call strike and a put strike the same distance from ATM. The row shows both strikes.
• Custom — you build the rows. Pick a call strike and a put strike on each row. + adds a row and − removes one. Custom rows are cleared when you change the index.

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The expiry shown next to the index is set in Settings ▸ Instruments. The chain cannot change it.

• ±ATM sets how many strikes show above and below ATM. The default is 10 each side.
• The chain keeps the same ATM row until you press ATM ⟳. This stops rows moving under your mouse as the index moves.
• The ATM row is highlighted. In-the-money cells are shaded.
• In Straddle mode, Spot and Syn Fut lines show where those prices sit between two strikes. Turn them on or off with the Show chips in the toolbar.
• A green or red pill next to a strike shows your open quantity there. Green is long, red is short.

Press the sliders icon in the chain toolbar to choose columns.

• Calls and puts — PNL, Qty, Buy, Sell, Exit, Move ½, Move 1 and Delta. Each tick shows or hides the column on both sides.
• Combined — Qty, Buy, LTP, Sell, Exit, PNL and Net Qty for the pair.

LTP and Strike always show. If you hide everything, press Show all to get the columns back.

1. Set the default quantity in the toolbar Qty. It is saved for each index.
2. Change a row's Qty if you want a different amount for one order.
3. Press B to buy or S to sell a call or a put. Use B or S in the Combined band for both legs.
4. Press EXIT to close your whole position in that contract.

Quantities are in units and must be whole lots. A red Qty box means the number is not a lot multiple or is above your Max qty / order.

The buttons stay grey until the session has started and the chain has prices. They also go grey for a moment while a new index loads.

1. Tick Hedge in the chain toolbar.
2. Set the distance in strikes. The default is 5.

Each Sell button now reads S+B. Pressing it first buys the same option type that many strikes further out, for the same quantity. Then it sells the contract you clicked.

The hedge stays linked to the short. Exiting the short exits the hedge with it. Adding to the short buys more hedge first.

The Move column moves your short positions to the row you click.

• 1 moves all of your other shorts on that side (CE or PE) to this strike.
• 1/2 moves half of each.

Only positions with the same index, product and expiry are moved. Each one is closed and opened again at the new strike.

Click any cell in the chain, then use the arrow keys to move around.

To place orders from the keyboard, tick KeyBoard Order in the chain toolbar and confirm.

The keyboard icon in the toolbar opens the full list of shortcuts.

The Positions tab has three books: Sell positions, Buy positions and Closed positions. Click a book's header to fold or unfold it. Closed positions starts folded.

• The header shows how many positions there are, and the CE, PE and net quantity.
• The MTM chip shows the live MTM of all positions.
• Click the Positions tab again to refresh it.

• Columns — show, hide or reset columns. The pin keeps a risk or action column on the right edge while you scroll.
• Filters — click a column header's filter to pick the values to show. With a filter on, Filter MTM shows the MTM of the rows you can see. Clear filters removes them all.
• Group — group rows by Index, Expiry, Strike or CE/PE. Each group row shows the count and net quantity. Grouping is for display only and resets when you restart.
• Click a column header to sort.

1. Tick the rows you want. Tick none to act on all open positions.
2. Pick a Size: 100%, 75%, 50%, 25%, Custom QTY or Custom %.
3. Press Exit or Add and confirm.

Shares are rounded to whole lots. If a share of a leg is less than one lot, that leg is skipped.

The Quick exit buttons exit a share of your positions straight away: Exit 25%, Exit 50%, Exit 75% and Exit 100%.

To exit at a set time instead:

1. Tick the rows, or none for all positions.
2. Press the clock next to a Quick exit button.
3. Type the time in 24-hour form, for example 15:10:00. It must be later today.
4. Press Set Time. The button now shows the time, for example Exit 50% at 15:10:00.

To remove it, clear the time and press Set Time again.

• A timed exit belongs to today only.
• If TradeMate was closed when the time passed, the exit is dropped.
• Cancel All cancels every open order and clears every timed exit.

Each position row has its own buttons.

The roll buttons show the new strike and its price before you click. A roll button is grey if that strike is not available. A hedge leg cannot be rolled on its own. Roll its short instead.

The Orders tab shows the day's orders at your broker. The number on the tab is the count.

• All, Open and Complete filter the list.
• The pager is at the top and the bottom. Page size sets 5, 10, 25 or 50 rows.
• Drag a column header to move it.
• To cancel orders, tick the open ones and press Cancel.

Turn on SL or TGT in the positions toolbar. The settings bar opens under it.

• Auto arm on — which positions are armed by themselves: Sell positions or Buy positions.
• Stop loss — Auto arm, the distance in Pts or %, the Qty to act on, what happens On hit, and At broker.
• Target — the same, without At broker.

When you change anything, Save and Cancel appear. Save keeps these as your defaults and applies them to every open position. Cancel puts back what was saved. Neither sends anything to your broker.

What On hit means:

Which one to use for which job:

• To limit a loss on a short leg, use Exit with At broker on. The stop order sits with your broker, so it works even if your computer is off.
• To keep a short position but move away from a rising price, use Away.
• To take part of the position off at a target, set Qty to 50% and On hit to Exit.

Auto arm is always off when TradeMate starts. Turn it on again each day if you use it.

In the Trail SL box:

• every X — how far the price must move in your favour before the stop moves.
• move SL Y — how far the stop moves each time.
• Pts or % — the unit for both.
• At broker — each step also changes the stop order at your broker.
• Auto arm — trails new positions by itself. It needs the stop loss Auto arm on too.

Example. A short NIFTY call with a stop loss, trailing every 10 points by 5 points. Each time the premium falls another 10 points, the stop loss moves 5 points lower. If the premium rises, the stop stays where it is.

Each position row has SL, T SL and TGT cells.

• Tick the cell to arm it. Edit the price with the box or its arrows.
• Pick the quantity: Full, 90%, 75%, 50%, 25% or Custom Qty.
• Pick the On hit action for that row.
• Tick T SL and set X and Y to trail that row.

The tick box in a column header arms or disarms every row at once.

A stop loss price must be at least one price step away from the current price. For a short position it must be above the current price. For a long position it must be below it. A price exactly at the current price is not accepted, because it would fire at once.

A stop loss that is armed stays armed after a partial exit or an add on the same side. It is worked out again only after the position is closed and opened again.

The Risk tab is the first tab of the Rules panel. It holds the rules that watch your total MTM, and your margin. They act on all your open positions, across every index.

At the top you see your Total MTM. The eye button hides the figure.

To set a stop loss on your MTM:

1. In the Stop loss card, type the level in When MTM falls to. Use a negative number for a loss, for example -5000.
2. Choose the Action, for example Exit all positions.
3. Choose the Qty, for example Full or 50%.
4. To trail it, tick Trail SL and set every and move SL.
5. Press Add. The card shows ARMED and the rule appears under Active Rules.

The Target card works the same way, with When MTM rises to.

The Action menu:

Qty sets how much of each position the action covers: Full, 75%, 67%, 50%, 33% or 25%.

Which one for which job:

• To stop the day's loss at one number, set a stop loss with Exit all positions and Full.
• To lighten up when MTM reaches a level, set a target with Exit all positions and 50%.
• To cut only the positions that are going wrong, use Exit loss-making positions.

Trailing example. Stop loss at -5000, every 1000, move SL 500. When MTM rises by 1000, the stop loss moves up by 500, to -4500. It never moves back down.

Changing or removing a rule. Change the level, action or quantity and press Update. The bin removes the rule. On a card that is not armed, the bin just clears it.

• Stop loss and target are a pair. When one fires, both are removed.
• If MTM has already reached your level, TradeMate asks before it acts.
• These rules work only after you press START. They are cleared when TradeMate restarts.

Margin at the bottom of the tab shows your Total, Used and Available margin, from your broker.

The ATM tab comes after Risk. Its heading reads ATM Straddle. It holds the rules that watch the ATM straddle premium: the call and the put at the ATM strike added together. The top of the tab shows the live premium and the strike.

To set a stop loss on the premium:

1. In the Stop loss card, type the level in When premium rises to.
2. Choose the Action: Exit all positions or Add to all positions.
3. Choose the Qty.
4. To trail it, tick Trail SL and set every and move SL.
5. Press Add.

The Target card works the same way, with When premium falls to.

Why the stop loss is above the premium. A short straddle loses when the premium rises. So the stop loss sits above today's premium, and the target sits below it.

Example. The NIFTY ATM straddle is at 212. A stop loss at 250 exits your positions if the premium climbs to 250. A target at 170 exits them if it falls to 170.

• When the stop loss or the target fires, both are removed.
• The rule acts on all open positions, across every index.
• How the ATM strike is found is set in Settings ▸ Trading behaviour.

Open the Rolling tab in the Rules panel.

The tab starts with one line on what a rolling rule does. Each card ends with a sentence that says what this rule will do, so you can check it before you press Add.

1. Pick the Type: Straddle, Strangle or All.
2. Pick what it watches. For Straddle, the Strike. For Strangle, the CE strike, and the PE strike if you want. For All, the Index, the Leg and the Side.
3. Choose the band with the swap button next to Band: Pts or Manual.
4. Set Upper and Lower.
5. Choose From: Spot or Synthetic.
6. For All, set Move (strikes), the number of strikes each leg moves. In Manual mode, set Next band too.
7. Press Add.

How the bands work:

• Pts — the bands are points above and below the price when you added the rule.
• Manual — the bands are the prices you type.

When a band is crossed:

• Straddle and Strangle roll both legs one strike. An upper cross moves the call away and the put closer. A lower cross does the opposite.
• All moves every matching leg by Move (strikes). Away on an upper cross, closer on a lower one.

After each roll the rule sets itself again around the new price. It removes itself when its legs are closed. It does not act while the market is closed.

Example. A NIFTY straddle at 25000, with Pts, Upper 50 and Lower 50. If NIFTY rises 50 points, both legs shift up one strike: the call and the put move from 25000 to 25050. The rule then watches 50 points either side of the new price.

Open the Price tab in the Rules panel. Each index can have one rule of each type.

Price Check CE or Price Check PE watches a short call or put.

Price Difference watches a short call and a short put together.

Under the fields, each card says in one sentence what the rule will do.

The Live readout shows the reference, the level and the current gap.

Adjustments shows how many moves have been made and the maximum. At the maximum the rule stops and shows Max Adj Done. You can raise or lower the maximum during the day. The count starts again from zero when you restart TradeMate. If a move fails, the rule is removed. Other problems pause it for 30 seconds.

The Active Rules list sits below the tabs and is the same whichever tab is open. It shows everything that is armed: MTM and ATM rules, rolling rules, price rules and timed exits. Each one is written in plain words. There is room for five rules. More scroll inside the list.

• Filter it by index, or show ALL.
• Remove one rule with its bin icon.
• Delete All Rules removes every rule in the list you are viewing.

Rules are for the current session. They are all cleared when you restart TradeMate.

Pos Value and CE – PE show once you have positions. MTM shows once the session is running.

Press Indices in the session bar. The Index Summary opens in its own window that stays on top of other windows.

It has one row for each index you trade and a TOTAL row. Use Columns to choose what shows: LTP, Change, Fut, Syn Fut, ATM, MIS MTM, NRML MTM, MTM, MTM High, MTM Low, Decay, Delta and Net Qty.

Press MTM in the session bar. The MTM History opens in its own window.

• Pick the interval, from 1s to 1h, and TOTAL or one index.
• The top shows the current MTM, the high and the low, and the time of each.
• + Indicator adds an SMA, EMA, WMA or Bollinger line. You can add up to six. Set the period from 2 to 500. The default is 20.
• Fit fits the whole day in the window.
• Copy the data, or download it as CSV.

Press Payoff in the session bar and pick the underlying.

• The chart has two lines. One is the payoff at expiry, green above zero and red below. The other shows today. It also marks the spot, the break-even points, and bands one and two standard deviations from spot. Scroll to zoom. Drag to move.
• The summary shows the highest and lowest payoff at expiry, the break-even levels, the chance of profit, the net credit or debit, the live P&L, and Delta, Theta and Vega.
• What if moves the date towards expiry and shifts implied volatility up to 20% either way. Reset puts both back.
• The legs table lists each position. Turn a leg off to leave it out of the graph.

The graph refreshes every 2 seconds.

Every figure on the payoff graph, including Chance of profit, is a calculation from today's prices and implied volatility. It is not a forecast of what will happen.

• Messages appear at the corner of the screen and close by themselves. Errors stay longer. The same message repeated shows a count, for example ×3.
• Order rejections from your broker appear as messages too.
• The status bar keeps the last message. Its BROKER and FEED lights show the connection. FEED also shows how fresh the prices are.

• The sun and moon button in the session bar switches between Dark and Light.
• A− and A+ change the text size from 80% to 200%. You can also use Ctrl + and Ctrl −. Click the percentage to go back to automatic, which follows your screen size.

Settings ▸ Data & reset keeps TradeMate tidy.

• Delete old log files after N days — on to begin with, at 10 days.

Each action asks you to confirm first.

TradeMate checks for a new version when you sign in.

• Update Now downloads the new version, installs it and restarts TradeMate.
• Skip carries on with the version you have.

Some updates are required. Then there is no Skip button.

TradeMate closes itself at 23:59 each night. Start it again the next day and log in to your broker, which you do every day anyway.

Still stuck? Raise a ticket. Press Ticket in the top bar, or open Settings ▸ Tickets and press Raise ticket. MyAlgoMate opens in its own window, with TradeMate already chosen as the product. There you can create a ticket or follow up on one you raised before. You can attach your session or day logs from TradeMate, so the support team can see what happened.