Playbooks and Setups
Playbooks in the CleaRank Trade Journal let you name each setup you trade and see which ones actually make money. A playbook records the market conditions you wait for, how you enter, and how you manage the trade. Tag every trade with its playbook and the journal will tell you, in numbers, which setups deserve your capital and which do not.
Why playbooks change your journaling
Aggregate stats blend everything together. A 55% win rate across all trades might hide one setup winning 70% of the time and another winning 35%. Per-playbook stats separate the signal from the noise, so instead of asking “am I profitable?” you ask “which of my setups is profitable?” That question has actionable answers: trade the good one more, and cut or rework the bad one.
Creating a playbook
- Open the Playbooks tab. In the Trade Journal, select your journal and go to Playbooks.
- Define the setup. Give it a clear name (for example “Opening range breakout” or “Pullback to moving average”) and describe the conditions, entry trigger, and management rules so future-you applies it consistently.
- Keep the list short. Three to five well-defined playbooks beat fifteen vague ones. If two setups always get tagged interchangeably, merge them.
Assigning a playbook to a trade
Open any trade in the trade editor and pick its playbook from the selector, either while logging the trade or later during review. Trades imported from a broker CSV arrive without a playbook, so a classification pass after import is worth the few minutes it takes.
If a trade does not match any playbook, that is information too. A pile of unclassified trades usually means impulse entries, exactly the leak your trading rules should plug.
Reading per-playbook stats
Once trades are classified, the journal totals performance for each playbook. Compare setups on the stats that matter: how often each one wins, what a typical winner and loser look like, and what the setup contributes to your bottom line overall. A setup with a modest win rate can still be your best if its winners are large, which is why looking at win rate alone misleads.
Review these numbers on a schedule rather than after every trade. Setup stats need a reasonable sample before they mean anything; reacting to five trades is reacting to noise.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between a playbook and a tag?
A playbook is the primary classification: one setup per trade, with defined conditions, powering per-playbook stats. Tags are free-form labels you can stack for anything else, such as “news day” or “oversized”. Use one playbook plus any number of tags.
How many trades do I need before playbook stats are meaningful?
Treat small samples with suspicion. A handful of trades tells you almost nothing; patterns start to firm up as a setup accumulates dozens of occurrences. Until then, use the stats as a prompt for review, not a verdict.
What if a trade fits two playbooks?
Pick the one that actually triggered your entry and note the overlap in the trade’s tags or notes. If it happens constantly, your two playbooks are probably one setup and should be merged.
Can I assign playbooks to old trades?
Yes. Open any editable trade and set its playbook at any time. Classifying your recent history is the fastest way to make the per-playbook stats useful from day one.
Try it yourself
Define your first playbook and classify your last ten trades.
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CleaRank tools are for education and analysis. Nothing in this guide is financial advice.