Pausing Acubic Rebalancing Without Disconnecting

Key takeaways

• To pause automation, press Stop on the strategy. The confirmation box "Close all open trades on [your broker] at market price" is ticked by default: leave it ticked and every position is sold at market price.
• Untick that box to pause without selling: automatic rebalancing stops, your positions stay open and the broker connection stays linked.
• Disconnecting is different: it removes the stored credential, so reconnecting means repeating the connection setup.
• To resume, turn automation back on; the first rebalance afterwards trades only the drift that has built up.

To pause Acubic, you stop automation on the strategy. The Stop button opens a confirmation with one box that matters: "Close all open trades on [your broker] at market price". That box is ticked by default. Untick it and Stop pauses rebalancing while your positions stay open; leave it ticked and every position is sold at market price.

This article explains how to stop without selling, what stays in place while automation is stopped, when stopping makes more sense than disconnecting, and what to expect when you turn automation back on.

What pausing actually means in Acubic

Acubic has three modes on a connected broker account: Manual, where it shows a checklist of the trades needed to stay on target and places no orders; One-Click Approval, where each scheduled rebalance waits for your approval; and Full Automatic, where scheduled rebalances run without a per-order prompt. Whichever mode is running, pausing means stopping automation.

When you stop with the close box unticked, the strategy stops rebalancing and the broker connection stays linked. Your holdings stay where they are at the broker, and nothing trades until you turn automation back on.

For a full account of what each mode does and when each one fits, one-click versus full-auto rebalancing covers the decision from the beginning.

What stays in place after you press Stop

Stopping automation with the close box unticked keeps:

• Your positions. Every holding stays open at the broker, exactly as it was.
• The broker connection. The stored credential is not removed, so there is nothing to re-authorise when you resume.
• The strategy. Its target weights and settings stay attached, ready for the next run.

What stops is the rebalancing itself: no scheduled run prepares or sends orders while automation is stopped.

What does not happen while paused

With the close box unticked, nothing is sold and nothing is bought. Acubic does not liquidate positions and does not make decisions about your portfolio while automation is stopped. Prices keep moving, so the portfolio drifts from its targets, and that drift is what the first rebalance after you resume will address.

The one action that does sell is the default: if you confirm Stop with "Close all open trades" still ticked, every position in the strategy is closed at market price. Check the box before you confirm.

How to stop automation without selling

1. Open the strategy that is connected to your broker.
2. Press Stop.
3. In the confirmation, untick "Close all open trades on [your broker] at market price". It is ticked by default.
4. Confirm with "Stop automation only".

If the confirm button reads "Stop & sell all", the close box is still ticked. Modes can only be switched while automation is stopped, so this is also the first step if you want to move between Manual, One-Click Approval and Full Automatic.

Which accounts can be paused

Stop works the same way on every connection type: standard eToro connections, eToro sub-account connections and Trading 212 connections on the Invest or Stocks ISA account.

The broker constraint that limits other modes does not apply to stopping. A standard eToro main-account connection offers Manual and One-Click Approval, and Full Automatic requires the eToro sub-account, a ring-fenced account funded separately. Trading 212 offers all three modes on the main Invest account.

For the specifics of what each eToro connection type can and cannot do, the eToro connection guide covers each question directly. For Trading 212, the Trading 212 connection guide explains why all three modes are available on the main Invest account without a separate sub-account.

Common reasons to pause

There are several situations where stopping automation is the right move rather than changing the strategy or disconnecting entirely.

Around a market event you want to observe before the next rebalance executes. If significant news is unfolding and you want to see how your positions sit before any automated action runs, stopping with the close box unticked gives you that time. You can turn automation back on when you are ready.

During a period of deliberate review. After building a portfolio and connecting a broker, some investors start in Manual mode, where Acubic shows the trades a rebalance would need and places nothing, before trusting the account with One-Click Approval or Full Automatic. What triggers an Acubic rebalance explains what the scheduler is doing on each run, which helps you understand what you are reviewing.

During a life event that changes your available attention. If you are travelling or simply not available to approve rebalances for a period, stopping automation means nothing is proposed or executed while you are away. Your settings do not reset.

When you want to change your strategy but have not decided on the new one yet. Stopping keeps the connection valid, so there is no need to disconnect, rebuild a new strategy from scratch, and reconnect. The connection credentials do not need to be regenerated.

Pausing versus disconnecting: the actual difference

Stopping automation and disconnecting are often treated as equivalent, but they differ in a way that matters for coming back later.

When you disconnect, the stored credential is removed from Acubic's side and Acubic no longer has access to your account. Your positions stay where they are at your broker. Reconnecting later requires going through the connection setup again: re-authorising the OAuth flow for eToro, or generating a new API key for Trading 212.

When you stop automation with the close box unticked, the credential stays in place and the connection is ready to resume. You do not re-authorise anything.

If you want to pause because you are uncertain about a particular rebalance or a market condition, stopping is the right choice. If you want to end the connection entirely, close the brokerage account, or move to a different broker, that is what disconnecting is for. What happens when you disconnect Acubic covers that path in detail, including how to revoke the credential from the broker's side.

Stopping automation compared with disconnecting

What happens	Stop (with "Close all open trades" unticked)	Disconnect
Stored credential	Kept	Removed
Automatic rebalancing	Stopped	Stopped
Your positions at the broker	Stay open (the close box is ticked by default, so untick it)	Unchanged
To restart	Turn automation back on	Repeat the connection setup

How to resume after stopping

Turn automation back on from the strategy, choosing Manual, One-Click Approval or, where your account allows it, Full Automatic. The next scheduled rebalance runs in that mode: a checklist (Manual), a prepared order set for your approval (One-Click Approval), or execution without a prompt (Full Automatic).

If automation has been stopped for some time, there may be meaningful drift from the strategy's target weights. The first rebalance after resuming closes the gap using the same smallest-order-set method it always uses: only positions that have drifted from their targets generate orders, and positions already at their target weights are not touched. A long pause produces a larger order set only to the extent that real drift has accumulated; the construction logic does not change.

A note on market conditions and the rebalancing method

Acubic does not promise returns and cannot predict short-term market moves. The rebalancing process does not attempt to time the market; it defends a target allocation against drift on a schedule. The construction method is designed to operate across conditions rather than to react to short-term events.

If you are pausing because of uncertainty about what markets are doing, it is worth understanding that the rebalance trigger is schedule-based, not market-condition-based. Acubic does not panic-sell in a downturn and does not attempt to position ahead of a move. What it does is run the same construction and trade-minimisation process on the date you configured, and on a standard eToro connection, it stops to ask for your approval before anything goes out. Stopping automation means that process simply does not run until you turn it back on.

To understand the product before deciding whether to resume or connect for the first time, how Acubic works covers the full process from strategy building to rebalancing. The eToro and Trading 212 integration pages each describe what you are granting access to, what Acubic can do with it, and how to revoke it from either side.

That matters because pausing in reaction to headlines has a measurable cost when it turns into trading on headlines. Morningstar's Mind the Gap 2025 study, subtitled "The more investors traded, the less they made", estimated that the average dollar in US mutual funds and exchange-traded funds earned about 1.2 percentage points a year less than the funds' aggregate annual total return over the 10 years ended 31 December 2024, a gap explained by the timing and magnitude of investors' purchases and sales. A pause that keeps your positions is different from a pause that ends in a sale, which is why the close box on the Stop dialog matters.

The SEC describes rebalancing in the same neutral terms: "Rebalancing is bringing your portfolio back to your original asset allocation mix" (SEC, Beginners' Guide to Asset Allocation). When you resume, that is all the first run does. The rules behind it are set out in how the method is documented, and if an order is rejected once you resume, what happens when an order fails explains how the run continues.

Sources

1. Mind the Gap 2025 (13 August 2025), Morningstar, accessed 12 October 2026.
2. Beginners' Guide to Asset Allocation, Diversification, and Rebalancing, US Securities and Exchange Commission, accessed 12 October 2026.