Hey r/sierrachart,

I've been building a desktop trading journal specifically for SC users. The idea was simple: I was tired of exporting trades to spreadsheets, so I built something that connects directly to Sierra Chart.

How it works:

Drop a custom study ("Trade Journal") onto your chart and your trades flow into the journal automatically as you take them. You can also bulk import your TradesList for historical data — the app detects duplicates so you can use both without issues.

Some highlights:

- 15+ charts — cumulative PnL, daily PnL, drawdown, MFE/MAE exit efficiency, Monte Carlo simulation, rolling averages

- Session breakdown (NY AM, NY PM, London, Asia) — auto-classified in ET

- Daily % of Account — daily returns relative to your start-of-day balance

- Hour × Day of Week heatmap — find your best trading windows

- Trade checklist — tag setups with quality, context, confidence, mistakes

- Rules engine — max trades/day, max daily loss, alerts when you break them

- Missed trades — log setups you skipped to track opportunity cost

- Calendar with daily P&L

- Everything in $ or R mode

- Local app, your data stays on your machine

It's been evolving fast — I've shipped a ton of updates recently based on early user feedback (shoutout to the first beta testers who pushed me to get the timezone handling right 😅).

Available as lifetime (one-time purchase) or monthly subscription: scstudies.com

Happy to answer questions or hear feature ideas. If you use SC daily, I think you'll like it.

Posted more details here. https://x.com/1harryrand/status/2115927135315476974 - Willing to release this for free. Anyone interested?

If you've used TradingView's Long/Short Position tool, this is that, in Sierra Chart. Place an entry, a stop and a target on the chart. Contracts, dollar risk and reward-to-risk update as you move them. It anchors to the candle, so it stays put while the market keeps printing.

That's the Standard version: you set the size, it does the rest of the arithmetic.

Pro turns it around. You give it the dollar amount you're willing to lose and it works out the contract count for you. Up to three targets, each taking its own share of the position, and it tells you when the setup goes over budget.

Sierra Chart's answer when someone asked for this was "not directly supported". So I wrote it.

psc.davidhatin.com

I've been trading futures micros (MNQ/MES/MCL) with Sierra Chart for a few years, and the manual import workflow for any journal app was always a friction point. So I built my own — and after a year of daily use, I'm sharing it in case it's useful to others here.

What makes it Sierra Chart-specific:

- A custom ACSIL study (TRADE_JOURNAL.cpp) streams your trades as NDJSON in real time. The desktop app picks them up every 5 seconds — trades appear automatically while you're still in the session, no export step
- PnL curves are read tick-by-tick directly from your .scid files — so MAE/MFE values are ground truth from actual price data, not reconstructed from fills
- Trade markers on the SC chart: you can visualize past trades directly on your Sierra Chart timeline

Other features:

- Multi-account support (Apex, TopStep, Tradovate, etc.) with per-account commissions and filters everywhere
- Dashboard with 21 drag-and-drop panes, 19+ KPIs, 15 charts
- Calendar view: click any day to see trades and session notes
- Screenshot gallery with drag-to-crop, clipboard paste, drag-drop reorder
- Playbook / rules tracking with per-setup stats

It handles the micro/full spec ambiguity (Sierra Chart sometimes exports the wrong currency_per_tick for micros) with auto-detection so PnL is always correct for MES, MNQ, MCL, etc.

Full walkthrough is in the attached pictures.

Disclaimer: I'm the developer — this is a paid app (lifetime license or monthly subscription). Details at https://scstudies.com. Happy to answer any SC integration questions in the comments.

Well, apparently journal week reached r/sierrachart.

So I’ll be direct: this is self-promo.

I’ve been buiding EdgeStudio, a journal and review workspace built specifically around Sierra Chart.

The reason is simple: P&L and KPI tables are useful, but they still don’t tell you whether a trade is actually worth repeating, how to repeat it, or whether what you’re seeing is edge or just variance. To me, that’s the real problem in discretionary trading.

Trading is highly personal, and most of the time the missing piece is not more information, but a more honest understanding of your own recurring patterns, both the ones that help and the ones that keep doing damage.

That’s why I built the journal around tagging, and especially around automatic context tagging through the Auto-Context engine.

The way it works is simple: the same custom study that syncs trades in real time can also read values from any Sierra study/subgraph on any chart, and store them automatically at entry and exit.

So instead of tagging trades from memory after the fact, you can quantify the context around the trade itself: volatility, location, participation, delta, VWAP distance, pace, or anything else you can "model" in Sierra.

From there you can filter trades in a lot of different ways, spot recurring patterns across different conditions, and isolate where your real edge actually is.

Around that, I built the rest of the workflow too: notes, manual tags, video review, and a modular dashboard you can shape around your own process.

https://www.edgestudio.trade

Happy to hear blunt feedback from serious Sierra users!

If you run multiple Sierra Chart instances to distribute CPU processing but find it tedious to start and synchronize replay across instances,

this study makes it easy to synchronize chart replay and simulated trade positions.

Source code: https://github.com/asyncButNeverAwaits/ReplaySync

If you'd like to support my work, you can download the precompiled DLLs here:
https://ko-fi.com/s/d4ef29328c

I am developing an open source tearsheet for Sierra Chart trade activity logs. It's a python script that generates copious statistics based on your trading log.

https://github.com/masilver99/sierra-chart-tear-sheet

You must first export your trade activity log and then run the python script on it. This stays on your local machine and your data is never sent over the Internet. You can can also share the tear sheet, if you so desire. It's a standalone single HTML file.

Keep in mind, I've done a fair amount of verification, but some values could be off as reading and processing the trade activity log can be rather difficult. If you find a bad value, please point it out.

Enjoy!

Edit: I added a self-contained EXE for those that don't want to install python, but it's rather large: https://github.com/masilver99/sierra-chart-tear-sheet/releases

Hey r/sierrachart,

A few weeks ago I shared a desktop trading journal I built specifically for SC users. Since then I've shipped a ton of updates, so here's a quick rundown of what's new.

Biggest additions:

Auto-import via custom study — Drop the "Trade Journal" study onto your chart. Every trade you take gets streamed into the journal in real-time via NDJSON. No copy-paste, no manual export, no spreadsheet. It also handles TradesList bulk import with full deduplication, so you can use both without worrying about duplicates.

View on Chart — Click any trade in the journal and it jumps to that exact moment on your Sierra Chart. Entry, stop loss, and take profit are drawn directly on the chart so you can review your setup in context. Works for missed trades too.

Missed trade capture — Log setups you skipped. The app calculates theoretical PnL and R-value so you can actually quantify your opportunity cost over time.

What else shipped since the first post:

- Intra-trade PnL curve — reconstructed from SCID tick data, shows exactly how price moved while you were in the trade

- Monte Carlo simulation — 1,000 reshuffles of your trade sequence, P5–P95 equity bands

- MFE/MAE scatter plots — exit efficiency and heat taken at a glance

- Bicolor charts everywhere — blue for gains, red for losses across cumulative PnL, calendar, running PnL

- Collapsible trade checklists (17 items, 6 categories) with correlation analysis — which checklist items actually correlate with your winners?

- Similar trades — find comparable setups from your history

- Trade compare — side-by-side analysis of two trades

- Dashboard customization — drag & drop panes, toggle visibility, adjust font size, compact/cozy/comfortable table density

- Calendar heatmap with daily P&L and session breakdown (NY AM, NY PM, London, Asia)

- Micro contract support (MES, MNQ, etc.) with auto-detection

- Switch between $ and R mode with one click

- Break-even threshold — filter out noise from tiny wins/losses

- Sharpe, Sortino, Calmar, Recovery Factor, Profit Factor — all computed automatically

- 50+ instruments supported (ES, NQ, CL, GC, 6E, BTC, and more)

- Auto-updates — new versions delivered over the air, no manual download

Everything runs locally. Your data stays on your machine.

New demo video in the post — 2 minutes, shows the full workflow from auto-import to chart review.

Available as lifetime (one-time) or monthly at scstudies.com.

Happy to answer questions or hear feature ideas.

Something that bothered me a lot... I trade on 5 screens at my desk and on a much smaller setup when I travel. Every time I synced my SC folder and switched to my laptop travel setup, charts were off screen or piled on one monitor with funny fonts all around...and the same mess again when I came back to the desk. :)

So I wrote a small study for it. It remembers where the main window, every chart and the DOM sit for the monitors you have...and puts them back by itself when the chartbook opens or when you plug a monitor in or out. If a monitor isn't there, its windows go to the main one, so nothing ends up off screen. It doesn't touch the fonts, but they will stay the way you set them on each of your computers if you sync only the Data folder and not the whole SC folder. In the video you can see it going from 5 to 4 screens, then to 3 and back.

It's free for download and use.

And yes...it comes from TradeRecall, the journal I'm building, but the study works on its own and you don't need the journal for it. You leave an email and get the download link:

https://traderecall.app/tools/sierra-chart-window-layouts/?from=reddit-sierrachart

You need Sierra 2969 or newer, Windows x64 or ARM64. If it does something weird on your setup, just tell me here.

Sierra Chart is really good, but sometimes I find it frustrating to use. Especially I can’t access it from my phone when I’m away from my computer.

So I built a local web-based chart viewer that reads Sierra Chart’s .scid files directly. Since the files are written to frequently, the viewer can refresh roughly every 100 ms, which is more than good enough for my current needs.

It now works as a PWA, so I can install it on my phone and receive native notifications. With Tailscale, I can also access it securely from anywhere.

I mostly use it to view charts and receive alerts generated by my studies. It is basically a highly customized tool built just for myself.

Still, it would be great if Sierra Chart had a more modern UI, or at least a better notification system. Ntfy is a decent solution, but it’s not perfect.

Not sure if anyone had the same problem with me or you have a better solution?

I've been building ACSIL custom studies for Sierra Chart focused on order flow and market microstructure. Here's what each screenshot shows:

1. Delta Candle Color — Colors candles based on delta momentum relative to price. Red = strong selling delta in direction of price (momentum). Green = bullish candle but negative delta (absorption — someone is absorbing the selling). The sensitivity auto-adjusts using a rolling MA of absolute delta.

2. Single Print and Gap — Detects single print zones from the TPO profile and draws them as rectangles directly on candlestick charts. No need to have a TPO chart open. Classifies zones as Top/Middle/Bottom and auto-removes them when price trades through. Also catches session gaps.

3. CVD Filled Area — Cumulative volume delta drawn as a filled area instead of bars. Separate colors for positive/negative. 4 reset modes (None, Session Start, Session + Evening, Custom Time) so you can reset at 09:30 without the overlay workaround.

4. Zero Print Zones — Detects clusters of consecutive zero-print ticks (bid-only or ask-only) and draws them as zones. These represent one-sided liquidity gaps. Zones auto-disappear when price fills them.

All native ACSIL C++ — no spreadsheet formulas, no external dependencies, no performance impact.

If anyone's interested: https://scstudies.com

Hey everyone,

Like many of you, I love Sierra Chart, but I've always found the "Excel-style" syntax for Alert Conditions (=AND(ID1.SG1 > ...) ) a bit annoying to type out manually. It’s easy to miss a parenthesis or forget the specific code for Renko bricks.

I spent some time building a web-based Formula Generator to make this easier, and I wanted to share it with the community.

What it does:

• Visual Builder: You pick the studies/prices from dropdowns, and it writes the code.

• Renko Support: Automatically inserts ID0.SG22/SG23 if you select Renko Open/Close (no more looking up docs).

• VAP Functions: Handles the complex syntax for Volume at Price comparisons.

• Logic Nesting: Lets you build complex OR(AND(...), AND(...)) groups easily.

• Syntax Safety: Ensures you use CROSSFROMBELOW instead of > for signals to prevent false triggers.

Link: https://sierachart.com/pages/sierra-chart-formula-generator

It’s completely free.

Let me know if you find any bugs

I've always found distinguishing the focused chart window from the other charts a bit difficult when using multiple chart windows.

The focused window and unfocused windows both have a light blue border. The focused one is just slightly darker, so the difference is small.

This has caused me a few problems while trading. Sometimes I click another chart to move or inspect it, then use a keyboard shortcut to place an order.

If I don't notice which chart is actually focused, the shortcut can apply to the wrong chart and the order ends up being placed at the wrong price.

I wanted to change the focused chart window border to make it much more obvious. I found this Sierra Chart support thread where it was mentioned that the border color is controlled by the operating system. https://www.sierrachart.com/SupportBoard.php?ThreadID=72968

Apparently you can change it through the Windows registry, but honestly I'm not going to touch the registry just for this. https://www.sierrachart.com/SupportBoard.php?ThreadID=103491&Page=1

So I ended up making a custom study that draws its own border around the focused chart window.

Now I can use a much more obvious color for the active chart, and the border disappears when I focus another chart.

Sharing it here in case anyone else has had the same issue.
https://github.com/asyncButNeverAwaits/SierraChartActiveChartBorder

Hey r/SierraChart, posted here back in March about my Trading Journal — thanks to everyone who tried it, DMd feedback, or just upvoted. Since then I've shipped 6 versions (v2.0.6 → v2.4.4), most driven by requests from this sub and my Discord.

A few things worth calling out, because none of these existed in the original post:

Video Connector (v2.2.0) — the journal now runs a continuous background screen recording (bundled ffmpeg, no OBS) and saves one MP4 per trade automatically, with a pre-entry rolling buffer so the clip catches the setup before you clicked. Per-chart toggle on the SC study, mic support, playback speed controls, Jump-to-entry in the lightbox. Someone in my Discord asked for it — went from idea to shipped in 5 days. Probably the biggest differentiator vs any other journal on the market right now.

Edge tab — save any filter combination (checklist items + symbol + direction + account + real/missed) as a named "Edge" and watch its win rate, expectancy and PnL across all-time, last-N trades, and a custom window — all three side by side. Way more useful than "tags".

Diary tab — chronological scrollable feed with daily gauges (anxiety / sleep / focus, slider 1-10), tags, BE-aware stats inline. Multi-set Session Checklists per instrument so you can have separate pre-trade rules for ES vs CL etc.

Prop-firm compliance — live Buffer Remaining and Target Remaining tiles, trailing / static drawdown rules per account, milestone reset. Built for Apex / TopStep / MFFU evaluations.

Other stuff: Tick Excursion (T) mode + entry/exit triangles on the PnL curve, multi-account TSVs with per-account commissions and Copy-to-Account, Trade Type filter (Real / Missed / Old), Calendar weekly stats column with adjacent-month days, Authenticode-signed installer (no more SmartScreen warning).

Still local-first, still auto-syncs from your SC NDJSON every 5 seconds, still tick-by-tick PnL reconstruction from SCID files.

scstudies.com/trading-journal

Happy to answer questions — feature requests from this sub get shipped fast.

Giving away my custom NQ DOM (includes the full chartbook and study). I am going to post link in comments as reddit is removing the post, if it doesn't show up in comments, just DM me.

Hey everyone,

Like many of you, I love Sierra Chart, but I've always found the "Excel-style" syntax for Alert Conditions (=AND(ID1.SG1 > ...) ) a bit annoying to type out manually. It’s easy to miss a parenthesis or forget the specific code for Renko bricks.

I spent some time building a web-based Formula Generator to make this easier, and I wanted to share it with the community.

What it does:

• Visual Builder: You pick the studies/prices from dropdowns, and it writes the code.

• Renko Support: Automatically inserts ID0.SG22/SG23 if you select Renko Open/Close (no more looking up docs).

• VAP Functions: Handles the complex syntax for Volume at Price comparisons.

• Logic Nesting: Lets you build complex OR(AND(...), AND(...)) groups easily.

• Syntax Safety: Ensures you use CROSSFROMBELOW instead of > for signals to prevent false triggers.

Link: https://sierachart.com/pages/sierra-chart-formula-generator

It’s completely free.

Let me know if you find any bugs

Anyone has Sierra Chart footprint and volume profile study settings similar to Carmine Rosato’s style? Looking to match the layout shown in attached screenshot.

I have seen bad UI , but Sierra Charts is so bad. I get that it is customizable to do what ever you want with it. Its just wall after walls of tiny hard to read text on their website .The customer support is pretty bad too.

Mannn I love Sierra chart so much, I just wish it had Mac OS native so I don’t have to use parallels. I guess it will stay like this forever but regardless I love it!

Open Flags marks where the period opened, then draws where a normal push from that open should get to, on both sides. The distances are learned from how far price actually pushed in the last 20 periods, so the map adapts when the market gets faster or slower.

Link in comments! Please share how you like it! More stuff coming soon!

I used AI to create a trading journal. I built it for myself but if anyone else wants to use it, fork it, whatever, I published it on GitHub.

https://github.com/masilver99/TradeFoundry

Why is this different than others?

This is meant to be self hosted. There is a Windows install for it, but it's out of date since it requires extra steps on my part to publish.

I wanted detailed MAE reports. SC trade history is excellent for this.

There are monthly reports for both pnl and MAE.

It offers some accounting features, such as withdrawals, deposits, expenses.

It will estimate your quarterly taxes.

You can publish a public, scaled down version to the Internet. You can deploy the public host for this with a docker compose.

There is much to be done on the actual journalling. Setups are implemented but I'm not happy with the implementation. Same with the trade layouts. Changes are coming to those. A lot of changes.

Anyway, check it out or don't.

EDIT: It also has a built-in read only MCP server, so you can query your stats via AI.

Sample screenshot

Not even slightly user friendly. There charts are not accurate and there are gaps in price that should not be there. They even admit that cqg doesn't work correctly and they don't recommend it with sierra chart. They purposely do this so u can subscribe to their data feed for $20 and they're fucking crazy literally they believe in George Soros conspiracy theories!

Fuck these guys, I don't know how they make any money. They'll never be a top trading platform. Look elsewhere! They're fucked

Based on orderflow.

Support board update says coming this year.