Trading strategy tracker: tag setups and compare them

Your overall win rate hides which setups work. Tag every trade by setup, measure each one on its own and act carefully.

Why track by strategy

Your overall win rate hides which setups actually work. A trader can have one strong setup and one that quietly loses, and the average looks fine. To find out, every trade needs a label for the setup it belongs to, so you can measure each setup on its own.

Step 1: define your setups in writing

A setup is a named, repeatable pattern with entry, stop and target rules. If you cannot write the rules in a few lines, it is not a setup yet. Keep your list short, three to five at first. The Notion trading plan template has a layout for it.

Step 2: tag every trade

• Add a Setup select property and one option per named setup.
• Add an option such as No clear setup and use it honestly. Those trades are worth reading.
• Tag at entry or right after exit, never weeks later.

Step 3: measure each setup

In Notion, group the trades view by Setup and show the sum and average of the result. In a spreadsheet, use a pivot table with Setup in Rows.

Step 4: act on it, carefully

• Wait for a few dozen trades per setup before judging it.
• Drop or rework a setup only when its expectancy stays negative over a fair sample.
• Do not tune rules to fit past results; test a change on new trades.

A hypothetical comparison of three setups

These numbers are made up to show how a comparison looks. Expectancy is win rate times average win minus loss rate times average loss. Notice how the trades with no clear setup lose money even though two named setups are positive, which is exactly what an overall average would hide.

Common mistakes when tracking strategies

• Too many setups. Ten labels means tiny samples. Start with three to five.
• Retro-tagging. Labelling trades weeks later, after seeing the result, flatters your setups.
• Judging on a handful of trades. Wait for a fair sample before dropping a setup.
• Ignoring the no-setup bucket. It often holds the biggest leak.

What the app does and does not do

AI Trading Journal keeps every closed MT5 trade in your own journal on your PC (with an optional copy in your own Notion workspace) with size, prices, times and result. It does not tag setups or strategies for you; you add the Setup property and fill it in, and existing rows are not overwritten on later syncs. If your trades come from an Expert Advisor, MT5's magic number is not recorded by the app, so tag those trades yourself.

See trading performance analysis for the wider method, and the trading psychology journal for the behaviour side.

This page is general education. It is not trading or investment advice.

How many trades does each setup need?

The measured win rate of a setup is only an estimate. For a setup whose true win rate is near 50%, the 95% margin of error shrinks with the number of trades like this:

With 20 trades, a measured win rate of 50% could really be anywhere from about 28% to 72%, which is enough to hide a losing setup or a winning one. That is the reason this page asks for a few dozen trades per setup before judging it, and why each extra setup you track divides your sample further.

Compare setups fairly

• Use R instead of dollars. If one setup was traded at larger size, dollars favour it for the wrong reason. Dividing each result by the amount risked puts setups on one scale.
• Compare the same period. A setup that only appeared in a trending quarter will look better than one that was traded through a range.
• Include costs. A setup with many small trades pays more spread and commission than one with a few large ones.
• Check plan-followed rates. A setup that looks poor because you traded it badly is a different problem from a setup that does not work.

A written rule for retiring a setup (example)

Decide the standard in advance, so that you do not judge on a bad week. An example, with made-up thresholds: 'A setup is paused if, over its last 40 trades with at least 85% plan-followed, its expectancy is below zero and its profit factor is below 0.9. It returns to demo for 30 trades before any live use.' The numbers are yours to choose; what matters is that they are written down before the data arrives.

Version your setups

When you change the rules of a setup, give it a new name, such as Pullback v2, and track it separately from v1. If you silently edit the rules, old and new trades merge into one sample that describes a strategy you no longer trade. A short change log in Notion with the date and the reason for each change keeps the history honest.

Trades from an Expert Advisor

If part of your trading is automated, the app does not record MT5's magic number, so the trades from each Expert Advisor will look like any other. Tag them with a Setup option named after the EA so that you can compare automated and manual results. That comparison is often one of the most revealing a journal can give. See trading performance analysis for the wider method.

Frequently asked questions

Related guides

• A local trading journal for MT5
• P&L calendar for MT5
• Trade notes, ratings and screenshots
• Trading progress and goals
• Back up your journal and move it to a new PC
• An offline trading journal for Windows
• How to set monthly trading goals
• Import your whole MT5 history
• How to tag trades
• Trade screenshots for your journal
• All trading journal comparisons