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

Posted: Wed Oct 28, 2026 11:03 am
by 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?