CrucibleTrade — The trading journal that forges your edge

Private by design

Everything runs on your computer in a local SQLite database. No login, no servers, no telemetry — your edge stays yours.

Built for swing traders

Multi-day positions, partial scale-outs, moving stops, and R-multiples are first-class — not bolted on after the fact.

From raw fills to refined edge

Import a broker CSV and CrucibleTrade reconstructs every position, then refines a pile of executions into the patterns behind your wins and losses.

The refining cycle

Plan → execute → review → refine

A crucible doesn't refine in one pass — it cycles. CrucibleTrade is built around the same loop: each turn melts a pile of raw fills down into reviewed lessons, then pours them back into the next plan before you ever click buy.

STEP 01

Import

Drop in a Thinkorswim or Fidelity CSV — account-scoped, no copy-paste.

STEP 02

Match

A LIFO engine rebuilds every trade from your fills, and keeps your setup, notes, and stops across re-imports.

STEP 03

Review

Replay the trade on the chart that mattered, then tag the setup, the behavior, and the lesson.

STEP 04

Grade your playbook

Check off the rules you actually followed. Adherence shows whether discipline is paying you.

STEP 05

Attribute the cost

Tag several mistakes per trade — the cost splits across them with no double-counting.

STEP 06

Time it right

See which session windows, weekdays, and setups actually work for you.

STEP 07

Track the trend

Watch adherence climb and mistake cost shrink, month over month — proof you're improving.

STEP 08

Plan the next

Size the next idea to your risk budget — and if your recent trading says ease off, the throttle sizes it down for you.

Then back to the chart — every reviewed trade sharpens the next one.

The bundled tour

Don't take our word for it — the sample teaches itself

One click in Settings loads a full sample database: 200+ trades across two accounts, populated reports, and cached charts. But it's more than filler — every trade is journaled as a worked example, so walking the app top to bottom reads like a how-to for the whole refining cycle.

STOP 01 · PLAN

Size the idea

Open the Planner: watchlist plans in every status, each sized to the account's risk budget. The notes explain how an entry and a stop become a share count — one risk unit.

STOP 02 · EXECUTE

Rebuild the fills

The Trades blotter shows scale-ins, partial scale-outs, longs and shorts — every position reconstructed from raw executions, with moving and break-even stops intact.

STOP 03 · REVIEW

Read the lesson

In Trade Review, each closed trade's notes are model answers — what went well, what went wrong, the lesson, and one concrete change. Winners, scratches, and tagged losers each read differently.

STOP 04 · REFINE

Watch it pay

The reports tell the story the sample was built to tell: discipline climbs month over month, mistake cost falls toward zero, and the equity curve stays up and to the right.

CrucibleTrade · Planner · plan the next trade

Planner from the bundled sample: risk-sized trade ideas in Ready, Draft and Entered states, a live open-position risk panel, and plan notes that explain how each idea was sized to one risk unit.

CrucibleTrade · Trade Review · read the lesson

Trade Review from the bundled sample: a candlestick chart with entry/exit markers and stop lines, a 100%-followed playbook checklist, and structured review notes written as a worked example of how to journal the trade.

Load it from Settings → Backup / Restore → Load Full Sample Database. Explore the whole loop, then wipe it and import your own fills — your data, your machine.

One app, the whole workflow

Everything from import to insight

Eight focused workspaces that move a trade from a raw broker fill all the way to a reviewed, tagged, and understood lesson.

Accounts

Import & auto-match

Drop in a Thinkorswim or Fidelity statement and CrucibleTrade matches executions into complete trades — entries, scale-outs, and exits — across multiple accounts.

Dashboard

Live performance snapshot

Net return, time-weighted return, profit factor, win rate, and R at a glance — plus a color-coded equity curve and your open positions in real time.

Trade Review

Chart-driven review

Replay each trade on an intraday candlestick chart with entry/exit markers, stop lines, and anchored VWAP — then tag the setup, the mistake, and the lesson.

Reports

Edge-finding analytics

Slice performance by symbol, setup, mistake, sector, position size, time of day, and MAE/MFE to see which plays to size up and which to retire.

Planner

Risk & position planning

Set daily, weekly, and monthly risk limits per account, watch one throttle read your streak, R, and budget, and let it size ideas down when you're pressing — plus break-even stops and a risk-free scale-out plan.

Calendar

Daily P/L calendar

A weekday heatmap of realized P/L with green and red days, week-to-date totals, and your best and worst sessions surfaced automatically.

Trades

The trade blotter

Every reconstructed position in one sortable table with the columns you choose — entries, scale-outs, stop history, R, and a drill-down into any trade's full detail.

Settings · Playbook

Your rules, your tokens

Author a per-setup playbook in the language you trade, curate your setup and mistake lists, switch light/dark themes, and keep your data safe with built-in backups, restore, and repair.

Trade Review

Relive every trade on the chart that mattered

CrucibleTrade caches the bars and rebuilds the exact tape you traded — recent trades on 2-minute candles, older swings on daily — so you can see whether you bought the breakout or chased it, and where your stop really should have been.

Entry & exit markers on real 2-minute or daily candles, with initial and current stop lines.
Anchored VWAP & moving averages for open-day, prior-day, and 5-day context.
Your playbook as a checklist right on the chart — grade each rule Followed / Broke as you review.
A guided review queue that flags trades missing a setup, behavior tag, stop basis, or notes.
Setup, mistake & lesson tags that feed straight into your analytics.

CrucibleTrade · Trade Review · followed the plan

Trade Review of a disciplined trade: a 2-minute candlestick chart with entry and exit markers, initial and current stop lines, 5-day SMA and open-day / prior-day anchored VWAPs, and a playbook checklist showing 100% followed.

CrucibleTrade · Trade Review · a costly leak

Trade Review of a losing trade on a daily candlestick chart with entry/exit markers and the stop line, a 'large loss' flag, two behavior tags, and a playbook checklist showing only 33% of the rules followed with the broken rules marked.

Rebuilt from your fills

Every trade, reconstructed and graded

Import your broker fills and CrucibleTrade rebuilds the whole trade on the chart — every entry and exit, your initial stop, the R-multiple, and a grade against the playbook rules you set for that setup. Examples below use the bundled sample data.

TQQQ · 2026-01-05 → 01-12

Daily chart of a TQQQ long: an entry arrow at the volatility-contraction pivot ($77.14), an initial stop line at $74.05, and an exit of 200 shares at $84.03 — sold into strength for +2.23R.

Followed the plan → win

Took the entry, sold into strength

Tagged setupVolatility contraction pattern · Long

Entry200 @ $77.14

Stop$74.05 — risk $3.09/sh

Exit200 @ $84.03

Result+2.23R · +$1,378

Playbook5 / 5 rules followed

Reconstructed from the broker fills — the entry, the initial stop, and the exit into strength — then graded against the playbook you set: 5 / 5 rules followed.

SWKS · 2026-05-05 → 05-11

Daily chart of a SWKS pullback long: an entry at $63.42, an initial stop below the swing low at $60.88, and two scale-out exits at $62.36 and $61.43 — a small loss taken by the book for −0.60R.

Followed the plan → small loss

Discipline isn't winning every trade

Tagged setupPullback · Long

Entry75 @ $63.42

Stop$60.88 — risk $2.54/sh

Exit38 @ $62.36 + 37 @ $61.43 (avg $61.90)

Result−0.60R · −$114

Playbook5 / 5 rules followed

Every rule followed and the loss taken by the book — scaled out as it failed and kept small. The grade shows discipline held even when the trade didn't.

PLTR · 2026-01-21 → 01-27

Daily chart of a PLTR long: an entry arrow at $120.90 near the highs, an initial stop line at $116.06, and an exit at $112.33 — below the stop — for a −1.77R loss after three rules were broken.

Broke the rules → the leak

Chased it, then let it run past the stop

Tagged setupBase breakout · Long

Entry100 @ $120.90 (extended)

Stop$116.06 — risk $4.84/sh

Exit100 @ $112.33 — below the stop

Result−1.77R · −$857

Playbook0 / 3 rules followed

✗ EntryBought extended instead of at the pivot on volume.
✗ StopLet price run past the stop below the base.
✗ RiskThe −1.77R loss blew through the 1R limit.

Tagged Chased and Bought extended — and the Adherence report bills the cost to those exact broken rules.

Playbook & Adherence

Trade to a playbook — then prove it pays

Write the rules for each setup once — entry, stop, target, and risk, in the language of the methods you actually trade. Then check off which rules you followed on every trade, and let CrucibleTrade tell you whether discipline is making you money.

Per-setup rules for breakouts, pullbacks, VCPs, anchored-VWAP reclaims, power plays and more.
Followed-all vs. deviation expectancy, side by side — and a per-trade "discipline edge" in dollars.
Cost by broken rule — see exactly which rule you skip when trades go wrong.
Graded right on the chart as a checklist while you review — no spreadsheet required.

CrucibleTrade · Reports · Adherence

Rule Adherence report: graded trades split into Followed-all, 50–99% and Under-50% bands with expectancy and R, a per-trade discipline edge, and a Cost by Broken Rule table mapping dollars lost to specific entry, stop and risk rules.

CrucibleTrade · Settings · Playbook

Playbook editor: the rules for a setup, each typed as entry, stop, target or risk, with reordering and add/remove controls — defined once and reused as a checklist on every trade.

Discipline Trend

Answer the only question that matters: am I improving?

Most journals tell you how you did. CrucibleTrade tells you whether you're getting better. It groups your closed trades by month and tracks two lines: how much of your playbook you followed, and how much your mistakes still cost you.

Adherence by month — watch the bars climb as your process tightens up.
Mistake & rule-break cost shrinking toward zero as the bad habits fade.
Latest-vs-first headline numbers, so progress is impossible to miss.
An honest mirror — improvement you can see, not just a number you hope is rising.

CrucibleTrade · Reports · Discipline Trend

Discipline Trend report: monthly adherence rising from 81% to 100% in a bar chart, a by-month table of mistake and rule-break cost falling to zero, and headline cards showing latest adherence and mistake cost versus the first month.

Mistake Attribution

Every mistake's true cost — counted once

Real trades break more than one rule at a time. CrucibleTrade lets you tag several behaviors per trade and then shows the cost two honest ways — so nothing gets double-counted and the totals still reconcile to your real P/L.

Multiple behavior tags per trade — because "chased" and "ignored stop" often ride together.
Involvement (every trade a tag touched) and attributed (P/L split across a trade's tags) — two lenses, no overlap.
Costliest & most-frequent mistakes surfaced, with a drill-down per behavior.
Reconciles to the real total — attribution that adds up to your actual net P/L.

CrucibleTrade · Reports · Mistakes

Mistakes report: behaviors ranked by cost with Costly and Too-Few-Trades buckets, a no-double-count attributed total that reconciles to net P/L, costliest and most-frequent callouts, and a per-mistake drill-down.

Reports & Analytics

Find your real edge — and your real leaks

Thirteen report lenses turn a pile of trades into clear answers: which symbols and setups you trade well, where mistakes cost you, and whether you're getting paid for the risk you take.

Symbol, setup & mistake breakdowns with win rate, profit factor, expectancy, and R.
MAE / MFE analysis — how much heat you took vs. how much was on the table.
Sector, position-size & time-of-day views to right-size and right-time your entries.
"Strong / caution" buckets so the standouts and the leaks are obvious at a glance.

CrucibleTrade · Reports · Setups

Setup performance report: thirteen report tabs, a summary strip of best and worst setups, and a table of setups graded into Strong / Watch / Avoid buckets with win rate, profit factor and R, plus a per-setup drilldown.

Risk & Planner

Manage risk before the trade, not after

Set per-account limits on how much you can lose — or newly risk — in a day, week, or month, and CrucibleTrade rolls them into a single throttle on every account. When your recent trading says ease off, it says so — and sizes your next idea down for you.

Per-account risk rules — daily, weekly, and monthly loss stops and new-risk caps, seeded by a Day, Swing, or Position preset and priced in risk units or % of equity.
One throttle: Clear → Caution → Cool-down → Locked, blending your losing streak, recent R, open-risk budget, and those period limits. It warns and nudges — never blocks. This is a journal, not a broker.
Sizing that responds — an entry, stop, and risk amount become share count instantly, and while an account is throttled, new ideas default to half a risk unit (still yours to override).
Live open-risk budget with "risk left," break-even and trailing stops, and a risk-free scale-out plan on your open book.
Time-weighted return that neutralizes deposits and withdrawals.
A pre-trade reminder from your own history — mistake hot-spots, best setup windows, and your weekday edge, one click from your plan notes.

CrucibleTrade · Planner · Account risk tiles

Planner account risk tiles: each account shows its throttle state (Cool-down here), its day, week, and month risk limits with how much is used, a live open-risk budget gauge, and a 'new ideas → ½ Acct RU' directive — above the open-positions book and risk-sized trade ideas.

CrucibleTrade · Planner · Open position

Planner: a selected open position with live risk tiles (initial risk, 1R price, open and stop P/L), the open-positions book with stops, and a trade-ideas sheet sized to each account's risk budget with a focus list.

Daily P/L Calendar

See your consistency, day by day

A weekday P/L calendar turns your month into a heatmap of green and red days — so you can see your consistency at a glance and spot the sessions that made, or cost you, the month.

Daily & week-to-date P/L with green-day / red-day counts and best/worst sessions.
Scale-out aware — partial exits land on the day the reducing fill happened.
Single or side-by-side months with month totals and trade-day counts at a glance.

CrucibleTrade · Calendar

Daily P/L calendar: a weekday heatmap of realized profit and loss with green and red days, week-to-date totals, trade and execution counts, and the month's best and worst sessions surfaced automatically.

Thirteen report lenses

Every angle on your edge

The same trades, sliced thirteen ways — by symbol, setup, mistake, sector, size, distribution, hold time, time of day, month by month, excursion and more — so the standouts and the leaks are impossible to miss.

R-multiple distribution histogram with selectable bin width and an R / percent toggle. — **R-multiple distribution.** The shape of the edge behind the single expectancy number — tight losses near −1R and a healthy right tail.

Performance grouped by how long trades were held, from intraday to one month or more. — **Hold time.** Whether your edge lives in quick trades or longer swings — every bucket from intraday to a month-plus, plus a setup × hold-time matrix.

Time-of-day and day-of-week performance in 30-minute or hourly bins, by entry or exit time. — **Timing.** The time of day and weekday you trade best, in 30-minute or hourly bins, by entry or exit.

Month-by-month performance with a running cumulative, win rate, expectancy, and best and worst day. — **Monthly performance.** How consistent you are month to month, with a running cumulative and each month's best and worst day.

MAE versus MFE scatter computed from cached intraday bars, winners green and losers red. — **MAE / MFE excursion.** How much heat you took versus how much was on the table — computed from cached intraday bars for every trade.

Cumulative realized P/L curve with drawdown shading and max / current drawdown, plus a dollar / percent toggle. — **Equity & drawdown.** Cumulative realized P/L with high-water-mark drawdown shading, max and current drawdown, and a $ / % toggle.

Symbol performance report: every ticker graded into Strong / Watch / Avoid buckets with win rate, profit factor, expectancy and R, plus a summary strip of best, worst and most-traded symbols and a per-symbol drill-down of recent trades. — **Symbol performance.** Which tickers you actually trade well — graded into Strong, Watch and Avoid buckets, with a drill-down into each symbol's recent trades.

Sector performance report: trades grouped across nine sectors with net P/L, win rate and R, showing which corners of the market pay and which to avoid. — **Sector breakdown.** Where your edge concentrates across nine sectors — built from per-ticker metadata, no manual tagging required.

Company-size performance report: trades grouped by large, mid, small cap and ETF with net P/L, win rate and R, revealing which market-cap tiers suit your style. — **Company size.** Whether you trade large caps, small caps, or leveraged ETFs best — so you can lean into the tier that fits your style.

Under the hood

Serious tooling, zero busywork

CrucibleTrade handles the unglamorous parts of journaling so you can spend your time reviewing, not bookkeeping.

Import & data

Thinkorswim account statement CSV
Fidelity history & ATP order enrichment
Automatic execution → trade matching
Broker timezone normalization
Multi-account, multi-broker support

Review & charts

Intraday candlestick replay
Entry/exit markers & stop lines
Anchored VWAP & moving averages
Setup, mistake & lesson tagging
Guided "needs review" queue

Risk & reporting

R-multiple & expectancy everywhere
Open-risk budget & position sizing
Time-weighted return
Local backups, restore & repair tools
Light & dark themes

Local-first & private

Your trading data stays on your machine

CrucibleTrade is a desktop app backed by a single local SQLite database. There's no account to create and nothing to sync — your fills, notes, and edge never touch a server.

One portable .db file you own and can back up anywhere

Built-in snapshots, restore, and repair tools

No telemetry, no ads, no subscription lock-in

Broker CSV

CrucibleTrade

Local .db

No cloud upload

How it's different

A different kind of trading journal

Most journals are hosted subscriptions that keep your trade history on someone else's servers. CrucibleTrade runs on your machine, costs nothing to try, and is built end-to-end around the discipline loop.

	CrucibleTrade	Typical cloud journal
Where your trades live	On your machine — a local SQLite file	On the vendor's servers
Account & login	None	Required
Pricing	Free to try · no subscription	Monthly / annual subscription
Works fully offline	✓ Yes	Needs a connection
Broker CSV import & auto-matched trades	✓ TOS & Fidelity	✓ Varies by broker
Per-setup playbook + rule-adherence scoring	✓ Built in	Varies
Multi-tag mistake cost, with no double-counting	✓ Two-lens attribution	Rare
"Am I improving?" discipline trend over time	✓ Month-over-month	Varies
Risk planner wired to the review loop	✓ Plan ↔ trade links	Separate / limited
Per-account daily / weekly loss limits + risk throttle	✓ Sizes ideas down when you're pressing	Rare
Your data is portable and yours	✓ It's a file you own	Export on request

Compared against the common model of hosted, subscription journals such as Tradervue, TraderSync, TradeZella and Edgewonk. Exact features vary by product and plan — CrucibleTrade's difference is the local-first, no-subscription model and a journal built around the review-to-plan discipline loop.

Questions

Frequently asked

CrucibleTrade imports Thinkorswim account-statement CSVs and Fidelity history CSVs, plus Fidelity ATP order files for precise time and order enrichment. Imports are account-scoped, so each file lands in the account it belongs to — and you can keep as many accounts as you trade.

No. Everything lives in a local SQLite database on your computer. There's no account, no login, and no background sync. You can back up, move, or delete your data at any time — it's a single file you control.

CrucibleTrade is a desktop application for macOS, Windows, and Linux. It bundles its own engine and chart tooling, so there's nothing else to install and no separate server to run.

It's designed for swing trading first. Multi-day holds, partial scale-outs, moving and break-even stops, and R-based risk are all first-class. That said, intraday-bar charts and the daily P/L calendar work just as well for shorter-term trades.

Yes — and the sample is designed to teach. One click in Settings loads a full sample database with 200+ trades across two accounts, 20+ tagged setups, cached intraday charts, and every report populated. Each trade is journaled as a worked example, so walking Plan → Execute → Review → Refine reads like a guided tour before you ever import your own fills. When you're ready, wipe it and start fresh.

CrucibleTrade is almost ready

It's feature-complete and in final testing. Native desktop builds for macOS, Windows, and Linux are on the way — want one the moment it ships?

macOS Coming soon Windows Coming soon Linux Coming soon

Free to try with bundled sample data · No account required

The market tests every trade.Review it. Refine it.Forge your edge.