Operator's Manual

How to read the desk, and what to do with it

Open the desk →
Nothing matches that: try a shorter word, or a term from the site itself (alpha, spread, regime, extended…).

Your desk: your page

Everything about your own trading in one place. The market is the benchmark; the house is the rule, not the rival.

The top of the page

The account icon in the top bar opens your desk (trademath.com/me). Under your name, six numbers:

  • Your book · the average trade, open and closed together, equal dollars in each, since your first tracking
  • Open trades · how many, and their average result so far
  • Closed · avg trade · the realised record alone
  • Vs the S&P 500 · your book against the index bought and held over the same sessions
  • Vs the house · your result minus the house's on the trades you both took; the difference is your exit timing
  • The house vs the S&P 500 · the house book, marked daily, against the same index
Hover any tile for the basis; on a phone, tap it.

You vs the house and the market

One sentence, then a table by month. The sentence is the one the desk is built to answer: what following the list exactly would have made, against what you made, and on the trades you both took, what your exits added or cost against the house's.

The table has three books on the same basis, marked daily: yours, the house's, the S&P 500. A bad month on your side reads against what the rule did and what the market did in the same weeks.

The market comparison is the one that matters most. Ahead of the house means your selection within the list is adding something; behind it is the cost of overriding the rules.

Achievements

Process and milestones, never activity. Nothing is earned by trading more. Only the ones you have earned show on the page; all achievements opens the full list with what each takes, and, once enough people are on the desk, the share of traders who have it. The moment one is earned it rings the bell (and, if you allowed browser notifications, shows one), with a line to your page, and the badge glows in its colour for a day. Click any badge, earned or not, for what it stands for, how it is earned and how far along you are.

  • Common · first trade · first close · five names on the watch list · notes on ten trades · a closed hedged short · ten closed
  • Rare (gold) · early adopter · a trade held to its tested cap · ten desk trades closed the day their exit fired · the house followed for thirty sessions · fifty closed · trades closed under two generations · a month ahead of the house on shared trades · a positive closed quarter
  • Legendary (purple) · a desk trade held by the rules across a change of tape · sixty sessions ahead of the S&P 500 · a month up when the S&P 500 fell · a hundred closed

Your trades

Three tabs.

  • Open · what you hold: result since you tracked it, days held, the exit it is graded by, the generation that posted it
  • Closed · every trade with its result frozen at the close, newest first, twenty at a time
  • Skipped · the list trades the house closed since you started that you never tracked, with what they did: the honest half of "you vs the house"

Every row has room for a note (why you took it, why you closed early) that stays with the record. The whole book downloads as a CSV. Clicking a trade opens it on the desk in a new tab and lands on it with a flash.

The exit calendar

What fires next on what you hold, soonest first:

  • Day caps · the session a trade's clock runs out
  • Near the line · names within five points of their exit
  • Earnings · inside the hold, for every leg of every open trade
The page to read the evening before a session. The same items reach you as notifications.

The feed

What it carries: the day's desk posts (today's list on Pro, three sessions behind otherwise), your exits, the nightly signal events, and the names on your watch list that made the list.

Filter it to all, watch list or your trades. Twenty at a time, newest first; every line opens on the desk in a new tab.

Your book's shape

Three bars:

  • Sides · how much of the book is long, hedged, short
  • What · desk trades against your own picks: are you running the list, or your own book?
  • Sectors · where the exposure sits

Generation chips show which engine each open position runs under, only while your positions span more than one.

The watch list

Names you follow without tracking. Star one on its ticket, on a heatmap tile, on its own stock page, or add it from the Universe picker on the page.

Each card shows today's Alpha and one of three states: on the list, qualifies but ranked below the ten, or not qualifying, with the rule it is short of. A watched name that makes the list appears in the feed; if it reports earnings, in the exit calendar. The ticker hops to the name's chart on the desk; page ↗ opens its own page (record since 2019, last runs, the house book in it, true peers). The same list sits under the tracker on the desk.

Pairs you watch live on the same list, under the names: star a pair on the Pairs tab, the board or its page. Each pair card shows where its spread sits in its own range, whether it closes its gaps or drifts, and whether a leg is on today's list; the card opens the pair on the Pairs tab, page ↗ opens its page. On Pro with alerts on, these are the pairs that write to you the evening they move.

Notifications

A grid under Settings: what down the side, where across the top. Every cell is on when the account is created; switch off any one.

What

  • New on the list · the desk's list at the close (today's on Pro, three sessions behind otherwise)
  • Exit fired · a tracked trade's tested exit
  • Close to an exit · within five points of the line, two sessions from the cap, or earnings today or next session
  • Review · the read on a tracked name flipped against your thesis
  • Tape changed · the market moved to another of its four states

Where

  • Bell · in the top bar; keeps the last sixty and counts what you have not seen
  • Email · once per evening per kind, each trade and reason once, so a name parked near its line does not write every day
  • Browser · while the desk is open in a tab, after the browser's permission once
  • SMS · later, as a Pro channel

Below the grid sits one more switch, Product news: a short email when a release ships, a few times a year, saying what changed and where to find it. On to start; off with one click.

Every email carries a one-click unsubscribe. It switches off the whole email column and product news, and nothing else.

Settings

Three sections.

  • Account · your name, your email (change sends a one-time link to the new address; nothing moves until it is clicked), your plan with the renewal date and the billing portal, download my data (everything TradeMath holds about you, one file), delete my account (the account, its trackings and this page; cancels any subscription; not undoable), devices, sign out
  • Devices (under Account) · an account stays signed in on up to three devices. Signing in on a fourth signs out the one you used longest ago; that device says so the next time it is opened, and signing in again there takes a moment. The list shows each device's browser, country and when it was last used, with this device marked. Any other device can be signed out from the list, and sign out everywhere ends every session at once, this one included. When a browser your account has not used before signs in, you get a short email saying so; the sign-in link only ever goes to your inbox, so signing out everywhere and signing in again shuts anyone else out
  • Notifications · the grid above
  • Sizing · account size and per-position percentage, saved to the account, so every trade line shows a share count at your scale. A size is your own account size times your own percentage, shown so the line is readable; it is not a recommendation of how much to risk; and auto-track the desk (Pro), which puts every line the desk posts into your tracker at the settle, sized for you and marked house. Auto-track places no orders and holds no positions; it is a list of what the rules said, for grading yourself against