Trading ideas
Signals: reading a trade idea
A signal is a trade idea from a strategy, with an example entry, stop and targets. It is not an order. How to read one, and how past ideas ended.
A signal is a trade idea from a strategy. It is not an order. Tactiq never places trades and never needs your exchange keys. Open the Signals page for ideas that are open now and for the record of those that ended.
The parts of an idea
| Part | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Call number (TQ-0012) | The same number appears on the page, in Telegram and in the follow-ups. |
| Setup, side, Area strength | Which rule found it and how strong the Area is (prime, strong, normal). |
| Entry | A limit at a zone edge (it waits to fill) or now (the current price). A limit fills only when price trades through it, not when it touches. |
| Stop | Where the idea is wrong. It is between 0.15 and 2.5 ATR from the entry. |
| TP1, TP2 | Real references: levels, VWAP, the initial balance, untested POCs, the near edge of the opposing zone. TP1 is the first one at least 0.3 ATR away that pays 1.2 R or more. TP2 pays 2 R or more. No TP1 means no idea. |
| R, net | Every result is after costs: 2 bp maker fee, 5 bp taker fee, 1 bp slippage. A stop so tight that costs take more than 0.25 R is rejected. |
| Why these prices | Every idea explains its entry, its stop, each target and the nearer references it skipped. |
| Context grade | A, B or C from six votes: spot confirmation, 15-minute structure, the 15-minute Tactiq Flag, funding, open interest read together with price, and the last day of ETF flows. A grade is context, not a probability. |
| The analyst | Take, wait or pass, with the reasoning. See The analyst. |
How an idea is managed
Swing ideas take half off at TP1 and move the stop to entry. The rest runs to TP2, back to entry, or to the time limit. An armed limit idea waits six trigger candles (twelve for a breakout retest) and is then closed as not filled. The four older setups wait one hour (two for a retest).
How an idea ends
| Outcome | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Target | TP1 traded first. |
| Stopped | The stop traded first. If one bar touches both, it counts as a stop, because the order inside the bar is unknown. |
| Time limit | Entered, then closed at market when the hold limit passed. It has a result. |
| Not filled | The limit never filled. No result. |
| Cancelled | The idea became wrong before entry. No result. |
| Not scorable | Minutes of data were missing. It is left out of every record, never counted as a loss or a win. |
The record
Each strategy shows how its past ideas ended: the share that reached TP1 with its 95 % range, and the average R. A strategy has too few ideas to judge until it has 30 entered ideas. Thirty ideas is a minimum sample, not proof. Signals the analyst passed on are scored too, so you can see how they ended. The history table filters by instrument, strategy, period and what the analyst did, and a row opens the whole story: what happened step by step, the plan to scale, the analyst's review, the post-mortem and the lessons it was shown.
Tactiq's first setups lost money after costs over 45 months of history, and Tactiq shows that openly. The swing strategies are tracked forward, from the day they started, with no replay. Read a strategy's record before you trust its signal.