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Auto plan

Set up the Below bot

About 10 minutes. You need your Below licence key and an Alpaca account.

  1. 1

    Open an Alpaca account

    Sign up for free at alpaca.markets. You get a paper account straight away: practice money that behaves like the real market. Start there. A live account needs identity checks and a deposit; for leverage above 1x it must be a margin account with at least $2,000.
  2. 2

    Create an API key

    In Alpaca, switch to the account you want (Paper or Live), open API Keys on the home screen and press Generate. Copy the Key ID and the Secret. The secret is shown only once. Paper and live accounts have different keys.
  3. 3

    Choose where the bot runs

    The bot must be online during US market hours (15:30–22:00 in Germany). A small cloud server (about $5 a month at Hetzner, DigitalOcean or similar, Ubuntu) is the easiest because it runs all the time. A Windows PC or Mac also works if it stays on and awake.
  4. 4

    Install with one line

    Mac, Linux or a server: open Terminal (on a server, log in with SSH) and paste:

    curl -fsSL https://below.pro/bot/install.sh | bash

    Windows: open PowerShell and paste:

    irm https://below.pro/bot/install.ps1 | iex

    The installer downloads one small Python file, asks you a few questions, and sets the bot to start by itself after a restart. You can read the script first by opening the address in your browser.

  5. 5

    Answer the questions

    Your Below licence key (from your dashboard), paper or live, your Alpaca key and secret, and your leverage (1x, 1.5x or 2x; Alpaca allows at most 2x overnight). Everything is saved only on your device.
  6. 6

    Check it's running

    Your dashboard shows the bot as Running within a minute. On the next trading day, about 10 minutes after the US open, it brings your account to the current Below holdings. After that it trades only when the holdings change.

How the bot behaves

  • Your keys stay with you. The bot sends Below only your licence key and a random device id. Below never receives your Alpaca key, balance or positions.
  • It only touches what it bought. Positions you hold yourself in other funds are left alone.
  • Small differences are ignored. It trades only when a holding is off by more than 1% of your account, to save costs.
  • If your membership ends, the bot keeps your positions and stops trading. Nothing is sold automatically.
  • One device per licence. If you start a second copy, it waits until the first one has been off for 15 minutes.
  • Pause any time: run python3 ~/.below-bot/below_bot.py pause (and resume). Or simply stop it and trade in Alpaca yourself.

Useful commands

Status and positions:

python3 ~/.below-bot/below_bot.py status

Change keys, paper/live or leverage:

python3 ~/.below-bot/below_bot.py setup

Log file: ~/.below-bot/bot.log (Windows: %LOCALAPPDATA%\BelowBot\bot.log)

The bot executes the Below model portfolio in your own account, on your instruction, and you can stop it at any time. Below does not manage your money. Trading involves risk; leverage multiplies losses.