Frequently asked questions

Next Bullish Trade is a US equity research dashboard built around the Tao of Trading framework. Every market session it scans hundreds of the largest US stocks, grades each setup A/B/C, and surfaces actionable opportunities alongside macro, news, and policy context. There are no recommendations to buy or sell — it is a research tool meant to compress the time you spend reading charts and filings.

Active US-equity traders who already know the basics (limit orders, options, position sizing) and want a single dashboard for ideas, news, and quick math. If you are brand new, start with the Learn section first — there are short guides on options, position sizing, and reading charts.

Three good starting points: (1) News → Movers shows today's biggest % gainers and losers with a grade attached, (2) News → Trade radar shows 52-week breakouts/breakdowns and unusual-volume names, (3) Grading ranks the whole scanner universe by setup quality. Click any ticker to open the deep-dive page with chart, levels, and recent news.

Grades summarize how clean a setup is on the Tao framework: A+ elite, A strong, B decent, C marginal. Grades combine trend strength, Keltner-channel position, volume confirmation, support/resistance proximity, and risk/reward to a stop. They are pattern reads, not predictions.

Price tape: ~5-minute delayed (free intraday data). The scanner runs hourly during market hours and the daily archives are stamped with the run time. News briefs refresh hourly during market hours. Catalyst calendar and earnings refresh every 12 and 6 hours respectively.

Keltner Channels are volatility-based price envelopes drawn around a 20-period EMA at ±2 ATRs. The Tao zones translate where price sits relative to those bands: DEEP-PULL is below the lower band (extreme oversold), PULLBACK is between EMA and lower band (healthy retracement in an uptrend), NEUTRAL is around the EMA, EXTENDED is between EMA and upper band, BLOW-OFF is above the upper band (climactic, often where rallies exhaust).

Volume confirms (or disconfirms) the move. A breakout on 3× average volume is institutional buying. A breakout on average volume often gets faded by Day 2. Unusual volume + a grade upgrade is one of the strongest combinations on the site.

Relative strength versus the S&P 500 index ETF (SPY) for today. Positive RS means the sector outperformed the market today. Sustained positive RS across multiple sessions is a strong rotation signal — money moving into that sector.

Long setups are reads that the stock will go up; short setups are reads that it will go down. They use mirrored logic: long looks for pullbacks in uptrends, short looks for relief rallies in downtrends. Neither is 'better' — what matters is matching your account, capital, and broker permissions to the right side.

Intrinsic is the part of the option premium backed by real moneyness — for a call, max(spot − strike, 0). Extrinsic is everything else: time value plus implied volatility. Extrinsic decays to zero at expiration. A high-extrinsic option is essentially a bet on movement before expiry; a high-intrinsic option behaves more like the stock.

Buying a call gives you the right (not the obligation) to buy 100 shares at the strike price before expiration. Max loss is the premium paid. Profit grows without cap above the breakeven (strike + premium). Used to bet on upside with limited downside.

Buying a put gives you the right to sell 100 shares at the strike before expiration. Max loss is the premium. Max profit is (strike − premium) × 100 (capped because stock can't go below zero). Used to bet on downside, or as portfolio insurance.

Buy a lower-strike call AND sell a higher-strike call at the same expiry. The premium received from the short call partly offsets the long call. Defined max loss (the net debit) and defined max profit ((wide − debit) × 100). Used when you expect a moderate move up and want to lower cost.

Use the % risk per trade calculator in /valuation. Plug in your account size, the % you're willing to lose on this idea (most pros cap at 1%), your entry, and your stop. The calc returns how many shares to buy. Risking more than 2% per trade is aggressive and statistically hard to recover from on a losing streak.

R is your initial risk per share (entry − stop). The R-multiple is the reward-to-risk ratio. Anything < 2R is usually a pass: even with a 60% win rate, 1.5R reward isn't enough to overcome losing trades' cost. 2R is the minimum for a professional trade. 3R+ is a Tao 'A' grade target.

Yahoo Finance via the open-source yfinance library. It is end-of-day plus ~5-minute delayed intraday — accurate for analysis but not for execution. Always confirm fills at your broker.

Perplexity Sonar (online LLM). Each section's prompt is hand-written and pulls live web sources at request time. Citations are inline. Briefs cache per market session so the same prompt isn't re-asked dozens of times in an hour.

Three reasons: (1) you may be looking before today's first scan completes, (2) the Perplexity API key may not be configured (briefs and catalyst calendar require it), (3) the scanner found nothing meeting the filter — a quiet day is a real result.

The chat widget remembers your last conversation in localStorage on your device only. No accounts, no analytics tracking your trades. The calculators run entirely in your browser — no inputs are sent to a server.

Market order takes whatever price is available right now — fast but can slip in volatile names. Limit order names the worst price you'll accept; it may not fill but it won't pay above your limit. Use limits for anything off the most-liquid mega-caps.

A stop-loss is a pre-arranged exit price that caps your loss if the trade goes against you. Common placements: just below the most recent swing low (for longs), below the EMA, below a key support level, or at a multiple of ATR. Without a stop, you don't have a trade — you have a hope.

Weeklies (0-7 days) are cheaper but decay extremely fast (gamma + theta both elevated). Monthlys (30-45 days out) give the thesis time to play out. As a rule of thumb, beginners do better in monthlies because they don't have to be right on the exact day.

If your account is under $25k US and you make 4 or more day-trades (buy and sell same day) in 5 business days, you'll be flagged PDT and locked out for 90 days. Workarounds: keep the account above $25k, hold positions overnight, or trade in a cash account where T+2 settlement governs.