How setup scoring works Scoring (beta)
Scoring is in beta
The rules of each setup are fixed when it is published. Our methods may improve: any change is dated in the changelog below. A setup is re-scored only to correct an error, and the correction is shown on the setup as a public, dated note.
What gets scored
When you publish a post with a long or short trade setup (instrument, entry, stop and target), the setup is locked. From then on our system checks it against market prices every 15 minutes. Your scored record is built only from these locked setups, so it can't be edited, backdated or curated. Posts without a setup aren't scored; they still carry their publish time.
What "R" means
R is the amount you planned to risk: the distance from entry to stop. Results are measured in multiples of it, so a $50 stock and Nasdaq futures can be compared fairly.
Example. Long at 100, stop at 95, target at 110. The risk (1R) is 5 points. If price reaches 110, the setup scores +2R (10 ÷ 5). If it falls to 95 first, it scores −1R.
The rules
- Entry: a setup counts as entered when price first trades at the entry level after publication.
- Exit: it closes at the stop (−1R) or the target (+planned R), whichever price reaches first after the entry. Prices from before the entry bar never close a trade.
- Gaps: when a bar opens past a level (an overnight or weekend gap, or a limit move), the fill is a price the market really traded, on 15-minute and daily bars alike. A stop gapped through fills at the bar's open, not at the stop, so the loss can be more than 1R (long 100, stop 95, opening at 93: −1.4R). A target gapped through fills at the target, never at the better open. An entry gapped through fills at the open if the open is still between the stop and the target; a bar that opens past the stop or the target is not an entry, and the setup keeps waiting for a bar that trades its entry. Which side the entry is on comes from the price when the setup was published. R is still measured in the planned risk, entry to stop. When a bar opens past the stop or target, the open came first, so the same-bar rule isn't needed for that bar.
- Same-bar rule: if the stop and target are both touched within the same 15-minute bar, it counts as stopped. A target touched in the same bar as the entry isn't credited, because we can't know which came first.
- Horizons: day setups live inside one session (below); swing setups must be entered within 7 days and close at market after 30 days; position setups have 30 days to enter and close after 365 days. A setup never entered is marked "entry never reached" and carries no R.
- Day setups: a day setup belongs to the session whose close comes next after publishing, at least 15 minutes away (published at the weekend or after the close, it is the next weekday’s session). Its entry must be reached in that session. If neither stop nor target is hit, it is closed at the close of the last 15-minute bar that ends by the session close, shown as "closed at the session close", with R measured from that price; one never entered is "entry not reached this session" (no R). Session closes: US stocks and ETFs 4:00 p.m. ET (regular session only: pre- and post-market prices aren’t scored); equity-index futures (ES, NQ, YM, RTY and their micros) 4:00 p.m. ET, the end of CME’s 2:59:30–3:00:00 p.m. CT settlement window; WTI crude oil futures (CL, MCL) 2:30 p.m. ET, the end of CME’s 2:28–2:30 p.m. ET window; FX 5:00 p.m. ET, the New York close; crypto midnight UTC, every day of the week. Day setups aren’t yet offered on gold, silver, natural gas, Treasury or euro FX futures, because we haven’t confirmed their settlement windows. On a market holiday there are no bars, so a day setup published for that session ends not entered. The same-bar rule applies, and the stop must be at least 0.1% from entry. We wait 30 minutes after the close before closing a day setup, so delayed bars are in. There is no scalp horizon: a trade of a few minutes can’t be scored fairly on 15-minute bars, where the stop and target would usually fall in the same bar.
- Limits: the stop must be at least 0.2% from entry (0.1% for day setups) and the target at most 10R, and results are capped at the planned R and, unless price gapped through the stop or entry, at −1R. This stops tiny-stop "lottery" setups from distorting records.
- Idealised R: results assume no slippage, fees or spreads. Your broker's fills, commissions and spreads would differ.
- Source line: every scored result says what it was scored on, for example "Scored on Yahoo Finance 15-min bars · ESZ26 contract". Stocks and ETFs are scored on regular-session prices; FX on Yahoo's quoted rate, not your broker's bid or ask; crypto on Yahoo's composite price (e.g. BTC-USD). A result decided by the same-bar rule, or by a gap fill, says so.
- Disputes: on any closed setup, the author or any signed-in reader can choose "Dispute this result" with a short reason and optional evidence. A moderator re-checks it against the price bars. The outcome is shown on the setup with its date: "re-checked · unchanged", or "corrected from −1.00R to −1.30R" with what was wrong. A correction re-runs the same rules on re-fetched bars; the setup's levels and rules never change.
- Prices: delayed prices from Yahoo Finance, on 15-minute bars (daily bars once a setup, including an options idea, is more than about 55 days old, because that is how far back Yahoo keeps 15-minute bars). On daily bars the same-bar rule applies to the whole day. The day an entry was found on 15-minute bars isn't re-scored on its daily bar, because that bar's high and low include prices from before the entry; that day's post-entry 15-minute bars were already scored. Setups are scored on the underlying instrument's price, not on options or leveraged products.
- Options ideas: an author can mark a setup as an options idea and name the strategy (long call, long put, call spread, put spread, short put, covered call, iron condor or other), the option's expiry date and, optionally, the strikes. The score is still on the underlying's price, never the option premium: the direction, entry, stop and target are levels on the underlying, and every rule above applies. The expiry replaces the swing/position windows: the entry can be reached any time until the expiry date, and an idea that has hit neither stop nor target is closed at the underlying's last close on the expiry date, shown as "closed at option expiry", with R measured from that close. One never entered by then is "entry not reached before expiry" (no R). The expiry must be 1 to 365 days after publishing. Because an option's profit depends on its premium, time decay and volatility, the R on an options idea measures the call on the underlying, not what the option itself would have returned.
- Futures and contract rolls: a continuous futures series such as NQ=F switches to the next contract month every so often, and its price jumps by the gap between the two months. That jump isn't a market move, so we never score across it. When you publish on NQ=F, the setup is locked to the contract month the series is on at that moment (for example NQZ26, December 2026), your entry is checked against that contract's price, and it is scored only on that contract. On the contract's roll date the setup is closed: if it's in a trade, at the last price before the roll, shown as "closed at contract roll"; if the entry hasn't been reached, as "entry not reached before contract roll" (no R). Roll dates we use: equity-index futures (ES, NQ, YM, RTY and their micros) and euro FX, 8 days before the third Friday of the contract month, which is CME's roll date; crude oil (CL, MCL) the 15th, gold, silver and Treasury futures (GC, MGC, SI, ZN, ZB) the 20th, and natural gas (NG) the 22nd, of the month before the contract month; each is set a few days before the contract stops trading. If the series is still on a contract that is past or within a day of its roll date, you'll be asked to publish on the next contract (e.g. NQH27.CME) using its prices.
- Deleting a post removes the post but not its setup: the result stays in your record.
Record stats on each trader's profile
Every figure is worked out from a trader's scored setups using the rules above, in R. Below 10 scored setups the rates (hit rate, average win and loss, profit factor, entry rate) are not shown and the record reads "building a record"; counts and totals still are.
- Scored setups: setups that closed with a result in R: target, stop, or closed at the time limit, session close, option expiry or contract roll. The period runs from the first to the last of these setups' publish dates.
- Hit rate: share of scored setups that reached the target before the stop. Setups whose entry was never reached aren't counted.
- Average win / loss: average R of setups that closed above 0, and of those that closed below 0.
- Net R: the sum of every scored setup's R.
- Profit factor: total R of winning setups divided by the total R lost on losing ones; shown as "—" when there are no losses.
- Worst run: the longest run of losing setups in a row, and the deepest fall in cumulative R from a high, in the order setups closed.
- Typical holding time: median time from entry to close.
- Entry rate: share of setups whose entry price was reached, out of all setups that were entered or ran out of time to enter. Setups still waiting for entry aren't counted.
- Style mix: scored setups by type: day, swing and position from the horizon the author chose, options from options ideas.
Traders choose which two or three stats appear first on their profile. Scored setups and their period, hit rate, average win and loss, worst run, net R and profit factor are always shown; other stats can be folded under "Full record" but never removed. Each trader's record on their profile is judged on its own terms: traders are at different stages with different goals, so we don't rank them against each other.
Changelog
- 21 October 2026: gap fills (above). Until now a stop was always filled at the stop price and an entry only when a bar traded it. Results closed before this date keep their scores; one is re-scored only through a dispute or a correction, with a public, dated note. Results now also show their source line, whether the same-bar rule decided them, and that R is idealised.
Reading a track record
Look at the number of closed setups as well as the average R: a short record says little about skill. Past results don't predict future results, and nothing here is a recommendation to follow any trader.