Tagging trades by setup quality A, B, C: how to set it up

[FXS London Scalper]

Tagging every trade at entry as A, B or C quality is one of the simplest journal changes with a clear payoff. It uses a short checklist: trend alignment on M15, a clean level, normal spread, no news nearby. A means all four, B three, C two or fewer.

After a few hundred trades, compute for each grade: share of all trades, expectancy in R, and number of trades.

What a typical result might look like, as an illustration:

• A trades: 38% of the total, expectancy +0.3R.
• B trades: 44%, around +0.05R.
• C trades: 18%, clearly negative.

If yours looks like that, the decisions follow. C trades go first. B trades are harder: slightly positive and adding volume, but taking attention away from A setups.

Two things keep the test honest:

• Tag at entry, never after. Grading after the result is useless.
• Watch for bias on borderline cases. Even tagging at entry, it's easy to rate a trade higher when you really want to take it. Having a script compute the checklist removes that.

Has anyone graded trades like this for a long period? Did the gap between grades hold up over time?