Entries, exits and positions

Tickerly works out whether an order opens, adds to, or closes a position by reading action together with prev_position. Neither field means anything on its own.

This page describes exactly what each combination does. It is the single most useful thing to understand if an order behaved differently from how you expected.

The six combinations

action	prev_position	What happens
buy	flat	Opens a long
buy	long	Adds to your long
sell	long	Closes your long
sell	flat	Opens a short
sell	short	Adds to your short
buy	short	Closes your short

Only two of the six close a position: selling when you were long, and buying when you were short. Everything else opens or increases one.

Closing orders are reduce-only

When Tickerly identifies a closing order, it marks it reduce-only at the exchange. That order can shrink your position or flatten it, but it cannot open a new position in the opposite direction.

This is a safety property. If your strategy sends an exit for more than you actually hold — because the exchange rounded your entry, or because a partial fill left you with less than expected — the surplus is discarded instead of opening an unwanted position in the other direction.

It also has a consequence worth knowing about: a strategy that goes directly from long to short in one alert cannot be automated with a standard alert, because the closing order refuses to cross through zero. That is what swing alerts are for.

When prev_position is missing

If prev_position is not in the alert, Tickerly treats every order as an entry. No order is marked reduce-only, and buy and sell are sent to the exchange as plain instructions.

This is exactly what a swing alert is, and it is why a swing alert can flip a position from long to short in one order.

It also means an accidentally omitted prev_position will not produce an error. The orders will place — they will just never be treated as exits. If a strategy's positions are growing when they should be closing, check that prev_position is present and being filled in.

In hedge mode

With hedge mode, the same six combinations apply, but the direction of the position is carried through to the exchange so that long and short positions on the same symbol coexist rather than cancelling out.

action	prev_position	Affects
buy	flat	Opens on the long side
buy	long	Adds to the long side
sell	long	Closes the long side
sell	flat	Opens on the short side
sell	short	Adds to the short side
buy	short	Closes the short side

A sell that closes a long touches only the long side and leaves any short position untouched. This is what lets two strategies run on the same symbol without interfering with each other.

Keeping your strategy and your exchange aligned

Tickerly places the order your alert describes. It does not compare your strategy's idea of your position against what your exchange actually holds.

If the two drift apart — because you opened a trade manually, because you started automating mid-trade, or because an earlier order was rejected — the alerts will keep describing positions you do not have. The usual symptom is a run of exit orders rejected for having no position to close.

Two habits prevent most of this:

• Start a strategy when it is flat, so Tickerly and your exchange begin from the same state. Most strategies show the current position in the TradingView Strategy Tester.
• If your strategy is always in a position, open the matching position manually on your exchange before enabling the alert.

If they do drift, a close all alert or a manual close on the exchange resets you to flat, and you can restart the strategy from there.