PatternX frequently asked questions

The core loop is the same on every plan. PatternX scans the markets you track, runs 20 rule-based detectors, filters out weak or illiquid setups, rates the rest with the 13-factor PatternX Score and turns those above your minimum confidence into signals with an entry, a stop-loss and a take-profit. You approve each signal yourself, or let a connection execute automatically, in paper or live mode.

PatternX is software, not a broker: your money stays at the venue you connect. Plans start with a free tier; see pricing and Classic vs AI.

• Pattern traders who want the same rules applied to every market and timeframe they track.
• Learners who want to study each pattern in the pattern library and watch signals play out in paper mode, where no real order is sent.
• Systematic traders who backtest their settings and automate execution with risk controls in front of every order.

PatternX is not for anyone looking for investment advice, a managed account or price predictions, and you must be at least 18 to use it.

• Crypto: 40 exchanges, including Binance, Bybit, OKX, Bitget, Hyperliquid and Kraken Futures. PatternX is built for perpetual futures; 8 venues are spot-only and serve data, paper and manual trading. See crypto markets.
• Automated brokers: Interactive Brokers, Alpaca, OANDA, Saxo, Tradier and IG, which PatternX can trade through by API.
• Manual brokers: eToro, Plus500, Webull, Robinhood, TradeStation, Charles Schwab and CMC Markets. PatternX produces the signal and you place the trade yourself.

Stocks, ETFs and FX are read through your own broker connection, from a curated list of 309 instruments; see stocks, ETFs and FX. Setup steps for each venue are in the connection guide.

Every detector runs on every scan of each market and timeframe you track, from 1-minute to daily bars, and each returns at most one match. PatternX Classic and PatternX AI use exactly the same 20 detectors; AI mode only evaluates what they find.

Each pattern has its own page with the precise rules PatternX applies, for example the cup and handle or the double bottom. The full set is in the pattern library, and the shared rules are in pattern detection.

• PatternX refuses to switch a connection to live trading when it detects that the API key has withdrawal permission.
• API keys are encrypted with AES-256-GCM before storage and are never shown again after you save them.
• On manual-execution brokers PatternX only sends signals; you place every order yourself.

More on how PatternX protects accounts and data is on the trust page.

You decide which markets to track, which settings to use and whether anything trades automatically, and you are responsible for the results. The language models that write PatternX's explanations and reports are instructed not to give buy or sell advice.

Read the risk disclaimer and the terms of service before you enable live trading.

• Manual: approve or reject each signal in the app, or with the buttons in Telegram alerts.
• Auto: signals that pass your filters execute straight away on that connection.
• Live: needs the platform's live switch, a connection that passed its test and a key without withdrawal permission. After a live fill PatternX places a stop at the venue; if the venue refuses it, PatternX closes the position at market and alerts you.

How each step works: automation and the risk engine.

From detection to order, Classic works in fixed steps:

• Detect: 20 detectors read the latest 200 bars of each market and timeframe you track.
• Filter: breakout volume, volatility, liquidity, spread and order-book checks remove weak or thin setups.
• Score: the PatternX Score, from 0 to 100, becomes the signal's confidence, and setups below your minimum are dropped.
• Act: your enabled patterns, targets and risk settings apply, the risk engine checks the order, and the signal waits for approval or executes automatically.

The full picture: PatternX Classic.

If you ask for a plain-English explanation of a signal or read a performance report, a large language model may write that text after the fact. It cannot change the signal, its score or any order.

PatternX AI is a separate, optional layer on Pro and Elite that you switch on yourself; see Classic vs AI.

• Data: the latest 200 bars per market and timeframe (at least 60 are needed), on timeframes from 1 minute to 1 day.
• Swing points: a bar counts as a swing high or low when it is the extreme of the bars on either side, so pivots are confirmed a few bars late.
• Windows: each detector looks back a fixed number of bars, at most 110, so very large formations are not seen.
• Filters: volatility (ATR), liquidity, a spread of at most 0.25%, order-book balance and, on crypto, at least $3M of 24-hour volume.
• Targets: by default PatternX uses whichever is nearer of the pattern's own level and your stop-loss or take-profit setting, and drops any setup whose reward:risk is below 1.

Every rule is documented in pattern detection.

• Bands: Elite is 80 and above, High 65 and above, Medium 50 and above and Weak below 50. The engine never produces a signal below 50.
• Geometry is only part of it: pattern quality and a fixed reliability prior per pattern carry 24% of the weight; the rest is market context.
• Not a win probability: the reliability priors are fixed values, not measured statistics, and the probability figure shown on a signal is a heuristic derived from confidence.

The full weighting is in how the PatternX Score works.

Acting on a forming bar means entering earlier, and it also means some breakouts fail before the bar is complete. The breakout-volume filter, the PatternX Score and your minimum confidence weed out weak signals but cannot rule false breakouts out. Signals you do not act on expire after 15 minutes.

How to recognize the failure mode: false breakouts.

The 8 factors, each scored from 0 to 100, with their weights:

• Trend strength (1.5) and market structure (1.3)
• Confluence (1.5): how many of trend, structure, volume and momentum agree
• Volume quality (1.2) and momentum (1.0)
• Historical similarity (1.2): PatternX's live win rate on that market, or a fixed per-pattern prior
• Volatility regime (0.8) and sentiment (0.6), which reads perpetual-futures funding only

AI mode is an account-wide Trading Mode setting. Pro allows up to 5 trades a day while AI mode is on, and Elite has no cap. Details: the AI context layer.

Language models play no part in signals either. PatternX uses them only to write text, such as signal explanations, reports, lessons and support answers, and they are instructed not to give buy or sell advice.

If the AI evaluation fails for any reason, the setup is handled exactly as in PatternX Classic. See Classic vs AI.

The re-weighting is simple arithmetic: half the gap between the context score and 62, limited to 12 points either way. For example, a context score of 80 adds 9 points and a score of 50 removes 6. The result is capped at 97 and never set below your minimum confidence, so in AI mode a setup that passes the context check always meets your minimum, even when its deterministic score was below it.

The rationale names the strongest factors, the confidence change and any concerns. PatternX AI does not use news, social media, the order book or any learned model, and it does not predict outcomes. More in the AI context layer.

• The same in both: detection, market filters, targets, position sizing, the risk engine and execution.
• Different in AI mode: some setups are vetoed, confidence can move up or down, and a setup the AI keeps is never shown below your minimum confidence, so AI mode can also surface setups that Classic would leave below your minimum.
• Explained in both: Classic shows the PatternX Score breakdown on each signal; AI mode adds a written rationale.

On Pro and Elite you can backtest both modes on your own markets to compare them. See Classic vs AI.

PatternX publishes every factor and weight of PatternX AI, so its evaluations can be checked rather than taken on trust. Momentum Lab's optional AI filter works the same way: a fixed weighted formula that can only skip or rank opportunities that have already passed every other check.

Background: deterministic trading vs black-box AI.

• Premarket Momentum Breakout: enters when a stock's move from the previous close crosses a trigger, +5% by default, on fresh data. A stock first seen already past the trigger is not chased.
• Momentum Reversal: after an extreme premarket move, 8% by default, trades against it once price comes back 1.5% from the extreme. Short entries need a broker that allows shorting.
• Opening Momentum Continuation: qualifies strong premarket movers and enters after the 9:30 AM open, only if a confirmation such as a break of the premarket high passes in time.

Every entry passes a mandatory market-cap filter, liquidity checks, sizing caps and circuit breakers, and by default every position exits on a trailing stop. Momentum Lab applies your rules; it does not predict prices. Overview: Momentum Lab; every parameter: the guide.

• Sessions: premarket 4:00–9:30 AM, regular hours 9:30 AM–4:00 PM and after-hours 4:00–8:00 PM, always in New York time, with weekends, exchange holidays and early closes handled.
• Data coverage: IBKR data covers premarket from 4:00 AM, and so does Alpaca's SIP feed with Alpaca's Algo Trader Plus subscription; Alpaca's free IEX feed starts at 8:00 AM and sees only IEX trades.
• Freshness: a quote older than 10 seconds, or from a delayed feed, can never trigger an entry.

Quotes are checked about once a second; Momentum Lab does not use tick-by-tick data. More on the session: premarket momentum.

• Where they come from: with IBKR data, IBKR's own scanner of the top percentage gainers and losers above $1, with a market-cap floor; with other sources, a ranking computed from a market snapshot.
• What happens next: the top 15 on each side are quoted every cycle, and up to 25 new candidates per strategy are admitted per cycle. A candidate still has to pass the market-cap filter, the liquidity checks and the strategy's own rules.
• The rest of the board: the Triggered, Watching, Positions and Closed Today tabs show what the strategies did with those candidates.

How to read movers lists: premarket gainers and losers.

• A stock exactly at the minimum passes; one below it shows as Skipped — Below minimum market cap.
• Market cap comes from your data source. Interactive Brokers reports it; Alpaca does not, so Alpaca users rely on PatternX's platform feed where one is provided, and with no figure at all no automatic entry can pass.
• A figure older than 72 hours counts as unavailable, ETFs have no figure, and a missing value never counts as a pass.
• The filter adds to the liquidity, spread, volume and price checks and never replaces them. Changing it saves a new parameter version, so your analytics show which threshold admitted each trade.

Why a size floor matters: market-cap filters.

• PatternX Synthetic Trail (the default): the high-water mark is saved on PatternX's servers and survives restarts. When the trail is hit, PatternX sends a limit order priced through the quote that works in extended hours, and re-prices it until the position is closed.
• Emergency stop: each position also has a hard stop, 3% from the average fill by default. In live mode it rests at the broker as a stop-limit order wherever the broker accepts stops in that session; IBKR does in extended hours, Alpaca does not.
• Broker Native: used only in live mode, with native trailing preferred and a trail above 0, an entry filled in the regular session, a broker that supports native trails then, a session policy that does not run into after-hours, and the hard stop set to 0.

Protection is chosen once, when the entry fills, and every position shows which kind it has. A trail is not a maximum loss: gaps, wide spreads, slippage, partial fills and rejected orders can all produce a worse exit, and a stop-limit order can go unfilled when price gaps through it. See trailing protection.

• Skips are visible: a stock that fails shows as Skipped — Liquidity Filter with the exact reason, such as a 2.4% spread against a 1% maximum. An unknown value never passes a minimum that is switched on.
• Entries are capped: the entry is a limit order priced at most 0.5% past the quote. Whatever has not filled after 10 seconds is cancelled, and a partial fill is kept by default.
• Exits keep working: exit orders start 1% past the quote and widen on each retry until the position is closed, so in a thin market an exit can land well beyond the trail level.
• Halts: halted stocks are skipped where the data source reports halts, which IBKR does and Alpaca does not.

Optional extras include a minimum displayed quote size and an exit when the spread stays too wide. Background: premarket liquidity and spreads.

Elite costs $299 a month or $2,870 a year; the pass is a one-time $9.99. Safety actions are never locked behind a plan: STOP MOMENTUM TRADING and manual exits work on every plan. If Elite ends while a Momentum Lab position is open, new entries stop but PatternX keeps managing that position's exits.

Compare plans on the pricing page.

• Data entitlement: real-time premarket data usually requires a market-data subscription with your broker or provider, which PatternX does not sell. A delayed feed is never traded on.
• Alpaca feeds: SIP covers all US exchanges from 4:00 AM but needs Alpaca's Algo Trader Plus subscription; the free IEX feed starts at 8:00 AM.
• Paper first: paper mode runs the identical strategy logic from a virtual $25,000, with fills that are kinder than real ones.

Setup steps: connecting a broker and Momentum Lab market data.

Loss, trade-count and error breakers stay tripped for the rest of the New York trading day. Data and broker breakers trip after 30 seconds of failing data or 60 seconds without the broker, and lift once the problem clears. Each strategy can also have its own daily loss and losing-streak limits.

The kill switch and the breakers block entries only; they do not close open positions on their own. See circuit breakers.

PatternX applies rules and risk limits; it does not predict prices, and no setting removes the risk of loss.

• PatternX sizes each trade to risk 1% of your balance by default, but a stop-out costs about 1% only if the stop fills at its level; gaps and slippage can make it more.
• Leverage sets the margin and the liquidation price, and a liquidation can arrive before your stop does.
• Paper results are usually kinder than live ones, because simulated fills skip real queues and thin books.

The full risk disclaimer covers what else can go wrong.

• Signal engine: trailing stops and break-even are off by default. When on, PatternX checks positions every 5 seconds, only ever tightens the stop, and exits with a reduce-only market order. The stop resting at your venue stays at its original level as the backstop.
• Momentum Lab: the default PatternX Synthetic Trail needs PatternX, your broker connection and fresh data to act. The emergency stop at the broker is a stop-limit order, which can go unfilled if price gaps through it.

How trails behave in fast markets: trailing stops for momentum.

• Signal engine: live entries are market orders (on IBKR, a limit 0.5% through the bid or ask that falls back to a market order), and exits are reduce-only market orders.
• Momentum Lab: entries are limit orders at most 0.5% past the quote, and exits are limit orders that widen on each retry until they fill. The gap between the trail level and the fill is recorded as slippage in your analytics.
• Simulations: paper fills use the live bid and ask, and backtests assume a fixed 0.03% per fill, so both are usually kinder than live trading.

More in slippage.

• Signal engine: a venue that rate-limits PatternX is paused for about a minute, doubling up to 20 minutes, and resumes on its own. Live positions keep the stop placed at the venue after the fill, but trailing and break-even moves cannot happen while a position cannot be priced. A watchdog alerts you after 3 minutes for a position without a venue stop, or 10 minutes for one with a stop.
• Momentum Lab: a Synthetic Trail cannot act on stale data, while time-based exits still fire. PatternX alerts you once a position's data has been stale for 30 seconds and tells you whether a broker-side emergency stop is resting.
• Broker unreachable: positions stay open at the broker until PatternX reconnects, and Momentum Lab pauses entries after 60 seconds.

Details: market data.

Defaults you can change in Settings → Risk:

• Up to 3 open trades and 10 trades a day, each counted separately for crypto and for traditional markets.
• A daily loss limit of 10% of balance, and a 60-minute cooldown after 3 losses in a row.
• A symbol is benched for the rest of the day after 5 losing trades on it (adjustable on Elite).
• Leverage of 3× on crypto and 2× on traditional markets, further capped by each venue.

Elite adds optional Advanced Safety Halts and filters such as a correlation guard and a portfolio heat cap. Momentum Lab has its own market-cap gate, liquidity filters, sizing caps and circuit breakers. Full list: risk controls.

Signal-engine paper trades fill at the live ask or bid, estimate fees at 0.05% per side and simulate stops and targets with the 5-second position loop. Momentum Lab paper fills happen at the ask or bid within your limit, with partial fills capped at the displayed size, no fees and no queue modeling.

Use paper mode to check that your settings behave as you expect before you decide whether to trade live. See paper trading.

• Assumed costs: 0.03% slippage per fill, 0.05% fees per side and funding of 0.01% every 8 hours.
• Not modeled: the liquidity, spread, order-book and funding filters (the context is neutral), higher-timeframe and live win-rate inputs, the risk engine, trailing stops, break-even, approval delays and partial fills.
• Checks on luck: an in-sample versus out-of-sample split, a 400-run Monte Carlo and a warning when there are fewer than 30 trades.

Momentum Lab backtests have their own limits, such as applying today's market cap to past days. See how PatternX backtests work.

• Free: 2 trades a day, 1 connection, 3 tracked instruments and a scan every 120 seconds.
• Starter: 20 trades a day, 2 connections, 20 instruments, 60-second scans, Telegram alerts and basic backtesting.
• Pro: 100 trades a day, 5 connections, 100 instruments, 30-second scans, PatternX AI, and advanced backtesting with the Optimization Lab.
• Elite: unlimited trades, connections and instruments, 10-second scans, PatternX AI with no daily cap, Momentum Lab, Advanced Safety Halts and a PatternX-hosted IBKR gateway.

Prices are in US dollars. Coupon codes apply to plan checkouts but not to the Elite pass. Current details: pricing.

You can upgrade at any time from Billing in the dashboard, and every plan can open the Momentum Lab preview. Create an account on the sign-up page.

Start the trial from the pricing page when you sign up, or later under Billing. When the 48 hours are up, the account returns to Free on its own: nothing is charged and nothing renews. The trial is not available to an account that has already had a trial, the Elite pass or a paid plan.

Pay by card or crypto from the pricing page or under Billing; coupon codes do not apply to the pass. Elite itself costs $299 a month, so the pass is a low-cost way to try Momentum Lab and the other Elite tools on your own markets before deciding.

• Card: you enter your card on Stripe's own checkout page, and the plan switches on as soon as the payment confirms, usually within seconds.
• Crypto: you pay a NOWPayments invoice, and the plan activates once the transaction confirms on-chain, which can take a few minutes. If a payment has not credited after that, email support@patternx.io with the transaction hash.

Your payment history is under Billing in the dashboard.

If a card renewal fails, PatternX notifies you and Stripe retries the card; paid features pause until a payment succeeds, and you can update the card under Billing → Manage subscription. Billing in the dashboard shows the date your current period ends.

When a paid plan ends, the account moves to Free rather than closing: your history and settings stay, Free limits apply, and Momentum Lab stops opening new positions. Cancelling does not delete your account; that is a separate step under Settings → Privacy & your data. Refund rules are under refunds.

A crypto purchase replaces the current plan from the moment it confirms, with a new full period; time left on the previous crypto period is not carried over. Features such as PatternX AI and Momentum Lab follow whichever plan is active at the time.

• The checkout box: giving up the right means ticking an optional box that asks for immediate access. The box is unticked by default, and the plan activates on payment either way.
• How refunds are paid: card refunds go back to the card; crypto refunds return the amount PatternX received, in the same cryptocurrency, not its later value. Refunds are made within 14 days of your request.
• Other cases: if PatternX materially reduces what a paid plan does, or adds a sub-processor you reasonably object to, you can cancel for a pro-rata refund of the unused period.

The binding wording is in section 6 of the terms of service.

• Before deleting: close any live positions, including Momentum Lab ones, because deleting would leave them at your broker with nothing watching their stops. Deleting the account also cancels a card subscription at Stripe, so nothing renews afterwards; if Stripe can't be reached, deletion waits rather than leave it renewing.
• What remains: invoices are kept only as anonymous figures, because tax law requires it.
• Credentials: the export lists each API key by its masked preview only; the keys themselves stay with the venue that issued them.

What PatternX collects and why is in the privacy policy.

• Backtesting: Starter runs basic backtests (1 venue, 3 symbols, 2 timeframes); Pro and Elite get full backtesting, AI-mode backtests and the Optimization Lab. Free has none.
• Alerts: Telegram alerts, with approve and reject buttons, start with Starter.
• Elite only: Advanced Safety Halts, Elite risk filters, pip-based targets, a PatternX-hosted IBKR gateway and 10-second scans.

Side-by-side details: pricing.