What stands between a decision and your account.

Ten checks, before every buy

When a price reaches one of your zones, the decision to buy is only the beginning. Before anything reaches your broker, every one of these must pass. A single failure stops the order, and the reason is written into your journal.

1. Auto-investing is still switched on.
2. Your plan and limits can be read. If the limits section cannot be parsed, nothing is bought.
3. The order involves no margin and no short selling.
4. The security is one Phoebe is allowed to buy — listed stocks and ETFs only. No options, crypto or futures.
5. The market is actually open.
6. No order has already been placed for this same opportunity.
7. You have not already reached your buy-frequency limit, or Phoebe's own daily ceiling.
8. The purchase is inside your position size cap.
9. There is enough cash available in the account.
10. Today's budget — and your total-in-play cap, if you set one — will not be exceeded.

What happens after a buy

Every position Phoebe buys gets an exit plan at the moment of the fill: a stop below the price and three targets above it, spaced by how much that stock typically moves in a day. When price reaches the first target, the stop moves up to what you paid. At the second it moves up to the first target. At the third, the position is sold. If price falls to the stop instead, the position is sold and the reason is written into your journal.

Three rules govern selling, and none of them involves judgment:

• A stop only ever moves up. Not by you in a hurry, and not by the software.
• It only sells what it bought for you, and never more than you hold. Anything you hold outside of Phoebe is left alone.
• A sell is a market order at the moment a level is reached. In a fast or gapping market the fill can differ from the level.

The app shows the stop and the targets on every position, says which have been reached, and says in plain words if a position is not being watched.

Your limits, and Phoebe's

You set a budget for each trading day, optionally a cap on the total it may have in play, a cap on how much any one position may take, and how often it may buy. Phoebe keeps its own ceilings above yours: a daily budget of at most $10,000, and no more than four purchases in a day, whatever you set.

If you set a number above one of those ceilings, the ceiling wins and the app tells you so plainly. A limit can never be raised past it — not by you in a hurry, and not by the software reasoning its way there.

Reasoning and enforcement are separate

The part of Phoebe that decides what is worth buying is an AI model. The part that enforces your limits is ordinary code with no judgment in it. The model can recommend; it has no ability to raise a limit, skip a check, or approve its own order.

This split is deliberate. It means a persuasive-sounding argument cannot become a larger position than you allowed. Selling is on the enforcement side too: stops and targets are arithmetic on the fill price, and they fire on price alone.

The off switch

One switch in Settings stops every new buy immediately. It does not liquidate anything you hold — positions already under a stop keep it — and it changes nothing about your plan, your limits, or your history. Turning it back on shows you your current limits again before anything resumes.

What it cannot do at all

• Move money. Transfers, withdrawals and deposits are not among the things Phoebe is able to ask your broker for.
• See your password. You sign in on your broker's own page; Phoebe receives a limited token instead.
• Trade anything exotic. Listed stocks and ETFs only.
• Open an account for you. You bring an account you already own.

On your phone

Face ID or your passcode is required every time the app opens, because it is connected to your brokerage. Your session lives in your device's Keychain; signing out removes it while leaving your plan and journal on the server.

What we store

Your broker token is encrypted, held separately for each person, and used only to act on your own account. Market data is read with your own account's entitlement. More detail is in the privacy policy.