Max open Trades & Contracts per Trade

Updated: July 8, 20252 min read

The two settings Max open Trades and Quantity (the number of contracts per trade) control how many trades your strategy can execute simultaneously, and in what position size.

Max open Trades (Strategy Level)

You'll find the Max open Trades option in the strategy configuration. It determines how many trades from the strategy can be active at the same time.

Example:

If Max open Trades = 3 and there are already 3 trades open from a strategy, no additional trade will be opened.
Only once one of the 3 open trades is closed will another trade be opened according to plan.

Quantity (Contracts per Trade)

In each Trade Template within a strategy, you can set the Quantity, the number of units (or contracts) this trade should open. In Option Omega, this corresponds to the Max Contracts per Trade field.

Example:

If you set Quantity = 2 for a trade, the same position will be opened twice when the trade is initiated.
If a Profit Target is additionally defined in the Trade Template with, for example, "close 50%", one of the two contracts would be closed (see P&L Action: Profit Target for details)

Example Application

A user wants to ensure that never more than a single trade is open at the same time, and that this trade is only executed with a single contract.

To do this, he configures:

In the strategy: Max open Trades = 1
In the Trade Template: Quantity = 1

This ensures no parallel trades are opened, and each trade moves only a single contract.

Notes

The limitation by Max open Trades applies at the strategy level. If you run multiple strategies simultaneously, the limits apply separately to each.
Quantity refers to the individual trade, not to the limit of the entire strategy.
These settings are particularly helpful for capital management, margin management, or implementing conservative trading styles.

Stocks and ETFs also have "Max. open Trades", there per strategy and across all rows. Contracts per Trade does not apply; the quantity is set in each row. Details: Stocks & ETFs: strategy, entry and exit.