The Workshop · The Trade Desk · one trade at a time · 4 of 11
Four kinds of market. The same trade is a different bet in each one, and in one of them it is not offered at all.
SHOP was posted into a Trending market. That word did two things before anyone looked at the name: it decided which shapes the desk would offer at all that evening, and it chose which column of the replay the tested number came from. Pick a tape and watch the offer change.
Each tile: the average outcome at the exit of the trades the desk takes in that tape, since 2019, after costs; the share that finished up; how many. Greyed: not offered in that tape; a shape is offered only where the book as a whole tested better with it than without, so a positive tile can still sit out.
The tape is the market's own state, read from two things: whether the index is in a trend, and how broad that trend is underneath, how many names are taking part. Trending is a rising market most names are in. Flat is a market going nowhere in particular. Grinding bear is the slow kind of decline, the one that wears people out. Dislocation is the fast kind. The reading changes only when the market has changed and stayed changed; a single violent day does not flip it, which is the point.
Key insight. A trade is a shape in a tape. The same strength run averaged +0.7% in a Trending market and -0.4% in a Dislocation since 2019. The desk does not take a losing shape because the name looks good; it waits for the market the shape works in.
In a Trending tape the desk offers strength run, long and weakness run, short vs sector. Its posture that evening, in the desk's own words: fresh runs with the longer trend behind them pay while they persist; weak names with the trend against them, only against their sector fund. SHOP's run qualified under that posture; had the same run appeared in a Dislocation, it would not have been on the list at all.
The tape sits in the strip at the top of every screen, with its word and a ? beside it, and the Today list's first line repeats the posture. When it changes, the bell says so. The manual's chapter: Reading the tape.
Keep this: the market state comes first. It decides what is offered and which history the number beside a trade is drawn from.
Analytical tools and historical measurements for educational and informational purposes only; not investment advice or a recommendation. Replayed figures are hypothetical: today's rules applied to past prices, after modelled costs, and no account was traded on them. Hypothetical results have inherent limitations and do not represent actual trading. Past performance, including backtested results, does not guarantee future outcomes. Trading stocks involves substantial risk of loss.
The Workshop is education, not advice. Replayed numbers are averages over many trades, after average trading costs (2 bps a side on a stock, 1 on a fund, included for fairness; yours vary by broker and liquidity) unless stated, and are not forecasts; the live record is on the engine page. Analytical tools and historical measurements for educational and informational purposes only; not investment advice or a recommendation. Replayed figures are hypothetical: today's rules applied to past prices, after modelled costs, and no account was traded on them. Hypothetical results have inherent limitations and do not represent actual trading. Past performance, including backtested results, does not guarantee future outcomes. Trading stocks involves substantial risk of loss. About · Support · Terms · Privacy · Refunds Open the deskManualThe EngineChangelog