Widget reference: charts

What this does

These widgets plot shapes rather than single numbers. Each one answers a question a total cannot: when you make money, how deep the holes get, and whether the curve is going the right way.

Before you start

Every chart is drawn from the trades inside your current date range and account filter. Charts with nothing to plot say “No data available” rather than drawing an empty frame.

The charts

Cumulative P&L, also called the equity curve, is a running total of your daily P&L across the range, starting at zero. It is the shape of the range you selected, not your account balance, so it always begins at zero no matter what your account held on day one. The area is green above the zero line and red below it, and the fill flips at the true zero crossing rather than at the bottom of the chart.

Daily P&L is one bar per period, coloured by sign. The interval control switches between daily, weekly, monthly and yearly bars.

The interval has a smart default that follows your range: under 30 days it uses daily bars, up to six months weekly, longer than that monthly. Changing the date range resets the interval to that default, so an interval you picked by hand snaps back after a range change. Set the range first, the interval second.

Volume is the same bar chart counting trades rather than money, on the same interval control.

Drawdown plots how far below your running peak you are, in currency, with zero along the top and the plot hanging below it.

drawdown = running cumulative P&L - highest cumulative P&L so far

It is never positive. A range where you never gave back a peak renders a “no drawdown for this period” state rather than a flat line at zero.

Time of day performance buckets trades by the time you entered them, not the time you exited. See Time of day performance for the bucket boundaries, which are not what most people expect.

Trade distribution is a single split bar of wins against losses with the counts on it. On the web, clicking the green half opens those winning trades and clicking the red half opens the losers.

Trading days is the same split bar for days rather than trades, dividing your active days into green and red. A day that nets exactly zero counts as green.

Calendar heatmap gets its own article. See The calendar heatmap.

Steps

What you should see

Charts whose shapes agree with the tiles above them. The last point of the cumulative P&L curve should equal Total P&L for the same filters. The deepest point of the drawdown chart should match your worst run of losses.

If it doesn’t work

• The equity curve does not start where your account did. It is not meant to. It starts at zero and plots the range, not the balance.
• The daily P&L interval keeps changing. Changing the date range resets it. Pick the range first.
• A chart is empty but the tiles have numbers. That chart needs data the trades do not carry, for example tags on the tag breakdowns or health records on the correlation chart.

Related

• Widget reference: performance metrics
• The calendar heatmap
• Drill down from a chart to your trades