---
title: "Strategy type"
description: "Strategy type is the shape you pick when creating a strategy — Single instrument, Multiple instruments, Screener, or Full setup — which decides its build steps."
canonical_url: "https://fincanva.com/docs/getting-started/strategy-type"
last_updated: "2026-08-22"
md_url: "https://fincanva.com/docs/getting-started/strategy-type.md"
---

# Strategy type

Strategy type is the shape you pick when you create a strategy — **Single instrument**, **Multiple instruments**, **Screener**, or **Full setup**. It decides which build steps you walk through and what the strategy must contain before it can be backtested; it never changes how a [backtest](/docs/getting-started/backtest) is computed. There are exactly these four types, and you can change a strategy's type later.

## What are the four strategy types?

Each type describes *what you are building*, and each carries a content requirement the app enforces before you can continue:

| Strategy type | Described in the app as | Must contain |
|---|---|---|
| Single instrument | "Trade a single instrument." | exactly 1 instrument |
| Multiple instruments | "A basket of instruments you choose." | 2 or more instruments |
| Screener | "Let a screener pick the instruments." | at least 1 screener |
| Full setup | "Every setting, built from scratch." | no count requirement |

If the content does not match the type, the app blocks you and says which way to fix it: "Pick exactly 1 instrument.", "Pick 2 or more instruments.", or "Add at least 1 screener." The message offers **Change strategy type** as the alternative to changing the content.

**Full setup** is the only type with no content requirement, because it exposes every setting rather than trimming the build to a shape.

## Can you change a strategy's type later?

Yes, and it works the same way wherever you do it. The **Strategy type** row in **All at once** and the type picker in the walk-through both open the same four tiles and switch the strategy to another type, after the same confirmation spelling out the consequence. The tiles are the same four you saw at creation, but the line above them is not: when you are changing an existing strategy's type it reads "Changing the type is not a conversion — the sections the new type has no place for are reset. You'll see exactly what changes before it happens." The confirmation then spells out what the switch changes:

- Any section you had configured that the new type does not require is reset to its defaults. The type is one setting for the whole strategy, so on a [Combined](/docs/getting-started/combined) that reset lands on every strategy inside it, not only the one you were editing — the confirmation says so, and the sections it lists are the ones configured anywhere in the Combined.
- If the new type's Asset selection surface cannot hold what you have already selected, it says how much will go — for example "5 selected instruments will be removed" when you switch a hand-picked basket to **Screener**.
- If your setup needs more than the new type offers, it says that instead: nothing further is removed, and the strategy keeps showing as the wider type.
- It says how the switch moves your walk through [Step by step](/docs/getting-started/step-by-step), because each type requires a different set of steps. Steps that join the walk have not been reviewed yet, so a walk you had finished stops being complete — "You had reviewed every step. 2 steps you have not reviewed join the guided build, so it is no longer complete." — while a switch that takes the unreviewed steps out of the walk can leave nothing to review. In **Step by step** the backtest opens only once every required step has been reviewed, so it is that walk the movement changes. Nothing you already reviewed is discarded: each step keeps its mark, so switching back costs you no progress.

Nothing is removed until you save — switching back before saving keeps everything.

The strategy type shapes what a strategy can hold, not only which steps you see: each type offers exactly one Asset selection surface — a basket you pick, or a screener that picks for you — and only **Full setup** offers all of them. That is why narrowing to **Screener** drops a hand-picked basket: a Screener strategy builds its selection from rules, so it has nowhere to keep one.

Fincanva never trims your setup just to make a narrower type fit. Two Include screeners will not survive as a **Screener** strategy, and five instruments will not survive as **Single instrument** — so rather than delete the extras, the strategy stays as the wider type and keeps everything. The confirmation tells you which type that will be before you commit. For how each type reshapes the walk-through, see [Choosing a strategy type](/docs/strategies/choosing-a-strategy-type).

## Defaults in Fincanva

- You pick the type at creation, under the question "How do you want to build this strategy?", and there the picker's subheading reads: "You can change anything later — this just shapes the next few steps." That reassurance belongs to creation alone — the same four tiles, opened to change an existing strategy's type, say something different.
- The type shows as a **Strategy type** column value in your strategies list. A [Combined](/docs/getting-started/combined) is not one of the four — it displays as **Combined** in that column instead.
- The type does not change what a backtest computes, and it hides no *section*: in [All at once](/docs/getting-started/all-at-once) every section is either required by your type or offered as an optional add-on, whichever type you started from.
- What the type does constrain is the Asset selection surface. **Compose** and its **Include**/**Exclude** screener pools exist only on **Full setup**, and [max positions](/docs/strategies/max-positions) is not a control anywhere you pick instruments by hand — on Single instrument, on Multiple instruments and on Full setup's **Basket** surface it is simply the number you picked.

## Worked example

You have a list of five stocks and you want to see how holding all five would have done. That is the **Multiple instruments** type: it wants 2 or more instruments, so five qualifies, and it gives you the Allocation step you need to decide how capital is split across them. Picking **Single instrument** instead would block you at Asset selection with "Pick exactly 1 instrument.", because that type holds exactly one.

If you later replace your hand-picked five with a screener that chooses the holdings each period, switch the type to **Screener** — it requires at least 1 screener, and your fixed basket is no longer what defines the strategy. The confirmation warns that those five instruments will be removed, because a Screener strategy has no basket to keep them in. They are still there until you save, so you can back out.