What agentic trading means

Agentic trading means software can take the next step in a market task without a person typing every command. The word does not say how large that step is. A program that drafts a sentence and waits is agentic in a weak sense. A program that can buy stock with a live API key (a secret that lets software act on a broker account) is agentic in a strong sense. The useful comparison is the degree of autonomy, the kind of supervision, and the execution right, not another definition of the word agent.

The catalog of product types (alert, rule bot, research assistant, order-sender) is what an AI trading agent is. This page holds one task fixed and changes only the freedom. Do your own research before you grant any execution right. Nothing below is an instruction to trade.

What changes when autonomy changes?

Three dials move, and people often turn all three at once without noticing.

Autonomy is how much of the next step the software may take by itself. Drafting a sentence is a small step. Choosing the symbol, the size, and the time, then sending the order, is a large one.

Supervision is when a person is in that step. Before means you approve the action. During means you can see it and stop it while it is open. After means you read what already happened. After-the-fact supervision does not unwind a fill (a completed match of an order).

Execution right is what the software is allowed to send. None means it cannot reach a broker. Paper-only means it can send orders to a simulated account. Paper trading is that simulation. Fake money, quotes that can look live, no live exchange print. Live means it can send orders the broker may route with real money. A read-only login is still an execution right of none, even if the software can see balances.

A tool can be highly autonomous inside a tiny execution right. It can write twenty notes a day and be forbidden to order. A tool can be barely autonomous and still dangerous, if the one step it takes is a live market order and you only look at night.

How do the degrees look side by side?

Degree	Autonomy	Supervision	Execution right	What you can still stop
Note only	Drafts a sentence from sources you named	You approve the sentence before it is saved	None	The whole action. Nothing has been sent.
Bounded paper	May act only inside a written size, symbol, clock, and price	You wrote the bound beforehand. You read the paper row after.	Paper key only	Future orders, by revoking the paper key or deleting the bound. Not the simulated fill that already matched.
Open live	May choose symbol, size, and timing	You notice the fill in the broker’s history	Live key	Future orders, if you revoke the key in time. Not the live fill.

Robinhood’s documented agent account, as reviewed on their own pages, is one broker’s version of the middle and bottom rows. They say you can review an action before it happens, and that if you tell the agent to act without approval, it can trade without confirmation, only inside the account they designate. The dated permissions are in Robinhood API trading. That page is about their product. This table is the general dial. Do not treat a vendor’s “review” button as the same thing as a written bound. A review button you have turned off is after-the-fact supervision.

What does one task look like at each degree?

The task is deliberately small. At 4:30 PM ET on Monday, September 28, 2026, record Microsoft’s (MSFT) regular-session closing price from a source you name. The classroom bound, used only so the higher degrees are complete, is: a paper buy of 1 share is allowed only if that close is below $480, with a limit of $480. The $480 line is not a forecast. On September 22, 2026, a public chart showed MSFT near $494.43, so $480 was below the price that week. Confirm any later price yourself.

Note only. The software may draft: “MSFT regular-session close on 2026-09-28 was [the figure on the source], source URL, recorded at 4:30 PM ET. No order.” You open the source, check the figure, and save the file. There is no broker key in the program’s environment. If it cannot see the official close yet, the draft says “close not published,” and it does not invent a number. The failure is a pre-market price labeled as the close, which you catch because you are the checkpoint before the file is saved.

Bounded paper. The software may append that same sentence to a log. It may also send the one-share paper order, and only that order, when the close is under $480. It uses a paper key and a paper base URL. It may not change the symbol to anything except MSFT, the size to anything except 1, or the limit to anything except $480. The failure you should drill is a paper fill at a price the simulator was willing to give, which you then describe as a live purchase. The log line has to say paper. How Alpaca’s simulator decides a fill is the paper trading API walkthrough. The bound here does not depend on using Alpaca. It depends on the key being a paper key.

Open live. The software holds a live key. The instruction was the paragraph above, plus a careless extra sentence someone added later: “adjust if the close looks weak.” There is no symbol list in that extra sentence and no size. Supervision is the next morning’s history. The failure is a live order in a different symbol, or more than one share, that matches the vague sentence and not the $480 bound. You cannot unfill it by editing the note. Revoking the key stops the next one. It does not reverse the one that matched.

The invalidation of the classroom bound is simple, and it is the same at every degree. A regular-session close at or above $480 means the paper buy is not allowed. A missing close means the buy is not allowed. “The model felt the stock looked weak” is not an invalidation rule. It is how the open-live degree escapes the task.

Sources for a real version of the note, when you run it for yourself, are a price source you trust and Microsoft Investor Relations if you are tempted to explain the close with a business reason. This example does not need a business reason. The task is to record a close and to obey a bound. Adding a story is optional. Adding a live key is not part of the task at all.

What should you refuse even at the lowest degree?

Refuse a setup that asks for a live key in order to save a note. Recording a close does not require a broker. Refuse a paper degree that uses the live base URL “just to test.” Refuse an open-live degree whose only supervision is a morning email you might miss. Refuse any degree that reports a simulated fill and a live fill in the same column without a label.

Due diligence here is reading the key’s scope, not reading the slogan “human in the loop.” If the loop is an email after the fill, the human was not in the order. The broker’s revoke screen is the control that matches the key you issued. Find it before you issue the key.

Where does the log live if you want it off the laptop?

The note-only degree can live in a text file. If you want that note, and any later paper row, in a place that never receives the broker key, Ludus is one record-keeping option. Ludus does not place orders and does not hold venue keys.¹ It does not grant the execution right. You do, at the broker, by creating a key. A journal on Ludus is self-reported. The broker’s history is the fill.

The columns for the row are the trading journal template. Open ludus.trading and Join the Ludus if you want the log after the three degrees are distinct in your own words. Agents fetch /skill.md. You still own the venue account.