Symbol Mapping

When a signal says "Buy GOLD," your broker might call that exact instrument XAUUSD, XAUUSD-ECN, or GOLDSPOT — every broker names things differently. Symbol mapping is how TTMT figures out which of your broker's instruments a signal means, so the trade lands on the right thing. Most of the time it just works, but a few broker naming styles need one extra step, and this page shows you how to spot and fix that.

The problem in plain terms

A channel author writes one name — say GOLD. Your broker lists that instrument under a different name — say XAUUSD-ECN. If TTMT sent the order with the wrong name, the broker would reject it and nothing would trade.

Symbol mapping bridges that gap automatically. It runs per account, because each of your accounts may be on a different broker that names the same instrument differently.

How TTMT matches a symbol

TTMT tries four strategies in order until one finds your broker's name for the instrument:

1. Exact match — your broker has the name exactly as the signal wrote it.
2. Strip a suffix or prefix — many brokers decorate names (XAUUSD-ECN, EURUSDm, BTCUSD.r). TTMT strips known decorations and re-checks. The decorations it strips are -ECN, -RAW, .r, .raw, .ecn, and a trailing m, c, e, i, or pro. A bare trailing dot (XAUUSD.) is not auto-stripped — that's the case that needs Generate Aliases (covered below).
3. Alias group — the signal and your broker use entirely different names for the same instrument (GOLD ↔ XAUUSD, NAS100 ↔ USTEC). TTMT carries 20 alias groups, plus dedicated Gold and Bitcoin handling.
4. Normalized base — strip every non-alphanumeric character and compare the cores (EUR/USD ↔ EURUSD).

If all four fail, the symbol is unmapped and that signal can't trade. TTMT flags it (see Symbol health on your dashboard).

The alias groups

There are 20 alias groups, plus separate dedicated handling for Gold and Bitcoin:

Category	Groups
Indices (12)	NAS100, US30, SPX500, GER40, UK100, JP225, HK50, AUS200, FRA40, EUSTX50, CHINA50, CHINAH
Oil (2)	USOIL / WTI, UKOIL / Brent
Natural gas (1)	NATGAS
Metals (5)	XAGUSD (Silver), XPTUSD (Platinum), XPDUSD (Palladium), XALUSD (Aluminum), COPPER

Gold (XAUUSD / GOLD / GOLDSPOT / XAU) and Bitcoin (BTCUSD / BITCOIN / BTC) get their own dedicated auto-mapping rather than living in this list — so the full coverage is "20 alias groups + Gold + Bitcoin."

When your broker needs "Generate Aliases" (the convention gap)

Some brokers decorate every symbol with the same trailing mark — the clearest example is a trailing dot, so the broker lists EURCAD., XAUUSD., GBPUSD., and so on.

Here's the trap. When the account connects, discovery fills in mappings — but they come back as identity rows: XAUUSD. maps to XAUUSD., with no bare-name peer (XAUUSD mapping to XAUUSD.). A signal that uses the plain name XAUUSD then matches nothing, even though the account looks healthy with dozens of mappings.

What you see and what you do: the account card shows a Symbol Mapping badge reading "N symbols need aliases." Click it (or use the Generate Aliases button on the Symbols settings page) and TTMT writes the missing bare-name mappings. After that, signals resolve.

A "healthy" account can still trade nothing

A high mapping count is necessary but not sufficient. What matters is whether bare-name versions of your instruments exist. If the Symbol Mapping badge says "N need aliases," click Generate Aliases before assigning channels — otherwise signals can arrive and silently produce no trades.

The marquee example: Philip connected a broker that decorated every symbol with a trailing dot. After setup he had 86 mappings, the account read "healthy," signals arrived — and for 24 hours zero trades fired, because the bare-name peers were missing. Generate Aliases fixed it instantly. Without convention-gap detection surfacing the badge, there was nothing telling him the green account was actually inert.

Symbol health on your dashboard

Mapping problems surface in two places so you catch them before they cost you signals:

• The account card's Symbol Mapping row — reads "No symbols mapped," "N need aliases," or "N unmapped," depending on what's wrong.
• The Symbol Health Banner on the dashboard — appears when an account has mapping gaps, with a deep-link "fix this" button.

Clicking either lands you on the Symbols settings page with the failing symbol highlighted, so you go straight to the fix.

The Symbols settings page

At /dashboard/settings/symbols you'll find:

• A needs-attention section listing unmapped symbols with inline fixes.
• A fix card when you arrived via a "fix this" link from elsewhere, pointing at the specific symbol.
• A quick-map action to map one symbol fast.
• The full mappings list (collapsed by default), labeled auto-mapped vs manual.
• A broker-symbol browser to see exactly what your broker offers.
• A rediscover action to re-scan your broker.

This is the page you actually work in when something doesn't map.

Discovery and refresh

Discovery runs automatically the first time an account connects. It reads the full list of instruments your broker offers and seeds what TTMT matches signals against.

If your broker adds or removes instruments later, use Rediscover on the Symbols settings page to re-scan and pick up the changes.

Asset overrides (SL/TP defaults per asset class)

Asset overrides are not a settings layer. They set fallback stop-loss and take-profit pip defaults for an asset class, used only when a signal omits SL or TP. If a signal already includes its own levels, asset overrides don't apply.

The asset classes are Forex (major and minor), Metals, Indices, and Crypto. The intuition: a 30-pip stop is fine for EURUSD but absurdly tight for Gold, so each class can carry its own sensible fallback.

The deep settings for these live on their own page — see Per-asset overrides for the full configuration.

Common mapping issues

Situation	What it means	What you do
Unmapped	All four strategies found nothing for this symbol	Open the manual map flow on the Symbols page — this doesn't necessarily mean your broker lacks the instrument
Broker not supported	Your broker genuinely doesn't offer the instrument (e.g. crypto on a forex-only prop firm)	Expected, not a bug — don't assign channels that depend on it to this account
Stale mapping	A symbol that used to work now fails because the broker renamed or delisted it	Re-map it on the Symbols page
Needs aliases	Lots of mappings, but bare names are missing (convention gap)	Click Generate Aliases

For example, a crypto signal on a forex-only prop firm comes back as broker not supported — the channel keeps trading forex on that account and simply skips the crypto signal. And if your broker renames USTEC, a NAS100 signal that previously worked becomes a stale mapping until you re-map it.

Mapping is per account

The same instrument can map differently on each of your accounts, because each is on a different broker with different names. Check mapping per account, not once globally.

Ideal Settings & Trading Strategy

Scenario 1 — Demo on a clean major broker (capital preservation, low-touch)

• Setup: New user, demo account on a mainstream broker that uses plain or simply-suffixed names (EURUSDm, XAUUSD-ECN).
• Settings: Let auto-discovery and the four-strategy matcher do everything — no manual mappings needed. Leave asset overrides at their defaults; don't set per-asset SL/TP fallbacks until you actually meet a channel that omits SL/TP. After connecting, just glance at the account card.
• Why: Mainstream brokers map automatically. Touching asset overrides before you need them only adds variables you'll have to reason about later.
• Watch for: A channel that trades exotic indices your broker doesn't carry — that shows as broker not supported, which is expected, not a failure.
• Switch when: You connect a broker that uniformly decorates symbols (trailing dot) and see "N need aliases" → Scenario 2.

Scenario 2 — Convention-gap broker, going live (balanced, must verify)

• Setup: Trader connecting a live account on a broker that decorates every symbol uniformly (trailing-dot style).
• Settings: Right after connecting, expect a "N symbols need aliases" badge — click Generate Aliases before assigning any channel. Then verify a couple of expected instruments (Gold, your channel's main pairs) resolve on the Symbols settings page. If your channels sometimes omit SL/TP, set sensible Gold/metals fallbacks (wider than your forex default).
• Why: On these brokers, skipping Generate Aliases means signals silently don't trade despite a green-looking account — exactly Philip's 24 hours of nothing. Confirming before assigning channels means you don't lose live signals to a gap you couldn't see.
• Watch for: Instruments the broker adds later won't have aliases until you rediscover and regenerate.
• Switch when: You add a funded prop account on yet another broker → Scenario 3.

Scenario 3 — Prop-firm broker (rule-bound, strict verification)

• Setup: Funded prop-firm account on a broker with unusual suffixes and a restricted instrument set.
• Settings: Immediately after connecting, run discovery, check the Symbol Mapping badge, and Generate Aliases if prompted. Then manually verify that every instrument your assigned (low-drawdown) channels trade actually resolves — prop instrument lists are narrower than retail. Set conservative SL/TP fallbacks per asset class to match the tighter prop risk profile when a signal omits levels. Pair this with a per-account Risk Limit set under the firm's rule.
• Why: A prop account that silently can't trade a channel's main symbol wastes your challenge window, and a too-wide default SL on a signal that omitted levels can breach drawdown. Verify symbols and tighten the asset-class fallbacks.
• Watch for: Broker not supported on instruments the firm simply doesn't offer — don't assign channels that depend on them to this account.
• Switch when: The firm changes its instrument list or you re-challenge → rediscover and re-verify.

For the multi-account side of running prop accounts safely, see Multi-account management.

Related pages

• Connecting an account
• Per-asset overrides
• Multi-account management
• Account details
• Signal issues