About a month ago, 2024-02-29 was my last journal entry for Trade-Ink, a project I had been working on for a few weeks (first as an online Web app, then offline-first desktop app)

Today, I don’t use it anymore, why is that?

Trade-Ink?

Trade-Ink is a trade journaling application, I have searched for an app like that, could not find one that was less expensive that what I make trading… I ended up using a Google Sheets, but there were a few problems:

• It involved a lot of tinkering to make things work the way I wanted
• There was a lot of repetitive task (Create a new worksheet for the day, copy some formulas, etc.)
• There is no dark theme.

Naturally, as a dev, I decided to spend an entire month to save me 2 minutes daily.

I do not wish to market Trade-Ink, for now there is a website but I’m still considering my options: Open-source it, offer free download, or add an obnoxious 89.99€ monthly subscription?

More isn’t better

These last couple of months, I have been trying to do things in a much simpler way. I now realise that Trade-Ink appears too complex for a good integration into my workflow.
Re-evaluating the scope and the needs would be the first step towards providing a better solution.

Assessing needs:

The goal of this app was to provide a journaling tool for trading. Understanding my psychology, my emotions, and eventually regulate them.

At the end of the day, I don’t care so much about numbers in general. I would just like to keep daily P/L though.

Must-haves:

• No. units on trade
• Entry price(s)
• Exit price(s)
• Tags
  • Reason for entry (reversal, bottom, etc)
  • Risk-to-reward ratio (1:2, 1:4, 1:10)
  • Mindset (lost, revenge-trading, etc.)
• Auto-change day on open

This last item might sound trivial but why would I bother doing it myself everyday?

Could-haves:

• Chart images
• Daily log
• Toggle show P/L

While the whole daily log is a pretty cool feature, it does not really serve any purpose because I use Obsidian. And if the daily log gets removed, the chart images would have nowhere to exist. These two features gone, the app becomes much more simple and clear.

Not Needed:

• Time of my trades
  • Unless I would like to draw statistics of when I am “the most” successful
  • Will most likely still be here for sorting purposes
• Stoploss
  • I can just specify that it hit with the tag “stoploss”

What’s next?

After this process of clarification, I can now begin chopping down all this code to get back to a simpler version.

When I first made all of this, I didn’t really think whether all these features were worth it or not. (Ironic, considering this post.)

I’ll re-evaluate in a month and adjust if needed.

Deploy, monitor, adjust