---
title: "Choose the instruments a strategy holds"
description: "Choose a strategy's instruments on its Asset selection card: add instruments or lists, or let a screener pick; the Delisted and Not tradable badges."
canonical_url: "https://fincanva.com/docs/strategies/choose-the-instruments-a-strategy-holds"
last_updated: "2026-10-07"
md_url: "https://fincanva.com/docs/strategies/choose-the-instruments-a-strategy-holds.md"
---

# Choose the instruments a strategy holds

You set what a [strategy](/glossary/strategy) may hold on its **Asset selection** card: instruments and lists you add by hand, a [screener](/glossary/screener) that picks by rule, or both.

A strategy's Asset selection card in Basket: under Assets, the list of the instruments you added, each with its ticker, name and asset type.

## Steps

1. **Open Asset selection.** It is a card on [the strategy's **Settings**](/docs/strategies/edit-a-strategy-s-settings), and a chapter of [Step by step](/glossary/step-by-step). On a **Full setup** strategy, pick its view first — **Basket**, **Screen** or **Compose**; every other [strategy type](/glossary/strategy-type) has one view and no switch — see [asset-selection modes](/glossary/asset-selection-modes).
2. **Search and add instruments.** Under **Assets**, type a ticker or a name into "Search instruments or lists…" and pick a result: it joins the list. On a **Single instrument** strategy the one slot is replaced instead, with **Change**.
3. **Or add a whole list.** Pick a list in the same search, and all its members join at once; any already selected are skipped. In Step by step, **Browse lists** opens a side sheet where you add a list's instruments one at a time or all together, then press **Done**.
4. **Or let a screener choose.** On **Screen** or **Compose**, a screener picks the instruments at every [rebalance](/glossary/rebalance) — see [Attach a screener to a strategy](/docs/strategies/attach-a-screener-to-a-strategy). On **Compose** the instruments you add bound what the screeners may pick.
5. **Save** the strategy, then run it — see [Save, run and copy a strategy](/docs/strategies/save-run-and-copy-a-strategy).

**Done.** The list shows what the strategy may trade, each [instrument](/glossary/instrument) with its ticker, name and [asset type](/glossary/asset-type) — or reads **All instruments** when an entry screener chooses from its own [universe](/glossary/universe). A strategy needs at least one instrument or one attached screener before it can be saved and run, and your plan caps how many instruments and positions one strategy holds — see [Bring a strategy within your plan](/docs/strategies/bring-a-strategy-within-your-plan); on a Public strategy you can open the card but not save — make your own copy first.

## What does the card show when nothing is picked?

No count badge: with nothing picked, the instrument list itself says what the strategy has to choose from, and the answer depends on whether an entry screener is attached.

- **No entry screener** — the list reads **No instruments** and, where filters sit below it, "With no instruments and no entry screener the engine buys nothing: search above to pick some, or add an entry screener." The strategy has no candidate on any date, so it would never invest; its [backtest](/glossary/backtest) is refused by the blocking [strategy alert](/glossary/strategy-alerts) "The strategy has no instruments", or by the instrument count its strategy type requires.
- **An entry screener** — the list reads **All instruments**: the screener searches its own whole universe at every rebalance, and the positions are filled from what passes it — see [screener attach](/glossary/screener-attach#which-titles-does-an-entry-screener-put-into-the-positions).

## What do the Delisted and Not tradable badges mean?

**Delisted** marks an instrument that no longer trades on a live exchange — a company that was acquired, went private or went bankrupt — whose history is still in the catalogue. **Not tradable** marks an instrument held in the reference data for coverage that you cannot hold as a live position. Both are informational: they say why the instrument behaves differently from one trading today.

[Delisted](/glossary/delisted) instruments stay usable rather than being dropped, which keeps a backtest free of [survivorship bias](/glossary/survivorship-bias): it can hold names that later delisted instead of only the survivors. The same catalogue, spanning several asset classes, stands behind every strategy however its instruments are chosen — what it holds and how it is kept current: [what your backtests run on](/docs/data-and-methodology).

## What happens when you switch between Basket, Screen and Compose?

Nothing is lost until you save. What the new view cannot use leaves the strategy at the switch, and comes back if you switch back before saving; saving, discarding your changes or opening another strategy ends this, and whatever is still set aside is not saved. Until then the alerts, notes and cards describe exactly what the save will send.

- **To Screen** sets aside the instruments you picked, with an allocation built on them — [Fixed weights](/glossary/fixed-weights), which cannot run on a universe a screener alone chooses, and a [Mimicking](/glossary/mimicking) or [Beta neutral](/glossary/beta-neutral) reference that was one of them; each is replaced by the method a new Screen strategy starts with. **Max positions** on Screen is the value you last gave it on Screen or in Compose, never the basket's count — the default if you have been on Basket only.
- **To Basket** sets aside a screener Basket cannot show: one without filter rows, and any beyond the one its **Filters** strip shows.
- **Out of Compose**, the settings Basket and Screen cannot show are kept for your return — see [What happens to my extra screeners if I leave Compose?](/docs/strategies/attach-a-screener-to-a-strategy#what-happens-to-my-extra-screeners-if-i-leave-compose)

Changing the [strategy type](/glossary/strategy-type) sets settings aside the same way, and its dialog counts what the save will not carry.

## Which screener does Screen hold?

The one it shows. Arriving on **Screen** — by switching to it, changing the type to **Screener** or creating a Screener strategy — gives the strategy the screener the card displays: the default universe, with no filters of your own yet, so what you see is what runs. Leave Screen before changing it and it goes with you: the strategy holds exactly what it held before. Once you edit it — a filter, the universe, a screener from your library — it is yours and stays.

Removing an attached screener on Screen puts that default back. A stored Screener strategy with no screener opens holding the default as an unsaved change: **Save** is offered, and until you save, the backtest is judged on the strategy as stored. On a plan that includes no screeners inside strategies, nothing is added.

Fincanva is for education and illustration only. It is not personalised financial advice, and past or simulated results do not predict future ones. [Read the Terms Addendum](https://fincanva.com/terms/addendum#section-3)