Question 1

How does Fincanva handle it?

Accepted Answer

A strategy needs at least one instrument before it can be saved or run, and a strategy that selects instruments through a screener needs at least one screener attached; Create a strategy quotes the exact gate messages, and the editor's other setup checks are listed under strategy alerts. There is no fixed upper limit on the number of instruments a strategy can hold today. Strategies are listed under Strategies, split into Single and Combined — a Combined is a strategy too, just one whose members are strategies. Four strategy types shape what you fill in when you create one; they change which steps you see, not what the backtest computes. See Strategy type. A strategy can be followed live with Mark Live, which lists it as a Live strategy on the Live page. Nothing is traded and no order is placed. Editing a saved strategy leaves its last result in place until you run it again; the run status chip reads Needs re-run until then.

Question 2

What does a strategy contain?

Accepted Answer

A strategy contains the instruments it trades plus the settings that decide how they are weighted and when they change. Each controls a different part:

Asset selection — the instruments the strategy trades, chosen as a basket you pick by hand or by attaching a screener that selects them for you.
Allocation — how capital is split across those instruments.
Rebalance every — how often the weights are reset; see rebalance.
Risk (optional) — conditions that switch the strategy to its Risk-Off allocation when they trigger.
Position exits (optional) — conditions that close a position.

Together these settings define exactly what the strategy would have done over any historical period.

Question 3

How is a strategy different from a Combined?

Accepted Answer

A strategy holds instruments; a Combined holds strategies and splits capital across them. Use a single strategy for one coherent idea, and a Combined to blend several strategies into one book. The pieces inside a Combined are themselves strategies — deliberately the same object you build on its own — so "strategy" covers both a standalone strategy and a strategy in a Combined. Where the whole and its pieces appear together the whole is always called the Combined, never a generic "strategy", and destructive actions name their level: "Remove this sub-strategy?" versus "Delete Combined".

Question 4

Why build a strategy instead of picking instruments by hand?

Accepted Answer

A strategy is reusable, testable, and modular, which a one-off hand-picked list of instruments is not. Because it is saved as a defined set of rules, you can backtest it over history to see how those same rules would have behaved, re-run it as new data arrives, and reuse it later without rebuilding it — on its own or as a building block of a Combined. To start one, follow Create a strategy; to pick the shape that fits your idea, see Strategy type.

Question 5

What does it look like in practice?

Accepted Answer

You start from an idea: hold the strongest recent performers among S&P 500 stocks and refresh the list every month. As a strategy that becomes one saved object — a universe of S&P 500 stocks, an attached screener that ranks them on recent price change, Ranking-based allocation so the highest-ranked receive the most capital, and Rebalance every set to 1 month. You run it, read the equity curve and metrics such as CAGR, then change the rebalance to 3 months and run again. Both runs describe the same strategy — one object, two settings — which is exactly why it is worth saving as one.