From download to desk.

Getting started

SwiftTrade is a market workstation: a trading terminal with charts, order books and an order ticket, a paper broker, a risk engine, a trading bot you control, and a market-intelligence desk that collects and sources world and market reporting.

1. Install the desktop app (Installation) or open the terminal in the browser on your SwiftTrade server.
2. On first launch the setup wizard asks for an account (optional), your theme, market data, broker, trading preferences and what to watch. Every step after the first can be skipped — run it again any time at /setup/ or from the desktop app's Help menu.
3. The terminal opens. Press Ctrl+K to search instruments, panels and commands; the ⚙ menu holds theme, density and layout.

Everything starts in paper trading: orders fill against a simulated broker. Nothing you do in the first minutes can move real money.

Installation

Windows 10 or 11 (64-bit). Download SwiftTrade-Setup from the download page and run it. It installs for your user only (no administrator rights needed), creates Start-menu and desktop shortcuts, and can be removed in Settings → Apps.

The installer contains SwiftTrade itself — the engine and its own private Python. You do not need Python, Node.js, a terminal window or a server. Your data lives in %APPDATA%\SwiftTrade\engine and is kept when you uninstall (delete that folder to remove it).

Windows SmartScreen: until the installer is code-signed, Windows may show “Windows protected your PC”. Choose More info → Run anyway only if you downloaded it from your own SwiftTrade site, and compare its SHA-256 with the value on the download page.

Without installing: download the .zip, unzip it to a folder you own and run SwiftTrade.exe.

Account

An account keeps workspaces, watchlists and preferences, and enables two-factor sign-in. On the desktop app the account lives in the engine on your computer; on a server it lives on that server.

• Create an account or sign in. On your own computer you can also work without an account as the local operator.
• Two-factor authentication (an authenticator app) and recovery codes are under Account → Security.
• Passwords are never shown or logged, and the desktop app never stores them.

Market data

Every price says where it comes from:

• SIM — the built-in simulator: 14 instruments with a full order book. Always available, never real prices.
• LIVE / DELAYED / STALE — a real feed, by its measured age. Stale prices are never used as live marks.
• Live crypto — BTC, ETH and SOL trades and order books from Binance's public market-data stream (no account or key). On the desktop app you switch it in the setup wizard; on a server the operator decides.
• Other markets need a licensed data vendor or your broker, connected by configuration (see docs/PRODUCTION.md).

The status bar's DATA item and the Data health panel show every feed, its latency and its last error.

Broker connections — paper and live

SwiftTrade never places a live order because of a signal or a news item, and never reports a fill the broker did not confirm. Brokers marked “coming soon” are not connected yet.

The terminal

• Desks (top bar, the preset menu): Overview, Trading, Order flow, Quant, Risk, Intelligence and more. + PANEL adds any window; windows move, resize, pin, pop out to another monitor and dock.
• Search and commands: Ctrl+K. Function keys open panels (F3 chart, F4 positions, F11 intelligence map).
• Workspaces: save the current layout under a name (preset menu → My workspaces) — to your account when signed in.
• Status: connection, UTC clock, P&L and latency in the top bar; feeds, bot, risk and data health in the status bar.
• Order confirmation: every order asks for confirmation before it is sent — on by default; turn it off in the setup wizard (Trading preferences).

Watchlists

The instrument watchlist (F1) lists what the server knows with live quotes; click a row to make it the active instrument for every linked panel. The intelligence watchlist (Intelligence Desk → ☆) holds regions, countries and topics — Ukraine, Red Sea, Oil — and puts matching reporting first.

Charts

Six chart types, timeframes from 1 minute to 1 month, indicators (SMA, VWAP, Bollinger, RSI, MACD, stochastic), comparisons, drawing tools, strategy plans with entry, stop and target, and a replay mode. Drag to pan, scroll to zoom, double-click to reset. Drawings and settings are kept per instrument.

Market intelligence — facts, analysis, speculation

SwiftTrade collects reporting from official and open sources (central banks, regulators, UN agencies, USGS, NASA, GDACS, GDELT and configured media), removes duplicates, groups reports into events, weighs source reliability and flags contradictions. Every item keeps three things apart:

• FACT what the sources report — with every source listed, its publication time and a link.
• ANALYSIS what SwiftTrade's rules infer (topic, location, market relevance), with the rule shown.
• SPECULATION a source's own expectation, quoted — never presented as fact.

Status labels: CONFIRMED (an official or primary source), REPORTED (two or more independent sources), UNCONFIRMED (a single source), CONTESTED (sources disagree). News never becomes a buy or sell order by itself.

Intelligence map and desk

Open the Intelligence desk (preset menu) or press F11. The map zooms from the world to a city: scroll or pinch to zoom toward the pointer, drag to pan, double-click to zoom in, use + − ⌂ ◎, or the keyboard (+, −, 0, arrows). Search for a country, city, sea, port, airport or event — the map flies there and the desk filters to it.

• Markers: shape and colour by category; filled = reported by two or more sources or confirmed; hollow = a single source; a dashed ring = located only to a country.
• Clusters show how many events are in an area; click to zoom in. Conflict zones shade countries named in several conflict reports — a measure of reporting, not a map of front lines.
• Layers: event layers (conflict, military, elections, earthquakes…) and reference layers from real datasets (exchanges, ports, air bases, straits). A layer without a dataset says so.
• Google base maps (street, satellite, terrain) appear when the operator configures a Maps key.
• The desk's tabs split the feed (Live, Geopolitics, Conflicts, Markets, Economy, Military, Energy, Infrastructure, Natural events, Watchlist); ALERTS sets what notifies you and how often.

Settings

Theme

Light, Dark or System — ☀ ◐ ◌ in the website header, the terminal's ⚙ menu, or the desktop app's View → Theme. One choice for all three.

Language

English. Other languages are not available yet.

Time zone

Market timestamps are shown in UTC everywhere so desks and logs agree.

Currency

The paper account is kept in USD; instruments keep their own quote currency.

Notifications

Intelligence alerts (Intelligence Desk → ALERTS); system notifications while SwiftTrade is in the background, if you allow them.

Trading preferences

Order confirmation (setup wizard); risk limits, kill switch and bot rules in the Risk centre and on the Bot page.

Troubleshooting

The desktop app shows “Starting…” for a long time

The first launch prepares the local database (a few seconds). If it stays, open Help → Engine log; another program may be using its port (the app then moves to a free one).

Prices say STALE or DISCONNECTED

Open the Data health panel (status bar → DATA) to see which feed is late. Live crypto needs internet access to Binance.

The intelligence desk says OFFLINE or DELAYED

No source has answered recently — usually no internet connection. Items already collected stay available.

“Windows protected your PC”

See Installation. Only run installers you downloaded from your own SwiftTrade site.

Something else

Support exports a diagnostics file (no secrets) you can attach to a report.