Q: What do you need before you can create a Combined?

You need one strategy of your own before the Create new dialog will make you a Combined, and it checks before the Combined exists. One is enough: the Combined strategy tile creates the Combined and opens it, and you choose the strategies inside it. While you own none, the tile creates nothing — it opens a screen inside the Combined flow that reads "A Combined blends your own strategies — you have none yet. Create one to start." and offers a Create a strategy first button, which takes you on to the strategy-type tiles; a Back control on that step returns you to the screen you came from. The + in the strategy explorer's Combined section answers exactly the same way. The threshold is one rather than two because a Combined may hold a member you have not filled in yet: a single strategy's own Combine button has always started a Combined from it with the second member left empty, so a tile asking for two would refuse the same person that button serves. At zero the refusal stays, because a Combined with none of your strategies in it has nothing to blend. This is not the number a Combined needs to run: running still takes two member strategies (see why). Owning one lets you start a Combined, not backtest it. What counts is your own strategies that are not themselves Combineds. A Combined cannot be a member of another Combined, so one never counts.

Question 1

How does Fincanva handle it?

Accepted Answer

Combined strategies start at the Advanced plan. On Free and Starter the Combined tile is still shown and still clickable — pressing it answers with a plan wall naming the plan level you need, rather than creating anything; a Combined holds up to 5 strategies in use on Advanced, 10 on Ultimate and 20 on Professional — a strategy switched off inside it does not count, and no Combined holds more than 20 in total. Creating, copying or duplicating a Combined that would hold more strategies in use than your plan allows is refused with a message naming the plan that allows it — your own strategy included. An Advanced-or-above account can still be refused later, on the count, the same way any other creation is — see plan compliance. See what each plan includes. Two or more members are required to run. A one-member Combined is a valid saved object, just not a runnable one. A strategy joins as a snapshot copy taken when it is added, so later edits to the standalone original leave the copy inside untouched — see strategy in a Combined. The Combined carries its own rebalance, allocation, and risk settings at the Combined level, separate from every member's own. Combineds are listed under Strategies in the Combined section; you create one from the "Build a combined strategy" screen with Combine. A Combined is backtested and can be followed live exactly like any other strategy.

Question 2

Why does a Combined need at least two strategies?

Accepted Answer

A Combined needs at least two member strategies because its whole job is to split capital between strategies, which one member cannot do — with only one it is an Incomplete Combined and cannot run.

Question 3

What do you need before you can create a Combined?

Accepted Answer

You need one strategy of your own before the Create new dialog will make you a Combined, and it checks before the Combined exists. One is enough: the Combined strategy tile creates the Combined and opens it, and you choose the strategies inside it. While you own none, the tile creates nothing — it opens a screen inside the Combined flow that reads "A Combined blends your own strategies — you have none yet. Create one to start." and offers a Create a strategy first button, which takes you on to the strategy-type tiles; a Back control on that step returns you to the screen you came from. The + in the strategy explorer's Combined section answers exactly the same way.

The threshold is one rather than two because a Combined may hold a member you have not filled in yet: a single strategy's own Combine button has always started a Combined from it with the second member left empty, so a tile asking for two would refuse the same person that button serves. At zero the refusal stays, because a Combined with none of your strategies in it has nothing to blend.

This is not the number a Combined needs to run: running still takes two member strategies (see why). Owning one lets you start a Combined, not backtest it.

What counts is your own strategies that are not themselves Combineds. A Combined cannot be a member of another Combined, so one never counts.

Question 4

How is a Combined different from a strategy?

Accepted Answer

A Combined holds strategies; a plain strategy holds instruments. Both are strategies in the app's vocabulary, which is why they share one editor, one backtest, and one run status model. Where both levels appear together the whole is always called the Combined, and destructive actions say which level they mean: "Remove this strategy from the Combined" removes one member, while "Delete Combined" deletes the whole thing.

Question 5

What does it look like in practice?

Accepted Answer

You have two strategies: a momentum strategy on US large caps and a defensive strategy on bond ETPs. You combine them into one Combined with 50,000 of starting capital and Equal weights at the Combined level, so each member is handed 25,000. Inside the momentum strategy, its own allocation divides that 25,000 across the stocks it selected; inside the defensive strategy, its own allocation divides the other 25,000 across its ETPs. One backtest covers the whole thing, and the Combined's result is the two members' paths held side by side in one book.