❓ Frequently Asked Questions

Stock Biggest Drops (ivort.com) is a trading strategy application that scans the US stock market for stocks that drop sharply at the market open, then watches for a genuine reversal - a real recovery from that drop, confirmed by technical indicators - before automatically buying. It runs on Alpaca's brokerage API, defaults to simulated paper trading, and can optionally be switched to real-money live trading by an admin.

It works in five steps: Find - scan the market for stocks down significantly from the previous close. Watch - track price, volume, and how much of the drop has recovered. Score - combine recovery percentage, volume strength, VWAP position, and RSI into one weighted Reversal Score. Buy - only once every configured buy condition passes at the same time. Exit - a stop-loss, trailing stop, profit-lock, or time-based exit, whichever triggers first.

ivort.com is the public site for the Stock Biggest Drops application - the opening sell-off reversal trading strategy described throughout this page.

Not by default. Every trade is paper (simulated) unless an admin deliberately enables live trading through a dedicated, typed-confirmation-gated switch. When live trading is off - the default - no real money is ever at risk.

Alpaca is the only broker it connects to, for both paper and live trading. There is no support for any other broker or exchange.

No. It is a trading strategy analysis and automation tool, not financial advice. Past performance is not indicative of future results, and trading involves risk of loss. Consult a licensed financial advisor before trading with real money.

API credentials are stored in the application's own database, never exposed in the dashboard after saving, and are entered only by the admin directly into the app's own settings page.

US equities that gap down and decline significantly at the open (a configurable minimum decline percentage), within a tradeable price and average-volume range, narrowed down to the ones showing an actual recovery in progress rather than continuing to fall.

A stock only becomes buy-ready once every one of its configured conditions passes at the same time: minimum recovery percentage from the day's low, minimum RSI, price above VWAP, minimum relative volume, a minimum reversal score, and enough consecutive positive 5-minute samples. Each threshold can be tuned per stock, either by an admin or by a periodic historical backtest.

Whichever of these triggers first: a stop-loss percentage below the buy price, a trailing stop off the highest price reached (tightened further once a profit-lock threshold is hit), or a maximum holding-period time exit. No position is sold on the same day it was purchased.

A single weighted score (0-100) combining price recovery percentage, volume strength, whether the price has broken above VWAP, and RSI recovery, used as one of several buy conditions. Its weighting is admin-configurable.

Yes. Every numeric buy condition can be overridden per stock instead of using one global default, and a periodic historical backtest automatically re-derives recommended thresholds per stock from years of that stock's own price history using the strategy's real sell rules.

Its per-stock buy-condition thresholds are derived from a historical backtest - a real simulation against years of a stock's own price data, not a black-box prediction model. The core reversal detection itself is rule-based technical analysis (RSI, VWAP, volume, recovery percentage), not a machine-learning price predictor.

It offers a free trial with full feature access and no credit card required.

No. Without Alpaca API credentials configured, the app runs in mock mode with realistic simulated data, so the full watchlist, scoring, and dashboard experience can be explored before connecting a real (free) Alpaca account.

Watchlist discovery runs on an admin-configurable interval (hourly by default). Price refresh and the buy/sell decision cycle run every 5 minutes by default, also admin-configurable, and can be offset to a specific minute of the hour.

Yes, by email. An admin can add and verify (via a one-time code) one or more notification email addresses; every buy and sell then triggers an alert email, clearly marked as either a paper trade or a live real-money trade.