Your first scan

This walkthrough takes about ten minutes and covers the full loop: pick a goal, run a scan, analyze a result in Focus mode, route the order to your broker (or copy it for ToS), and journal the thesis. By the end you’ll have touched both surfaces and you’ll know where things live when you come back.

Before you start

You’ll get a cleaner first scan if you do two things first:

• Set your account size in Profile. Capital sizing on every result uses this number — without it, the rows show no “contracts × collateral” column and you can’t tell what each trade costs.
• Create a watchlist of 10–30 tickers you actually trade. Run the tour through the default liquid universe if you don’t have one yet — you can always re-scan later.

The walkthrough

1. 1

   Open Radar and pick a goal

   Click Radar in the top nav. The default tab is Goals — six illustrated cards framed by intent: Generate income, Bet on a big move, Bet on calm, Hedge what I own, Trade an earnings event, and I have a thesis.

   For your first scan, pick Generate monthly income. It maps to a cash-secured put scan with sensible defaults: 25–45 DTE, IV ≥ 20%, delta between 0.20 and 0.30, min annualized return 15%.

2. 2

   Choose a risk profile

   Each goal exposes three risk dials — conservative, balanced, aggressive. They differ by short delta (lower delta = lower assignment risk and lower premium), DTE window, and minimum annualized return. Balanced is the best starting point. You can override individual filters in the chip bar after the scan runs.

3. 3

   Run the scan

   Click Run scan. The scanner pulls live chains for every ticker in your watchlist (or the default universe), filters by your parameters, and enriches every survivor with the Tradient Score, edge in dollars, IV regime, conviction, and regime fit. Results stream back in a few seconds.

   ·Aside

   If you see “no results,” your filters are too tight. Try lowering the minimum annualized return or widening the delta band. Tradient never auto-loosens filters — that would make scans non-reproducible.
4. 4

   Read the table

   The default sort is Tradient Score, descending. Each row shows the score badge, ticker, strategy, expiration, edge in dollars, POP, max P/L, R:R, IV rank, annualized return, volume, and (if you set capital) the contracts × collateral sizing.

   Hover any column header for the metric definition. Click a row to expand it inline — you’ll get the IV regime badge, conviction, regime fit, the strike layout, and the “Send to broker” / “Copy to ThinkOrSwim” / “Analyze in Focus” actions.

5. 5

   Analyze in Focus mode

   Click Analyze in Focuson the row that interests you. Focus mode loads the full analysis view: an interactive P&L profile chart with breakevens marked, a Monte Carlo distribution of expiration P&L (10,000 paths), the per-leg Greeks, and the score breakdown — which of POP / R:R / IV fit / liquidity / annualized return are actually carrying the score, and which are dragging it down.

   This is your decision moment. If conviction is high and regime fit is in the green, you’re looking at a balanced setup. If the score is being carried entirely by one component (e.g. POP at the expense of return), Focus mode tells you so explicitly.

6. 6

   Place the trade

   Two options:

   • Connected broker. Click Send to broker. A confirmation modal shows the routed legs, estimated cost, and the broker account it’ll hit. Confirm and the order goes out via SnapTrade.
   • Manual / ToS. Click Copy ToS ticket. The clipboard now holds a ThinkOrSwim-formatted multi-leg string you can paste straight into the Active Trader ticket box.
7. 7

   Journal the trade

   Open Portfolio and switch to the Historytab. Add a new entry from today’s scans. Write a one-paragraph thesis: why this trade, why now, what would make you exit early, what would make you stop out. The Tradient Score and metrics at entry are recorded automatically.

   ✓Tip

   Future-you will thank present-you for this. The History tab is the only place that lets you actually answer the question “am I getting better at this?”

What just happened, technically

The scanner pulled the option chain for each ticker in your target list, filtered to expirations inside your DTE window, ran the strategy module (cash-secured put in this case), priced Greeks via Black-Scholes, computed POP from the log-normal distribution implied by current IV, and then handed every survivor to the scoring layer. Scoring blended POP, R:R, IV-rank fit, liquidity, and annualized return into the Tradient Score, added the Trade Edge (POP × max profit − (1−POP) × max loss), and stamped each row with the IV regime, conviction, and regime fit. Finally the capital-sizing pass dropped any trade whose single-contract collateral exceeded your per-trade cap and annotated the survivors with how many contracts you could put on.

Each of those words links to a deeper article — see Tradient Score, Edge / POP / R:R, IV rank & regime, and Black-Scholes & Greeks.

Where to go next

• Connect a broker if you want one-click order routing.
• Set up your first alert so a saved scan runs nightly and emails you when something hits.
• The full scan library — there are about fifteen pre-tuned scans across income, volatility, directional, event, hedging, and advanced categories.