Getting started

Everything below works during the 30-day free trial — no credit card required. If you get stuck, the page-by-page guide covers each screen in more detail.

1. Set your portfolio size and slots

Open Settings → Portfolio and enter:

• Portfolio size — the total account value you’re trading with.
• Slot count — how many equal-sized positions the portfolio is divided into (10 is a common default).

Everything else keys off these two numbers: a “full slot” is portfolio size ÷ slot count, position sizes are shown as fractions of a slot (¼, ½, full), and invested % is measured against the portfolio size. See slot sizing for why this matters.

2. Record your first trade

Go to Trades → Add trade. A few things on the form work for you as you type:

• Position-sizing calculator — before you commit, the form shows the share count for a ¼, ½, or full slot at your entry price. Click a fraction to fill the quantity.
• Buy checklist — for buys, the form shows advisory pass/warn/fail lines (market in uptrend? price in buy zone? size fits a slot?). It never blocks a save; it just tells you what the rules say.
• Tag suggestion — the app suggests a likely tag for the trade (breakout buy, stopped out, and so on). One click to confirm, never applied automatically.

Record sells the same way. The app pairs buys and sells into closed round trips automatically — you never declare “this sell closes that buy.”

3. Import your existing history

Two importers save you from manual back-entry:

• Broker CSV (Trades → Import) — export your trade history from your broker as CSV and upload it. The app maps the columns (using AI when the header layout isn’t one it already knows), shows you a preview, and imports only after you confirm. Nothing is guessed silently.
• Leaderboard list — if you subscribe to IBD Leaderboard, you can import your own exported list. The app then cross-references your positions against it: ratings in the glossary, pivots and buy zones on ticker pages, and entry-checklist checks all light up. This is always your own data — the app ships none of IBD’s content.

4. Read your Summary

With trades in, the Summary page becomes the daily home screen: open positions with live prices, invested %, portfolio heat (the loss if every stop hit today), the computed market outlook, and earnings-date warnings for held tickers. The Summary guide walks through every number.

5. Let the review features accumulate

Some of the most useful surfaces need closed trades to work with, so they get better as your journal grows:

• Retrospectives — a plain-language report card on each closed round trip (did you buy in the zone? honor the stop?). See the ticker page guide.
• Performance attribution — which market regimes your gains actually came from. See attribution.
• Mistake patterns — recurring rule breaks and what they cost, once there’s a large enough sample. See stop discipline.