Holly is the AI signal engine inside Trade Ideas Premium, and it is a rules-based system, not a chatbot. Every night it backtests a library of more than 60 proprietary long and short strategies, keeps only the ones with the best statistical odds for the next session, and then fires 5 to 25 intraday trade signals the following day, each with an entry, a stop, and a target.
This guide is for two readers: Premium subscribers who want to know what every Holly window and setting actually does, and traders deciding whether the AI justifies the Premium price before they pay it. The prerequisite is the Premium tier ($254 a month billed monthly, or $178 a month on the annual plan, per the trade-ideas.com pricing page verified in June 2026). Holly is not included on Basic or the free plan. If you don’t own the software yet, start with our Trade Ideas review and come back.
What Holly is, and what it isn’t
Trade Ideas describes Holly in its own materials as a sophisticated, rules-based AI system that scans U.S. stocks in real time. The pricing page labels the feature “1st Gen AI Signals (Holly)”. Both labels are worth taking literally. Holly executes a fixed playbook of algorithmic strategies at machine speed. It does not read your chart, answer questions, or generate anything on the fly. If you’re expecting something conversational in the style of modern AI trading tools, recalibrate: Holly is closer to a quant desk’s automated strategy book than to a chat assistant.
What it does within that scope is well documented. Per the official Holly AI user guide:
Holly’s signals include an entry price, a stop, and a target. You watch it enter and exit in real time, and its running success rate is visible in the software.
It usually takes 5 to 25 trades per day. It is strictly an intraday trader and does not hold positions overnight.
It trades only its own algorithms. The parameters are proprietary and cannot be customized. You can size the trades to your account, but you cannot edit the strategies.
The nightly cycle: how Holly picks tomorrow’s strategies
The core of the system runs while the market is closed. According to the official guide, Holly backtests all of its 60-plus strategies every night, then optimizes each one parameter by parameter. The documentation gives a concrete example: if stocks over $20 perform poorly inside a given strategy, Holly removes that price range and reruns the test to check whether performance improves. It repeats that loop across every parameter until the strategy tests optimally, then weighs what the overall market is doing.
At the end of the night, only the strategies with the highest statistical chance of producing profitable trades make the cut for the next session. Those survivors are what you see listed in the AI Strategy Window the next morning. Some days that’s a long-heavy lineup, some days it’s mostly shorts. The mix is the output of the backtest, not a market opinion anyone at the firm typed in.
One honest caveat the marketing won’t volunteer but the logic demands: nightly optimization on recent data means Holly is always fitted to the market that just happened. When conditions flip hard intraday, in a way the prior nights’ data didn’t contain, the day’s selected strategies were tuned for a different tape. The stop on every signal exists precisely because the statistical edge is a tendency, not a promise.
The strategy library: 60+ playbooks, none of them yours to edit
The official strategy list reads like a tour of momentum trading. A few representative entries, straight from the documentation:
| Strategy | Side | What triggers it (per official docs) |
|---|---|---|
| Breakout | Long | Cross above resistance on above-normal relative volume, stocks $10–$150, 125k+ shares already traded |
| Mighty Mouse | Long | Stocks $0.50 to $5 crossing above resistance, up on the day, at least 15 minutes after the open |
| Float On | Long | Cross above short-term resistance on low-float names under 20 million shares, with S&P strength filters |
| Bon Shorty | Short | Breakdown of resistance on stocks $15–$85 that are down on the day, with an S&P filter |
| Downward Momentum | Short | Downward break of the opening 30-minute range, stocks $20–$100, S&P negative in the last 15 minutes |
| Power Hour Long / Short | Both | Relative strength or weakness plays active only in the final hour |
| Horseshoe Up / Down | Both | Gap fill attempts that reclaim (long) or lose (short) the opening gap’s edge |
Notice the pattern in the price filters: a large share of the library lives under $20, and several strategies hunt low-float names specifically. That’s where the volatility is, which is why these setups backtest well. It’s also where spreads are widest and fills are worst, which matters in a minute.
Trade Ideas states plainly that the parameters are proprietary and cannot be customized, and that the exact number of strategies may vary over time as new algorithms are introduced. You consume this library as-is. The documented Neo-family algorithms extend it toward high-volume stocks currently in the news, entering early in the direction of the trend.
Where Holly lives in the platform
Two windows do most of the work, and both are reachable from the Toolbar under New, as well as through the Trade Ideas AI Channel:
The AI Strategy Window lists the strategies Holly selected overnight for the current session. Check it premarket to see what kind of day the backtest is expecting.
The AI Strategy Trades Window shows every trade Holly enters during the day, live. When a new trade fires, the entire entry row flashes. This is the window you actually trade from.
Two more are worth knowing. The History feature (right-click inside the AI Strategy Trades Window, then choose Signals in the Money, Signals out of the Money, or All) ranks Holly’s past trades by long-term profit percentage over any date range you pick, and the rows copy straight into a spreadsheet with Ctrl+A, Ctrl+C. The Premium AI Longterm Strategy Trades Window (Toolbar, File tab) tracks past signals that are still working after the close: longs making new highs or going red-to-green, shorts making new lows or going green-to-red. Holly itself exits everything by the end of each day; this window just shows you which catalysts kept running.
Three ways to trade Holly’s signals
The official guide documents three workflows. Pick based on your broker and how much control you want.
- Hands-on, at any broker. Watch the AI Strategy Trades Window, set up sound alerts so a new entry pings you, then place the order manually in your own brokerage account. Enter Holly’s share size, stop, and target by hand if you like the setup. The guide itself notes you shouldn’t expect Holly’s exact entry price and that most of its trades are not built to last only seconds; you’re allowed to scale out or exit on your own schedule.
- One-click through Brokerage Plus. Right-click a chart or a row in the AI Strategy Trades Window, select Trade XYZ, and pick a preset order template. Orders route to participating brokers or to the built-in simulator; the Holly guide provides connection tutorials for Interactive Brokers, E*TRADE, and the simulator. Executed positions land in the Positions tab, where you can adjust stops and targets or flatten.
- Simulated first. The same Brokerage Plus workflow connects to the real-time simulator with one click from the Toolbar. Given that most day traders lose money, running Holly in the simulator for a few weeks before risking capital is the cheapest education the subscription offers. The pricing table also lists auto trading as a Premium feature for traders who eventually want orders sent without the click.
Risk modes: the setting that changes everything you see
This is the part most coverage of Holly skips, and it’s the part that decides whether the performance numbers you’re looking at mean anything. Every AI window displays profit and loss based on the Holly Risk Mode you’ve selected, and the three modes are not minor variations:
Aggressive mode places no stop at all. The official documentation states this mode is not recommended for live trading and is for presentation purposes only. Treat any Holly P&L screenshot in aggressive mode accordingly: it’s a demo setting, not a trading plan.
Moderate mode uses two exit reasons: stop hit and timed exit.
Conservative mode uses five: stop hit, target hit, profit save (a trailing stop), reduce risk (exit on unexpected price action), and timed exit.
The practical rule that falls out of this: evaluate Holly in the mode you’d actually trade. The same day’s signals can show meaningfully different results across the three columns, and only moderate and conservative describe a survivable approach. The software shows all three P&L columns side by side in the trades window, so the comparison costs you nothing.
Position sizing: dollars, shares, or risk
By default, every displayed P&L figure assumes 100 shares per trade. You change that under Toolbar, Tools, Options, AI Trade Size, with three methods:
Dollars: enter $2,000 and Holly sizes 100 shares of a $20 stock or 50 shares of a $40 stock.
Shares: a fixed share count per trade.
Risk: the one that matches how disciplined traders actually size. The documentation’s own example: choose to risk $100, and if Holly’s algorithmic stop sits $0.20 from entry, the position is 500 shares. A wider $0.50 stop on the same $100 risk would mean 200 shares. Same dollar risk per trade, every trade, regardless of the stock.
Set this to your real numbers before you judge any historical P&L, because the displayed results scale with it. If you’d risk $50 a trade on a $5k account, the headline numbers at the 100-share default describe someone else’s account. Our position size calculator does the same math for your manual trades.
The crowding problem nobody prices in
Here’s the structural issue, derived from facts Trade Ideas itself documents. Holly’s signals go to every Premium subscriber in real time, simultaneously. A large share of the strategy library targets stocks under $20, and some strategies specifically scan floats under 20 million shares. Thin, cheap, fast stocks plus a synchronized audience reacting to the same alert means the model’s printed entry price and your fill are not the same number.
Run the math on a typical signal. Say Holly goes long at $3.00 with a stop at $2.90 and a target at $3.20: ten cents of risk for twenty cents of reward, a clean two-to-one. You react fast but get filled at $3.04 because the bid-ask spread widened the moment the row flashed and you’re queueing behind other subscribers. Your risk is now 14 cents, your reward 16 cents, and the trade is roughly 1.1-to-one. Same signal, four cents later, half the trade. On thicker names above $20 with tight spreads this effect shrinks toward irrelevant; on a Mighty Mouse signal in a $2 stock it can be the whole edge. The fix is behavioral, not technical: treat Holly’s entries as setups to evaluate, skip the chase when price has already run past the signal, and weight your attention toward the higher-priced, more liquid strategies if slippage keeps eating your results.
What Holly costs, in practice
Holly requires the Premium tier: $254 a month billed monthly, $2,136 a year ($178 a month) on annual billing, verified against the official pricing page in June 2026. Premium is also where backtesting, auto trading, Smart Risk Levels, and the RBI/GBI window live; Basic ($127 monthly or $89 a month annually) buys the scanner and charts without any of the AI signals. One platform fact to check before subscribing: the software is built for Windows, and the pricing page directs Mac users to run it through Parallels Desktop or a cloud service like AWS. The full tier math, including what each plan does and doesn’t include, is in our Trade Ideas pricing breakdown.
Troubleshooting
Can’t find the Holly windows: both the AI Strategy Window and the AI Strategy Trades Window are under New in the Toolbar, and also in the Trade Ideas AI Channel. The long-term window is separate: Toolbar, File tab, Premium AI Longterm Strategy Trades Window. If none of them appear, confirm your subscription is Premium; Basic accounts don’t get them.
P&L numbers look nothing like reviews you’ve read: check the risk mode and the AI Trade Size setting first. A screenshot in aggressive mode at 100 shares is not comparable to your conservative mode at $50 risk per trade.
Missed Holly’s entry price: expected, per the section above. The official guide’s own advice is not to get discouraged about missing the exact entry, since most trades aren’t built to last seconds. Evaluate whether the setup is still valid at the current price; if the risk-reward has collapsed, skip it. There’s always another signal.
Want Holly to trade a specific watchlist or setup: it can’t. The strategies and parameters are proprietary and fixed. If you want signals from your own scan logic, that’s a job for the platform’s regular alert windows and the backtester, covered in our OddsMaker backtesting guide.
Next step
If you own Premium, the logical next read is how to use Trade Ideas, which covers building the rest of your layout around the Holly windows. If you’re still deciding, our full Trade Ideas review scores the whole platform, including where Holly genuinely earns its keep and who should skip it.
FAQ
Is Holly AI worth the Premium price?
For a full-time momentum trader who’s at the screen every open, $178 a month annualized buys a tireless signal generator with visible stops, targets, and a trade-by-trade history you can audit yourself. For anyone trading a few times a week, $2,136 a year is hard to justify for signals you’ll mostly miss. The honest test: run it in the simulator at your real risk size for a month and let your own fill quality, not the model’s printed P&L, make the decision.
Can Holly trade automatically for me?
The Premium tier lists auto trading on the official feature table, and Brokerage Plus can route Holly’s trades to participating brokers or the built-in simulator. The workflows documented step by step in the official Holly guide are hands-on monitoring and one-click execution from the chart or the trades window, with connection tutorials for Interactive Brokers, E*TRADE, and the simulator.
Does Holly work on a Mac?
The software is designed for Windows. The official pricing page tells Mac users to run it through virtualization such as Parallels Desktop or a cloud service like AWS. That works, but it’s an extra layer to maintain on a tool you’d be relying on in real time.
How many trades does Holly take per day?
Usually between 5 and 25, per the official documentation. It enters and exits intraday only and holds nothing overnight, though a separate long-term window tracks which past signals are still running in the right direction across multiple days.
Can I customize Holly’s strategies?
No. Trade Ideas states the parameters are proprietary and cannot be customized. What you control is execution: risk mode, position sizing by dollars, shares, or risk, and which signals you choose to take.
Is there a free trial that includes Holly?
Holly is excluded from both the free plan and the Basic tier, so there’s no zero-cost way to trade it live. The current low-cost ways to test the software, and what each includes, are covered in our Trade Ideas free trial guide.