Logging regimes, and combining with the playbooks
Lesson 22 · about 10 min
A regime call that is not written down is an opinion. A regime call that is written down next to every trade becomes data, and after a few months that data answers the most valuable question in trading: which of my setups work in which weather? This lesson gives you the log format and then shows how the regime plugs into the Swing Trading Playbook and the Day Trading Playbook from this library.
The regime log
Add these columns to whatever journal you already keep. If you keep none, this is a reason to start one.
| Column | Values | Filled when |
|---|---|---|
| date | Morning | |
| direction | up / down / range | Morning |
| breadth | broad / narrowing / split / washed-out | Morning |
| vol | VIX level + contango / flat / backwardation | Morning |
| credit | calm / widening / stressed / tightening | Morning |
| rates | background / shock-up / shock-down | Morning |
| sentence | free text, the fixed-shape sentence | Morning |
| day_type | trend-up / trend-down / chop / reversal | Evening |
| add_close | number | Evening |
| ratio_close | UVOL/DVOL | Evening |
| trin_close | number | Evening |
| matched | yes / partly / no | Evening |
Each trade in your trade log then carries the date, which joins it to the regime row. That join is the whole point. You do not need to copy the regime into every trade; you need the date to line up.
What the log tells you after 60 days
With two months of rows you can start answering:
Which regimes do my setups like? Group trades by the breadth column and compute expectancy per group, exactly as Module 1 sketched. Expect a large spread. Then do the same by day_type for intraday trades.
How good are my morning calls? Count "matched" against total. If the morning sentence predicted the day type correctly 60% of the time, you know how much to trust it and how much to wait for the 10:45 live read.
Which series actually moved my calls? Look at the days the sentence changed. What changed it? If one series drove most of the changes and another never did, you have found a candidate to drop from the routine.
Where was I early or late? Mark the regime transitions in hindsight (the day breadth actually turned) and compare to the day your sentence changed. The lag, in days, is your reaction time. Aim to shrink it, but not to zero; a sentence that flips daily is noise.
Key idea: The regime log joins to the trade log by date. Expectancy per regime, morning-call accuracy and reaction time are the three numbers it produces, and each one changes how you trade more than any new indicator would.
Combining with the Swing Trading Playbook
The Swing Trading Playbook's second module is titled "Market regime first" and asks you to grade the market before looking for candidates. This course is the long-form version of that grade. The mapping:
| Playbook step | What this course supplies |
|---|---|
| Market regime first | The regime sentence: direction, breadth, vol, credit |
| Finding candidates | Sector ratios say which groups have leadership; equal-weight ratio says whether to look beyond the megacaps |
| Core setups | Breadth word sets the base rate: broad favours breakouts and pullbacks, washed-out favours mean-reversion longs, narrowing favours leaders only |
| Managing the trade | VIX term structure sets stop width expectations; expiration calendar flags range expansion weeks |
| Sizing and portfolio heat | Risk-off regime (credit widening, backwardation) lowers the heat cap; broad regime restores it |
| Routine and review | The regime log is the review input |
A simple rule set that many swing traders converge on:
- Broad + contango + credit calm: full size, breakouts and pullbacks allowed, heat cap at your normal limit.
- Narrowing + contango: full size only in leading sectors; half size elsewhere; no new breakouts in lagging groups.
- Any backwardation or credit widening: half size across the board, wider stops, heat cap reduced by a third.
- Washed-out + backwardation + credit stopped widening: no new shorts; long mean-reversion setups at half size until breadth thrusts or the equal-weight ratio turns; then normal.
These are starting points to be tuned by your own log, not rules to adopt as written.
Combining with the Day Trading Playbook
The Day Trading Playbook has a module titled "Reading the day type", which is the same question Module 2 of this course answers with internals. The additions this course makes:
| Playbook step | What this course supplies |
|---|---|
| The session map | Expected day-type distribution given the daily regime (trend days cluster in broad regimes) |
| Reading the day type | The 10:30-11:00 fingerprint: ADD stability, VOLD agreement, TICK distribution, TRIN direction |
| Core setups | Trend day: continuation entries on absorbed TICK pulses. Chop day: fades at range edges only. Reversal: wait for internals divergence, then price |
| Execution mechanics | TICK extremes as entry timing; avoid the first and last ten minutes' mechanical prints |
| Risk for intraday | Volatility regime scales stop distance; VIX 30 stops are twice VIX 15 stops in points |
| Process | The evening block D log is the day trader's review |
The most important integration is negative: what not to do. On a day the morning sentence says "narrowing, VVIX rising, expiration Friday", and the 10:45 read says chop, the playbook's breakout setups are switched off for the session. Knowing when to not run a setup is most of what internals give a day trader.
Regime changes mid-trade
A swing trade entered in a broad regime that turns narrowing does not need to be closed. It needs the management rules for the new regime: tighter trailing stop, no adds, profit target brought in. Write those transitions into the plan in advance so that the decision is mechanical when it arrives. The log will tell you, after enough transitions, whether tightening on a regime change helped or hurt; adjust accordingly.
A note on discipline
The routine and the log are ten minutes in the morning and three in the evening. They are also the first thing dropped when trading is going well and the first thing blamed when it is going badly. Neither reaction is justified. The log's value is almost entirely in its continuity; a log with gaps cannot answer the regime questions because the missing days are usually the interesting ones.
Try it: Add the twelve regime columns to your journal today. Back-fill the last ten sessions as best you can from charts (direction, breadth, vol and day_type are recoverable; the rest can be left blank). Then join your last ten trades to those rows and compute expectancy for the two most common breadth words. It is a tiny sample; the exercise is to see the join work, not to draw conclusions.
Recap
- Log the regime daily: five morning fields plus the sentence, five evening fields plus whether the day matched.
- Join trades to regimes by date; after 60 days compute expectancy per regime, morning-call accuracy and reaction time.
- The swing playbook's "market regime first" step is the regime sentence; the breadth word sets setup base rates and the vol/credit words set size and heat.
- The day-trading playbook's "reading the day type" step is the Module 2 fingerprint; the key integration is switching setups off on days the tape has decided against them.
- Write mid-trade regime-change rules in advance, and keep the log continuous.
See it drawn
Original diagrams for the ideas on this page. Illustrative, not real market data.