Your first scanner setup — watchlist, filters, first backtest.
Fourteen lessons of theory. Now you build a use case — and run it.
Before this: Markets, timeframes, F&O — the playground., Reading a candle — the language of the chart., Regimes — the lens that changes every signal., RSI — the momentum oscillator everyone misuses., EMA crossovers — the trend signal that breathes., MACD — trend and momentum in one indicator., VWAP — the institutional average price, reset for India., Volume, OBV, ADX — the three indicators that tell you why., Single-candle patterns — Doji, Hammer, Engulfing., Multi-candle patterns — Morning Star, Soldiers, Three-Line Strike., Support & resistance — where price actually pauses., Options 101 — CE, PE, strike, lot., Premium, theta, IV — why direction can be right but P&L wrong., Reading a signal — what BUY, SELL, CONFLICT, and the + suffix actually mean.
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1:20 · coming soonLearn & Explore
12 min read · live widgetFourteen lessons done. You understand candles, regimes, indicators, patterns, options, signal categories. Theory is no longer the bottleneck — the gap between knowing and using is. This lesson closes that gap. You build a watchlist. You configure a filter. You run your first backtest in Strategy Lab. The product becomes useful — and the result is deliberately humbling.
Step 1 — Watchlist setup
Open the scanner. The first instinct is to add every F&O instrument you have ever heard of — fifty rows scrolling endlessly. Resist it. A watchlist is a context container, not an inventory. Every additional row costs you a small attention tax. By the time you reach instrument twenty, you are not reading anymore — you are pattern-matching colours.
The right starting watchlist has 5 to 10 instruments you genuinely understand. A reasonable F&O starter:
- NIFTY50 — the index that anchors most retail flow
- BANKNIFTY — the high-beta cousin, separate behaviour
- One large-cap equity you track — RELIANCE, HDFCBANK, or INFY are common
- One sector you have a view on — TCS for IT, ICICIBANK for banking
- Optional second index — FINNIFTY or MIDCPNIFTY if you trade them
That is 5 to 7 rows. Maximum 10. If you cannot name what each instrument does in one sentence, it should not be on your watchlist.
You do not need the full F&O catalogue on day one. NIFTY50 alone is enough to learn the entire Foundations track — every concept in lessons 1 through 14 works identically on NIFTY, and the Platform gives you every F&O instrument the moment you're in. Build the habit on NIFTY first; expand the watchlist only when you have a real use for the extra instruments.
Step 2 — Multi-timeframe view
The scanner shows multiple timeframes simultaneously — 1m, 5m, 15m, 1h, 4h, 1d. Each row carries its own signal, probability, confidence, and regime tag for that timeframe. A BUY+ on 15m with a confirming BUY on 1h is a higher-quality setup than a BUY+ on 15m alone — the higher timeframe is voting the same way.
All six timeframes are available to you from day one on the Platform. Most beginners still benefit from picking one primary timeframe to anchor their reading and treating the rest as context — six screens of equally-weighted attention is its own kind of noise. Pick 15m as your primary — it suits intraday-but-not-scalping use, the lifestyle most retail traders actually have — then add 5m as a trigger timeframe and 1h as context confirmation once you're comfortable.
This is not a tier decision; it is a discipline decision. You can absolutely run a winning strategy watching one timeframe closely. You will simply do it slower and with less context than someone actively reading all six.
Step 3 — Configure your first filter
You do not need a clever filter to start. You need a filter that survives contact with reality. Start with three settings:
Filter signals where regime is trending OR strong_trend. From the regimes lesson you already know volatile_chop is where retail bleeds — this single constraint removes most of that bleed.
Set minProb to 0.65. This is "slightly favoured" — not high-conviction-plus territory, but enough to filter out coin-flip rows. Below 0.65 the edge is too thin to matter once slippage and theta enter.
Set minConf to 3 out of 5. The Indicator engine's internal indicators need to be at least mostly aligned. A row with confidence 1 or 2 means the indicators were fighting each other — even if probability looks fine, the underlying agreement is shaky.
Three filters. That is the whole setup. You will be tempted to add five more — Wyckoff phase, OB-mit, FVG stack, candle tier — that is the Playbooks track. Add complexity only after you have proof the simple version works.
Step 4 — Strategy Lab — your first backtest
Now the moment that separates trading-as-fantasy from trading-as-craft. Open Strategy Lab.
Setup:
- Instrument: NIFTY50
- Timeframes: 5m (entry trigger) and 15m (regime context)
- Date range: last 30 days
- Filter: the three settings from Step 3 above
- Direction: "BUY CE only" to start (one-direction is easier to read than both)
Click Run. The engine processes your filter against 30 days of historical bars. It is not predicting the future — it is showing you what those filters would have triggered in the recent past, with the engine's own signals applied to each bar.
A typical first result on the above setup looks something like this:
- Trades fired: 12
- Winners: 7
- Average return per trade: 0.4%
- Largest single drawdown: roughly 1.2%
Twelve trades in 30 days. Seven winners — about 58%. Average 0.4% per trade is unremarkable. Many traders see this and immediately conclude the filter is broken. It is not.
Your first backtest is meant to be humbling. Most strategies that sound brilliant in your head produce mediocre backtests. A 58% win rate at 0.4% average is actually workable with proper position sizing and discipline — but it does not feel like the brochure version of trading. That gap between expectation and reality is the lesson. The numbers are not flashy because honest numbers rarely are.
What to do next: iterate one variable at a time. Change minProb to 0.70 and rerun — does win rate improve, or does trade count just shrink? Change regime to strong_trend only — does the edge sharpen? Never change three knobs at once. You will not know which one moved the needle.
Step 5 — What "next" looks like
This is the end of the Foundations track. You can now:
- Open the scanner and read every column on every row
- Pick a timeframe that matches your schedule, not someone else's
- Filter out the obvious garbage with three settings
- Run a backtest before risking real capital
- Speak the same language the engine speaks — regime, confluence, plus suffix, probability, confidence
The honest next step is not placing a live trade tomorrow morning. The honest next step is running the above backtest, then running variations of it over the next week, then sitting with the scanner during live hours and seeing whether the rows it surfaces match the rows your backtest produced. Paper-trade first. Real capital after.
After that, the Playbooks track is where the next layer of edge lives. Counter-trend setups and when they actually work. Wyckoff phase recognition. Order block and FVG mitigation strategies. Ten cloneable strategy presets you can adapt to your style. Foundations gave you literacy; Playbooks gives you a library.
See it live
Build it now
- Open the scanner. Build your 5–10 instrument watchlist. Resist adding more.
- Pick your primary timeframe (15m is the forgiving default; add 5m as a trigger once you're comfortable).
- Open Strategy Lab. Set up the three-filter starter: regime in [trending, strong_trend], minProb 0.65, minConf 3.
- Run a 30-day backtest on NIFTY50. Read the trade list, not just the summary.
- Change one knob, rerun, note what shifted. Do this five times. That is your first week.
- Watchlist: 5 to 10 instruments you genuinely understand. Larger watchlists tax attention, not edge.
- Timeframe: match your schedule, not the trader on YouTube. 15m is the most-forgiving starting point.
- Starter filter: regime in [
trending,strong_trend], minProb 0.65, minConf 3. Three knobs only. - First backtest: humbling on purpose. A 58% win rate at 0.4% average is workable; flashy numbers usually mean overfit setups.
- Iterate one variable at a time. Honest improvement is incremental.
Foundations complete. You can read the scanner, configure a filter, and validate before risking capital. Next up — when you are ready — the Playbooks track: counter-trend timing, Wyckoff phases, smart-money mitigations, and ten ready-to-clone strategy presets. The library starts there.
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