AI investing agents

What an AI agent is

A chatbot answers questions and stops. An AI agent keeps going: it watches the market, works out what to do, prepares the exact orders and, if you let it, places them. The limits it trades inside and the record it keeps of every decision are what make it safe to hand over.

Each AI agent runs one idea. The idea can be a book built in Idea to trade, a person or strategy you copy, a rule you typed (“buy $500 of SPY every Monday”), or a job such as harvesting tax losses. You describe it to Copilot in your own words, and Copilot drafts the agent as a card you can read: a one-line goal, what it watches, when it runs, what it may trade and every limit.

Every agent has its own budget, its own record and its own page. Every rule it follows is written on that page, and nothing is hidden in a prompt. Because Volaren works across every account you connect, one agent sees your whole portfolio rather than one broker’s slice of it.

How Volaren does it, end to end

1. Ask Copilot. Copilot is the box on the Volaren home. It knows your connected accounts, researches with live data (company filings, insider trades, fund holdings, news, rates, prices) and answers about your own portfolio or any stock, fund, bond, currency or coin.

2. Idea to trade builds a reasoned book. Describe an idea (“AI power demand outruns the grid”, “the Fed cuts faster than the market expects”) and Idea to trade researches it, values what it finds and builds a book while you watch. Every line says what the company or asset does, why it fits your idea and the evidence behind it. A book is always invested, never a pile of cash.

3. An AI agent trades it inside your limits. Press Make this an AI agent. The agent holds the book, checks it every weekday and trades it back toward its targets.

4. Orders go to your own broker. Volaren places orders at Webull, Public, E*TRADE, tastytrade and moomoo, currency trades at OANDA, or on a practice account. Connect Robinhood, Fidelity, Schwab and your other accounts too, and your agents see and explain every holding across all of them. See Brokers.

What it watches and how it decides

An agent runs on a schedule (“every weekday at 9:45 New York time”), on an event, on a price rule, or when you press Run now. The events it can wait for include:

• new SEC filings, insider trades and 13F holdings from funds you follow;
• new stock-trade disclosures from members of Congress;
• news on the names it covers, and earnings and other company events;
• a price moving past a level you set.

Each run starts fresh on current data. The agent reads your holdings and the market through the same research tools Copilot uses, keeps short notes on what it saw last time so it can tell you what changed, and ends with a decision, including “do nothing”. Every order it wants carries its own reason, and the run is kept in a log you can read.

An agent that manages a book trades it by fixed rules rather than by guesswork: a holding that drifts too far from its target weight is traded back, a winner that grows too large is trimmed, a cash buffer is kept, and a trade too small or too costly to be worth it is skipped. You can edit every one of those rules.

The limits you set

A new agent that trades opens with these limits already filled in. You can raise, lower or remove each one on the Start card before it runs, and change them later. A limit you state in words (“$500 a month”, “$50 an order”) wins over the default.

An agent that copies a person, a strategy or a basket starts at $1,000 a month, $500 an order, 10% per position and 10 orders a day, which you can change. The server checks every order against these limits when the agent prepares it, when you approve it and again just before it is placed.

Approve each trade, or automatic inside your limits

Every agent has one of three modes, and you pick it on the Start card:

• Tell me only. It reports what it found. You trade yourself.
• I approve each batch. It prepares the orders and sends you a push notification and a text. Tap Approve, or reply YES to the text, and that exact batch is placed. Nothing trades without you. See Trade by text.
• Trade automatically within my limits. It places orders inside your limits and tells you after, with what it did, why, and links to undo or pause. An order outside any limit is not placed automatically: it comes to you to approve, with the limit it would pass named in plain words.

Any agent can run on practice money first. A practice account fills at live quotes, so the agent builds a real record from the day it starts without risking money. When you move it to a real account, you agree to the automated-trading terms once and press Start: one deliberate click on the web.

When an agent can’t act, it tells you why

An agent never goes quiet. When it cannot do what it planned, it sends one plain notice with the reason and what happens next:

• Over a limit. “Not placed” with the limit named, and the order sent to you to approve.
• Past its loss stop. It says how far down it is, keeps selling and stops buying until you raise or remove the stop.
• Out of AI budget for the day. “It runs again tomorrow.”
• Out of AI budget for the period. It pauses and says when it resumes. Raise the budget and it resumes at once.
• No reliable price. It places nothing, waits and tries again.
• Not tradable in this account. It says so in plain words, for example when your account does not trade crypto, options or currencies.

If a server restarts in the middle of a run, the run picks up at its next step on another server. Pause stops an agent placing anything until you resume it, and End stops it for good while keeping its record.

What it can trade

An Idea to trade book can reach every asset class your idea points to, and shows all eight sleeves, each holding positions or saying in one line why it holds none:

• stocks;
• ETFs;
• options, single legs and vertical spreads, where your account’s options level allows them;
• bonds and interest rates, through bond and rate funds;
• currencies;
• commodities, such as oil, gas, metals and grains;
• crypto;
• prediction markets, on practice money.

Shorts are used as hedges, never as the main bet, and stay a small part of the book unless you ask for shorts. Your account decides what can be placed: an agent trades crypto, options or currencies where your account trades them.

Safety by design

• Your money stays at your broker. Volaren places orders in your own brokerage account. Your cash and holdings stay there.
• Limits on every agent. The server checks every order against the limits on the agent’s card before it goes out.
• A confirm for real money. An order you place yourself is confirmed with one click. A real-money agent starts only after you agree to the automated-trading terms and press Start.
• A record of everything. Every order is recorded before it is sent, with the reason for it. Every run leaves a report with what it did, why and what it cost.

Compared with a robo-advisor and with doing it yourself

Examples of AI agents

How it works

1. Connect your brokerage accounts, or start on a practice account.
2. Describe the job to Copilot, or press Make this an AI agent under a book, a backtest, a person or a news story.
3. Read the draft card: the goal, what it watches, when it runs, the mode and the limits. Change anything.
4. Pick an account: practice money or a real brokerage account.
5. Press Start. A scheduled agent runs once straight away, then on its schedule; an event agent waits for its event.
6. Approve its trades, or let it trade inside your limits. Every run leaves a report and every order leaves a record.
7. Pause, change or end it at any time.

Questions