First Paper Strategy

Internal AlphaFox Paper trading runs strategies with virtual funds on real market data; no real trading capital is used. Model and slippage assumptions, along with your configuration, still affect results. Moving to live trading can cause losses.

Where to start: add a paper exchange under Account → Trading account, then create a strategy in one of the three ways below. See Core Concepts for how Paper, backtests, and live trading differ.

Before you start

• Make sure you are signed in.
• Know the cost: paper strategies use your plan’s included paper slots first, then 0.01 credits per hour per strategy. The page shows a cost estimate before you create; virtual funds do not mean running is always free.

Step 1: Add the internal paper exchange

Step 2: Create a paper strategy

Option 1: Copy from the leaderboard (fastest)

1. Open Plaza → Leaderboard, switch to the 90 days window, and check drawdown and data days first.
2. Select One-click copy on the strategy you chose. If it says “Parameters are not shared”, pick another one.
3. Under “Trading account”, choose your paper account and select Start paper. When you see “Copied successfully”, select View strategy.

See Copy from the Leaderboard for details.

Option 2: Configure a template

1. Open Strategy → Create strategy and pick a template you understand under “Select strategy”.
2. Under “Configure”, enter a Name, choose your paper account under “Trading account”, check the strategy parameters and risk control, then select Next.
3. Under “Review”, check the summary and “Estimated cost”, then select Create and start.

See Configure Your First Strategy for each field.

Option 3: Create from a saved backtest version

1. Return to the experiment in Strategy → Strategy backtest and select the version under Saved backtest parameters.
2. Select Use this version’s parameters, confirm, and check the current configuration. Viewing a historical result does not apply it.
3. Select Create strategy from parameters, choose your paper account under “Trading account”, and check the cost estimate.
4. Select Create and start. The dialog creates the strategy and requests its start. When you see “Strategy created; start requested”, select View strategy to confirm its runtime status.

What to watch after creating

Open Strategy → My strategies, open the strategy, and check in order:

1. Runtime status: confirm that it reaches Running. If startup fails, read the error and historical events, then follow Strategy Won’t Start.
2. Returns: ROI, PnL, and max drawdown.
3. Positions and Orders: what it actually opened.
4. Historical events: the timeline of every action.

To compare with a backtest, record the experiment version, the paper account’s initial funds, the actual start time, and later changes. Paper trading uses market data from after the start; it does not replay the backtest date range.

Closing the page does not stop a running strategy. To finish, select Stop strategy, choose Stop and keep positions or Stop and close positions, and confirm the final status. Record the original configuration before changing parameters so you can explain later results.

Next steps