Strategies and confluences
Published Jul 28, 2026
A strategy is a named set of conditions you claim to require. A confluence is one of those conditions, answered for a specific trade. Together they are what turn a pile of notes into something you can query.
Define the strategy first
Create a strategy and list the conditions it depends on — the session, the structure, the confirmation you insist on. These become the checklist you answer each time you apply it, which means every trade tagged with that strategy is described in exactly the same terms.
Confluences belong to the strategy, not to the trade
The labels come from the strategy's own conditions, so changing a trade's strategy replaces its confluence answers wholesale and clearing the strategy empties them. An answer left behind under a label the current strategy has never heard of would be invisible in the interface while still counting as journal content — so it is removed rather than orphaned.
A group is one idea, so it gets one answer
Applying a strategy to a grouped position asks for the confluence answers once and writes the same answers to every leg. The legs were one decision; 'was the level there?' has one answer for them.
Now test the rule
After enough trades, compare results where a condition was present against results where it was not. This is the payoff for the tagging discipline: it is the only way to find out that a rule you have followed religiously for a year makes no measurable difference to your outcomes.