trading-bot/GEMINI.md

Trading212 Python Scalping Bot - "Touch & Turn" (Opening Range Reversal)

This project implements the "Touch & Turn" scalping strategy for the Trading212 API, optimized for the UK ISA environment.

Strategy Logic (The Workflow)

1. Identify Opening Candle: Capture the 15m candle (09:30 to 09:45 EST).
2. Filter for Liquidity: Opening range must be >= 25% of 14-day ATR.
3. Determine Direction:
   • Bearish (Close < Open): Prepare LONG (Buy at Low).
   • Bullish (Close > Open): Prepare SHORT (Substitute with 3x Inverse ETP BUY in ISA).
4. Execution (09:45 EST):
   • Entry via Market Order for immediate fill.
   • Actual Fill Price fetched from portfolio is used for all bracket calculations.
5. Hybrid Exit Strategy:
   • Broker-Side: Physical Stop Loss order placed immediately for protection.
   • Bot-Side: Take Profit monitored manually by polling current market price.
   • This bypasses ISA restrictions against multiple pending sell orders for the same shares.
6. Automatic Exit (11:00 EST): Force close via Market Order and cleanup pending SL.

Risk & Capital Management

• Virtual Balance Simulation: In demo mode, subtracts £4,750 from total equity to simulate a realistic £250 starting point.
• 1% Risk Rule: Risks exactly 1% of the Virtual Balance per trade.
• Capital Partitioning: Divides total available capital (£250) and risk budget equally among all active ticker threads for the day (max 3).
• Precision & Minimums: Automatically detects "precision-mismatch" or "min-quantity-exceeded" errors from T212 and retries with corrected values.

Technical Architecture

• main.py: Daily orchestrator. Scan -> Backtest -> Select Top 3 -> Spawn Parallel Threads. Handles early API verification and unbuffered logging.
• src/api/client.py: REST wrapper with Basic Auth.
• src/strategy/touch_turn.py: Setup logic, Fibonacci calculation, and timezone conversion (UTC -> Eastern).
• src/execution/manager.py: Handles ticker swapping (Inverse ETPs), market entries, hybrid brackets, and retry loops with jitter.
• src/strategy/inverse_mapping.py: Map of US stocks to 3x Short Inverse ETPs (GraniteShares/Leverage Shares).

Resilience Features

• API Backoff: Random jitter (1-10s) and exponential retry on 429 errors.
• Order Tracking: Uses portfolio checks to infer status if order IDs disappear (404).
• Unbuffered Logging: Force-flushes logs to logs/bot_*.log immediately for real-time monitoring.

Operation

1. Timer: Service managed by systemd timer firing at 09:30 America/New_York.
2. Tracking: P&L recorded in pnl_tracking.csv (R-multiple based).
3. Verification: Always run ./venv/bin/python3 test_api_connection.py before live days.