DT Terminal Swing Trader Playbook

A swing trader holds through nights and weekends, which is exactly when a hand-kept journal drifts from the broker. Connect the account first. MT4 and MT5 connect with a login, futures brokers with a one-click authorise, crypto exchanges with a read-only API key, and the connection can read your history and nothing else.

Keep each book apart. A connection gets its own account, a Forward Test account holds the theses you decide not to fund, and a prop account carries its firm's actual program: daily loss limit, maximum drawdown (trailing or static, the card says which), the challenge ladder, and a break-even tracker once you are funded.

Write the rules before the first period. Strategy, instruments, tags, the rules a trade can violate, and a Goal for the quarter. Sync will keep the numbers honest; the rules are yours to keep.

Structured Analysis is the more structured option because it enforces a defined period, a clear bias, and invalidation rules. Freeform notes are flexible, but they are easier to rewrite in the moment. Structured Analysis protects your process.

1. Create a Structured Analysis period (press A), weekly or bi-weekly. This is the container for every decision you make during the phase.

2. Define market bias and invalidation. State the market condition (trend, range, transition), your directional bias, and the exact level that proves you wrong.

3. Optional fundamentals. If fundamentals are part of your system, record the major drivers and how you will behave on event days. Decide before the event. The Pre-Market Briefing surfaces overnight news and the day's macro events, so the plan starts from current context.

4. Instrument-level analysis. Only analyse instruments you plan to trade. For each one: higher-timeframe structure, key levels, entry conditions, invalidation.

5. Add news and events to the period. Build the context map for the entire swing phase.

If your bias is fuzzy, Brainstorm with Edge inside the Strategy form pressure-tests it before you commit. Edge suggests entry conditions and invalidation lines inline so you can accept, edit or reject each one. No plan = no trades.

Daily review is required, but you do not rewrite the plan. You only change bias if invalidation is hit.

1. Daily review. Revisit the Structured Analysis and ask whether price is behaving as expected. Press Sync now on an MT4 or MT5 connection first, so the review starts from today's fills.

2. Rest the order, then journal it. Swing entries are usually limits at a level. Every working order syncs onto the Orders page; open it and write the pre-trade journal while the level rests: thesis, invalidation, a screenshot. When it fills, the sync carries that thinking onto the trade. When it is cancelled or expires, write one line on why you stood aside.

3. Pulses. Capture emotions, price behaviour and discipline decisions. Pulses auto-link to the Structured Analysis and create the real decision record.

4. Trades. Synced fills auto-link to the period, with the broker's entry, size and fees locked on the row. Post-trade reflection is still required after exit. When a setup looks tempting but does not meet the plan, log it as a Forward Test trade instead.

5. Daily Journal. Both freeform and structured entries auto-link to the analysis period.

6. Check-Ins (mid-period only). Press C. Use only for corrections, not rewrites: what is working, what is not, what is changing (rules-based only).

The hardest part of swing trading happens while nothing is happening. A position you opened on Tuesday is still a decision on Thursday, and the temptation is to manage it from a screenshot in your head.

Manage it from the mirror instead. The Orders page lists every open position and every working stop or target beside it, as of the last sync, and says how old that snapshot is. Check it once a day, at the same time. If the stop at the broker is not the stop in your plan, one of them is wrong, and you fix it at the broker, never in the journal.

On event days, pulse before the release and pulse after. If the thesis breaks, the plan says what you do. If you scale out, the partial syncs as a partial. Between checks, put the chart down. Your bias lives in the period, not in the next candle.

Prop accounts need one extra glance: a trailing drawdown moves with open profit, and the account card tracks the broker's balance, so read the distance to the limit there rather than working it out.

End-of-period review unlocks only after the period ends. This is where the system improves.

1. Review core metrics. Bias accuracy, trade quality, pulse patterns and emotional discipline. Timeline shows every trade, journal, pulse and reflection of the period in one feed, and Guided Review walks you through it section by section.

2. Extract lessons. Write what to keep, what to remove, and one improvement for the next period.

3. Compound learning. Convert meaningful insights into Reflections and Collections for long-term tracking.

4. Hand the period to Edge. Use Ask Edge on the Structured Analysis to surface patterns you missed. The Weekly Focus card on your dashboard already flags the highest-priority behavioural signal each Sunday, and the Weekly Report email gives you a written summary of the prior week's execution.

5. Convert weakness into reps. When a leak surfaces, open the Backtester with goal mode set to weakness drilling, or accept one of the Suggested Backtests pre-filled for that exact leak. On the desktop app the replay runs on real ticks and across several instruments at once. Analyse with Edge then writes a deep review of the session.

6. Prove it. A period traded on a synced account is verified on arrival. Your track record answers 30-day and all-time, verified only or everything, on one link, and a confirmed payout from your firm is the strongest proof there is.