ACondor Update: Honest Accounting and Portfolio-Level Risk

Most of what makes an automated trading system trustworthy is not in the entry logic. It is in whether the numbers on the screen are the numbers in the account, and whether the risk controls see the whole book rather than one trade at a time. This update is four changes in exactly those two areas.

Performance, Net of What It Cost

A premium-selling strategy earns in many small increments. That is the design: high probability, modest credit, many occurrences. It also means friction compounds in a way it does not for a strategy that takes a handful of large positions a year. A four-legged iron condor pays commissions and regulatory fees to open and again to close, and across dozens of trades that is a real line on the ledger.

ACondor records the broker’s own fee calculation on every order at submission, from the same validation the broker runs before accepting the trade. Not an estimate, and not a per-leg rule of thumb. Performance is now reported gross and net side by side, so a strategy is never judged on money it did not keep.

The honesty extends to coverage. Where a trade pre-dates fee capture, the dashboard says so instead of counting those fees as zero and quietly flattering the total. A partially covered net figure is labelled as the optimistic end of a range, because that is what it is.

A Buying Power Ceiling That Sees Your Whole Account

ACondor has always capped how much capital it will deploy. That limit answers “how much has the bot committed,” which is the right question only if the bot is the only thing trading the account.

Many people run a bot alongside their own positions. So there is now a second, account-wide ceiling measured against the broker’s own remaining buying power. It counts everything, including trades you placed yourself. Before each entry the platform confirms the trade would still leave a configured share of net liquidation value free, and declines it if not, recording the reason.

The two limits do different jobs. The allocation cap governs the bot’s own footprint. The buying power ceiling governs the account’s total exposure, and it is the one that stops an automated system from quietly crowding out the room you were keeping for yourself.

Keeping the Book From Leaning

Position sizing is a per-trade control. A book can be perfectly sized trade by trade and still be dangerously one-sided in aggregate, because the individual sizing rules never look at the collection. That is the scenario where a single market move tests everything at once, and it is a well-known way for a premium book to come apart.

ACondor now measures the whole account’s directional exposure, weighted by how each underlying actually moves relative to the broader market, and expresses it as dollars of profit or loss per one-point move in the S&P. While that figure sits inside its configured band, any qualifying trade is allowed. Once it passes the band, only trades that bring the book back toward balanced are opened.

Two things about how this is built are deliberate:

• It steers rather than stopping. Outside the band the platform keeps trading; it just becomes selective about direction. A bullish book can still open bearish structures, which is how it returns to neutral.
• It never touches an open position. This is an entry-side control only. It cannot close, reduce, or roll anything you already hold. Portfolio stress alerts and declines new risk; it does not liquidate.

The band’s default is set for real account sizes rather than copied from a textbook. A very tight delta-neutral band is unreachable on a small account, where a single one-lot position can exceed it, and a limit that can never be satisfied is not a risk control.

A Ledger That Reconciles Itself

If you close one of the bot’s positions yourself in the tastytrade app, ACondor used to notice the position was gone and stop there, flagging it for a human to sort out. It knew the legs had disappeared but not what they sold for, and inventing a number to fill the gap is worse than leaving the gap.

It now reads your account’s transaction history, which is the broker’s own record of what executed, including trades the bot did not place. It matches the exact contracts the position held, books the real fill prices and the real commissions and fees, and sends you a notification saying what it recorded and why.

The restraint matters as much as the capability. If the history cannot fully account for every leg, whether the position was only partly closed or a price is missing, it books nothing and asks. Nothing is estimated. A plausible number in a ledger is worse than an obvious hole, because you stop checking it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does the buying power ceiling count trades I placed myself?

Yes, that is the point of it. It is measured against the broker’s remaining buying power for the account, which already reflects everything you hold. The separate allocation cap covers only what ACondor itself has deployed.

Will the delta band stop the bot from trading?

No. Outside the band it stays active and becomes directional about what it opens, allowing trades that move the book back toward balanced. It is an entry-side control and never closes or shrinks a position you already hold.

What happens if I close a bot position myself?

The platform detects it on the next pass, reconstructs the close from your account’s transaction history with the actual fills and fees, records the result, and notifies you. If the history does not fully explain the position it stops and flags it for you instead of guessing.

Are these settings adjustable?

Yes. The buying power ceiling and the delta band are both adjustable globally or per account from the dashboard, and each is documented in the settings reference.

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