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Your First Bot

In this guide, you'll deploy your first paper trading bot on Vaanam. A bot takes a trading strategy and executes it automatically on live market data — no watching charts, no placing orders manually. All trades are paper (simulated) by default.

Paper trading results do not guarantee live trading results. Slippage, liquidity, and emotions are real in live markets.

Before You Start​

We recommend testing your strategy in a backtest first. A bot runs your strategy forward in time — if the strategy didn't work historically, it's unlikely to work live.

Access the Bot Builder​

Bots are available under the Bots section in the top menu. Click New Bot to open the creation form.

We'll deploy a simple RSI mean-reversion bot on a few large-cap tech stocks.

Fill in the Form​

Basic Setup​

  • Name — My First RSI Bot
  • Asset Type — Stocks
  • Tickers — AAPL, MSFT, GOOGL, NVDA, META
  • Side — Long only
  • Timeframe — Daily (1D)

Entry & Exit Conditions​

  • Entry Query:

    ASSET_STOCK_TECH_RSI_C_14 < 30

    Buy when RSI drops below 30 (oversold).

  • Exit Query:

    ASSET_STOCK_TECH_RSI_C_14 > 50

    Sell when RSI recovers above 50.

You can also use the Visual Condition Builder to select indicators from dropdowns if you don't want to write the DSL manually.

Risk & Sizing​

  • Initial Capital — $100,000 (paper)
  • Allocation Per Trade — 20% of capital
  • Max Positions — 3 (so the bot holds at most 3 stocks at once)
  • Stop-Loss — 5% (auto-exit if a position loses 5%)
  • Take-Profit — 10% (auto-exit if a position gains 10%)
  • Commission — 0.05%
  • Slippage — 0.05%

Schedule​

  • Check Interval — Every 5 minutes (how often the bot evaluates conditions)
  • Include Pre-Market / Post-Market — Leave off for this tutorial

Click Create & Start Bot. Your bot is now running.

What to Expect After Starting​

  • Status: The bot shows Running
  • No trades right away: Your bot won't open a position until one of the 5 stocks satisfies the entry condition. RSI(14) below 30 is a relatively strict condition — it might be hours or days before a trade happens. This is normal.
  • Check interval: Every 5 minutes during market hours (9:30 AM – 4:00 PM ET, weekdays)

Monitoring Your Bot​

Open the bot detail page to see:

  • Open Positions — Current holdings with entry price, current price, and unrealized P&L
  • Trade History — Every closed trade with entry/exit dates, prices, and P&L
  • Performance Summary — Total return, win rate, and trade count
  • Manual Close — Force-close any position from this page if you change your mind

Exit Reasons​

Each trade shows why it exited:

ReasonMeaning
SignalExit query became true
Stop LossPosition hit the stop-loss %
Take ProfitPosition hit the take-profit %
Max HoldingHeld past the max holding candles limit
ManualYou closed it from the detail page
Bot StoppedBot was stopped while position was open

Common Questions​

"My bot has been running for a day and hasn't made any trades. Is something wrong?"

Probably not. Strict conditions (like RSI < 30) don't happen every day. Check that the bot status is still Running and conditions are reasonable. You can backtest the same strategy to see how often it historically triggered.

"Can I change the strategy after starting?"

Yes — stop the bot, click Edit, change the queries, and start it again. Open positions remain open during the stop.

"What if I want to test more aggressively?"

Try a looser entry condition like ASSET_STOCK_TECH_RSI_C_14 < 40 to see more trades. Just remember: more trades doesn't mean better results.

What's Next?​

You've deployed your first bot. Here's where to go from here:

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