● idea scorecard — did the call win? graded against the path
Grade a trade idea's realized outcome — win, loss, or open.
A published idea names three prices: entry, target, and stop. The agent walks the price path bar-by-bar and returns the verifiable verdict — WIN if target was touched before stop, LOSS if stop came first, OPEN if neither by the horizon — plus the signed R-multiple, the max favorable / adverse excursion (MFE/MAE), and the time-to-target. Graded against the real price path only — never a simulated one.
NVDAentry ≈ $179.42real
LOSS
Price hit the stop before ever reaching target.
Realized -1.00R
⚐Never worked — It peaked at only +0.56R before the stop — the thesis was wrong from the entry, not mismanaged. A clean −1R.
Entry$179.42
Target$197.36
Stop$170.45
Reward : Risk2 : 1
R-multiple-1.00R
MFE (favorable)+0.56R
MAE (adverse)-1.18R
Bars held13
excursion before resolving — how much heat the trade took
← -1.18R worst (MAE)best +0.56R →
this long call LOST, stopping out for -1.00R.
We grade a published idea against the price path that actually followed — no moving the goalposts. The verdict, the R-multiple, and the MFE/MAE are real, re-derivable math; only the price path is synthetic when no real OHLC is supplied (and it is labeled).
The idea as it was published
A long (betting it rises) call: enter at $179.42, take profit at $197.36, cut the loss at $170.45. That is a 2-to-1 reward-to-risk plan.
Every honest trade idea names three prices up front: where you get IN (entry), where you cash a WIN (target), and where you admit you were wrong and get OUT (stop). The distance from entry to stop is your "1R" — one unit of risk. We grade the call only against the levels it actually published, so it cannot be moved after the fact.
→ A favorable plan: it risks $1 to make $2.
Verdict: LOSS
Price hit the $170.45 stop before ever reaching target. Realized -1.00R.
The rule is mechanical and pessimistic: we walk the price path bar by bar and record whichever of the two levels — target or stop — the price TOUCHED first. If a single bar's range spans both, we assume the STOP filled first, because OHLC data cannot prove the optimistic order and we refuse to cherry-pick.
→ A clean, verifiable loss — counted against the author, not quietly forgotten.
How much heat did it take? (MFE / MAE)
Best-case it ran +0.56R in your favor (MFE) and worst-case it dug -1.18R against you (MAE) before resolving.
MFE (Maximum Favorable Excursion) is the furthest the trade ever moved in your favor; MAE (Maximum Adverse Excursion) is the furthest it moved against you. Together they tell you whether a winner was comfortable or white-knuckle, and whether a loser ever looked promising — priceless for sizing your stops next time.
→ The path stayed within a normal range of its plan.
Glossary
- R / R-multiple
- One "R" is the dollar distance from entry to stop — your unit of risk. A result of +2R means it made twice what it risked; -1R means it lost exactly what it risked.
- Reward-to-risk
- How many dollars of target gain you stand to make for each dollar of stop loss you accept. Higher is a better-shaped bet.
- MFE
- Maximum Favorable Excursion — the furthest price ever moved in your favor during the trade.
- MAE
- Maximum Adverse Excursion — the furthest price ever moved against you during the trade.