# Synthetic Symbols

## What is Synthetic Symbols

**Synthetic Symbols** panel allows to create any non-standard instruments (symbols) or spreads that you can both trade and use as an indicator of the current market situation or market divergences.

{% embed url="<https://youtu.be/D9MqY-M632U>" %}

Spread trading is a strategy that simultaneously creates a long and short position for different assets, in order to reduce the risk of the entire portfolio. Each side of the spread is called a "Leg", which is necessary to set the weighting factor for, i.e. the number of contracts for buy or sell. A market-neutral position, which does not depend on whether the market will go up or down is obtained with a proper selection of these coefficients.

![General view of Synthetic Symbols in Quantower platform](https://1239679454-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-legacy-files/o/assets%2F-LYX3ccu0Q61og0sdCbP%2F-LZJkGB5pr93DknJgufM%2F-LZJkNTb7YXtNrz9g-VX%2Fsynthetic-symbols.png?generation=1550831429850130\&alt=media)

## How to Create a Custom Spread in Quantower?

For example, let's build a spread between different brokers within the same asset and see if there is a difference in prices. This is a classic example of Broker arbitrage.

* Open the Synthetic Symbols panel and click "**Create Synthetic**".
* Set the name for your spread and select a trading instrument.
* Click "**Add Leg**" to add another instrument. You can add an unlimited number of instruments by creating new "legs"
* Set the coefficients for each leg. In our example, we buy 1 lot of AUD/USD from the LMAX broker and sell 1 lot of AUD/USD from the OANDA broker.
* Click the "**Save**" button to calculate the received spread.
* Open the Chart panel and select your spread from the list of instruments.

![Spread between different brokers within the same asset — AUD/USD](https://1239679454-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-legacy-files/o/assets%2F-LYX3ccu0Q61og0sdCbP%2F-LZJkGB5pr93DknJgufM%2F-LZJkNTdvFSGALziU7sg%2Fsynthetic-chart-of-aud_usd-beetwen-two-brokers.png?generation=1550831430420040\&alt=media)

![Spread between WTI and Brent Crude Oil](https://1239679454-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-legacy-files/o/assets%2F-LYX3ccu0Q61og0sdCbP%2F-LZJkGB5pr93DknJgufM%2F-LZJkNTfNuGOt4ukfyCm%2Fspread-between-wti-and-brent-crude-oil.png?generation=1550831432687123\&alt=media)