Sunday, August 21, 2011

Glossary: Tradervue tags

[Note: this is a work in progress and will be updated on a regular basis]

This is a glossary page of all the tags I use in Tradervue -- a really useful online trading journal and reporting tool I've recently started to use.  There are some posts here and here I have recently written regarding how the use tags within each of my journal entries, which then enable me to quickly perform some very useful analysis.

For example, the way I created the tags was due to the types of questions I knew I wanted to ask, especially with regards to how well certain setups are performing (or not), as well as other questions such as how much my revenge and rogue trades were costing me.  I didn't think there were this many tags, but because I developed the tags based on my requirements already in my mind, it only takes me < 2 minutes per journal entry to update.  A great return on time investment for the powerful stats I can generate.

One question I would like to ask, but am not currently able to answer, is the maximum amount of actual profit (and loss) did I have at one time during a trade, vs. how much did I actually close.  In other words, how well did I manage the trade, and what was the opportunity cost of being less than optimal.  It would have taken too much time to calculate the figures for all 1000+ of my historical trades, but perhaps I can do this moving forward.

This is a living and breathing document, so as mentioned earlier, this glossary will continue to evolve.

                             GLOSSARY OF TAGS IN TRADERVUE
                                                 As of 8/21/2011
 
GRADE
a Perfect, textbook, multiple factors of support
b Near perfect, one additional factor of support
c Meets spirit of setup, but some red flags
d Not an ideal setup under the conditions
f Fail, no reason to enter


TIMEFRAME
2min 2 minute charts used for entry
5min 5 minute charts used for entry
15min 15 minute charts used for entry


SETUPS
3br 3 bar reversal
b and b Bread and butter
bo Break out
bo-hod Break out - high of day
bo-lod Break out - low of day
bounce Bounce of significant level (e.g. whole number)
btfe Beyond the Fibonacci Extension (FE)
btfe1/2fe Beyond the 1/2 to the FE (halfway between ORH & FE)
btfe16 Beyond the 161.8% FE
btfe20 Beyond the 200% FE
btfex Beyond the FE extension (beyond 200%)
btorh Beyond the Opening Range High (ORH)
btorl Beyond the Opening Range Low (ORL)
bullflag Bullflag setup
c and h Cup and handle
cbd Consolidation breakdown
cbo Consolidation breakout
gitsor Green in the sea of red
ritsog Red in the sea of green
h-pattern h-pattern (inverse is y-pattern)
heldbid Bid that is held by big buyer
pb Pullback - price pulls back for entry
pb-bt1/2fe Breaks through "1/2 way to FE," pulls back, and retests "1/2 FE"
pb-btfe Breaks through FE, pulls back, and retests FE
pb-btfe16 Breaks through 161.8% FE, pulls back, and restests 161.8% FE
pb-btfe20 Breaks through 200% FE, pulls back, and retests 200% FE
pb-btorh Breaks through ORH, pulls back, retests ORH
pb-btorl Breaks through ORL, pulls back, retests ORL
pb-pb2rz Breaks through ORH/ORL, pulls back, retests Retracement Zone (RZ)
pb2rz Pullback to the retracement zone
pt Pushthrough (3+ bar opening setup)
qh Quick hit (2 bar opening setup)
rogue Rogue trade, not a part of trading plan
scalp Quick trades for generally $0.10-$0.20 profits
topout Topout (short setup)
triangle Triangle pattern, via trendlines
u-turn U-Turn (long setup)
vlb Vwap line bounce
vlco-pinch The 5ema pinches price action through vwap
wnbo Whole number breakout 


SETUP CONDITION
halfnum Price action was impacted by $.50 level
wholenum Price action was impacted by $.00 level
ma over vl Moving average was over vwap (noted if setup was against trend)
midrange Price was in the retracement zone at the time of setup
no-vlco vlco had not yet taken place (usually early entry)
vl over ma Vwap was over vwap (noted if setup was against trend)
tl Trendline was a factor on the setup
sr Support or resistance line was a factor on the setup
revenge Usually noted if prior trade was just stopped out
sar Stop and reverse - usually, but not always, used with revenge
vlco vwap line cross over 
asctri Ascending triangle
destri Descending triangle
filltail Opening range pattern, price action fills in wick of opening bar
contra Trade in the opposite direction of the gap (gap fade)


TRADING CONDITION
2extended Price action was extended at the time of setup
choppy Price action was choppy
lateday Trades after 14:00
lunchtime Trades around 11:30-13:00
narrowrange Overall range was narrow
news News released during trading hours, impacting stock
nogap Stock did not have a gap opening
lowvol Low volume stock or day, usually resulting in choppy conditions


EXECUTION & OUTCOME
win Trade was gross winner
loss Trade was gross loser
scratch Trade was a gross scratch
fobo Fake out break out - the breakout failed
error Trade was entered in error
badexit The exit could have been much more optimal
chased Entry was late, chased the stock, usually should have stayed out
early Entered trade early prior to actual sign (break of prior bar)
goodexit Exit was optimal, could not have gotten much better price
4barstop Not touching stop for 4 bars would have been optimal
stop2close Stop was too close, would likely have been successful
stopped1tick Stopped by 1 tick, usually used in conjunction with stop2close tag
scaledin Scaled into the trade, adding on
scaledout Scaled out of the trade, usually via 2 profit exits


THEORITCAL MAX OUTCOME
hit-1/2fe Price ultimately hit the 1/2-way to FE
hit-fe Price ultimately hit the FE
hit-fe16 Price ultimately hit 161.8% FE
hit-fe20 Price ultimately hit 200% FE
hit-orh Price ultimately hit ORH
hit-orl Price ultimately hit ORL
hit-runner Price ultimately went past 200% FE
hit-tgt Price ultimately hit target (non-Fibonacci target)


MISC
study Tag to study trade further
twitter Stock was added to watchlist from Twitter

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

"One question I would like to ask, but am not currently able to answer, is the maximum amount of actual profit (and loss) did I have at one time during a trade, vs. how much did I actually close." --- this is the most critical element of trade review imo. I fill this information gap in my trade blotter. Its in development now. -NereusProject

Grove Under said...

Hi NereusProject:
Great question, and right now for me, it's a manual process so it takes a while to calculate...which means I don't usually calculate it.

TradeStation calculates those P&L values for every open trade, but as soon as the trade is closed, the info is gone forever.

They do have something in their reports that works halfway decent for daily/position trades so that you can see how effective you were at capturing profits, but the data is not valid for daytrades. Too bad they just don't capture the proper info for daytrades.

...which gives me an idea, maybe I'll just have to manually write these P&L values down and update it later in my journal. You're right, it's valuable info to know. Thanks for the feedback!