Restrospective Notes/Journalling

Hi Matthew

I’d like to request the ability to make restrospective journal notes on specific dates in history - in the same way I can for today’s date. I understand that the purpose of journalling is to make a qualitative record based on your thoughts at the time of an investment decision, however, it could also serve as a way of facilitating historical research as well that can inform future decisions, particularly the ability to compare one period in history to another.

I do a lot of research into the history of price charts and looking for a way of comparing market conditions qualitatively to today’s conditions, and developing a chain of evidence. I have used the ‘Print Journal Notes’ to PDF, which is great for this, as I can compare the page image from one market time frame to another, and incorporate my journal notes into that. Using ‘page image’ instead of ‘chart image’, I have also been able to capture information like an ephemeris chart, chart overlays, symbols, annotations and so on, together in one snapshot. I can then compare to other historical time periods via your ‘print journal’ to pdf option. This is very powerful, but the limitation is that I can’t make a retrospective note.

If I make a note ‘today’ that is related to historical market action, the implications are that:

  1. the journal symbol on the chart appears on today’s date only, not at the applicable point in history to which the comment relates. I would like to be able to hover over that point in history so I can view the snapshot of the chart if I am scrolling through the chart.
  2. the dates in the Print Journal to PDF option are based on today’s date, not the historical date.

Sure, I could send screenshots to programs like OneNote to compare time periods, but that is clunky and time consuming. Would be great to be able to use Optuma by taking advantage of the Print Journal feature which has this potential capability.

I realise that I am using the journalling system in a way that it may not have originally been intended, however, the updates in the last version of OPTUMA to be able to create your own Journal States, has expanded its range of use to move toward not only a qualitative reflective tool based on your decisions, but also as one that allows for historical comparison of multiple time frames and incorporating mulltiple qualitative tools in your program (overlays, symbols, chart snapshots, ephemeris charts) that can also inform future decisions. The ability to bring this all together and compare provides higher order functionality as it allows critical connections to be made. The way I see it, Gann’s methods were more reliant on qualitative research in so much as they are about comparing historical conditions rather than primarily crunching numbers - allowing the ability to make retrospective notes about history and compare them in the Print to PDf feature will make it more feasible to do this. I think this would have broad appeal to all users who use the program for historical comparative analysis as the basis of their forecasts.

nb. I spent 17 years in academia using qualitative resesearch tools. Would be happy to provide some input into some of the most relevant features if you see Optuma being used in this way. One prominent program is NVivo, which most institutions utilise:

Best Qualitative Data Analysis Software for Researchers | NVivo (qsrinternational.com/home)

Thanks for your time.

I realise that this post is from over 1 year ago, but I would also like to bump this as a enhancement request rather than start a new request.
I am not sure if anyone from Optuma has responded to Chris’ request.

The journal feature is a great feature in Optuma for those of us who are not solely relying on backtesting with indicators/algorithms to generate a trade signals (it may well be worth it for those who are as well).
As far as I am aware, it is the only way on Optuma I can analyse a share, record a chart/indicators/etc and have this information available whenever we pull up that share code in any workbook, and do so without cluttering the chart with multiple indicators and without needing to hide/show different layers, etc

If I want to be able to record notes about the historical movement of a share and take a snapshot, the Journal in Optuma could be a fantastic tool, but the workaround to achieve this is cumbersome.

Is there a way that the journal could be enhanced so that the timestamp for the journal could be adjusted instead of only allowing for the computer’s timestamp?
Say, for instance, if we enter “Training Mode” and write a journal entry, could the timestamp for the entry be recorded against the “Training Day” instead of the computer’s timestamp?
Alternatively, could the user have some control on modifying the date/time of the journal entry?

As an aside: are there any limits to how many journal entries/images can be recorded against a particular chart?