Linking campaigns: you decide what belongs together
One overnight roll, and sTraderZ.com shows a loser and a winner instead of one result. This is how you link the two campaigns, how return and annualised return change, and how to tell when linking makes sense and when it does not. With two worked examples.
Matthias
Contents
You roll a short put that went against you into a new one overnight, and in the end the roll paid off: +$344.80. But sTraderZ.com then shows two campaigns, a loser at −$272.60 and a winner at +$617.40. For you it was one project, for the automatic detection it was two.
With Link campaigns you turn them back into one. Using this roll, you will see why the automatic detection splits, how to link and what changes in the figures. A second example shows why the return of a linked campaign rises while its annualised return can still fall. After that come a rule of thumb for when linking makes sense, the limits and how to undo a link. All examples come from a test account with made-up trades.
Example 1: an overnight roll
On 3 March you sell an SPY put with strike 560 and expiry 17 April for $6.40 premium. The market moves against you, and on 19 March you buy the put back for $9.10. On the next trading day, 20 March, you sell a new put with strike 550 and expiry 15 May for $8.30 and buy it back on 24 April for $2.10.
Without a link, sTraderZ.com shows two campaigns:
- First campaign (3 to 19 March, 16 days): (6.40 − 9.10) × 100 = −$270, after $2.60 fees −$272.60. Risk $55,360, annualised return −11.23%.
- Second campaign (20 March to 24 April, 35 days): (8.30 − 2.10) × 100 = +$620, after fees +$617.40. Risk $54,170, annualised return +11.89%.
So every evaluation at campaign level shows a loser next to a winner, although the roll paid off.
Why the automatic detection splits here
A campaign bundles everything that belongs to one project on an underlying: the legs of a spread, rolls across several expiries or a complete wheel. Below it are cycles: a cycle follows a single instrument, for example one put with its strike and expiry, from opening to closing.
A simple rule decides where a campaign ends: if nothing is open on an underlying at the end of a trading day, neither shares nor options, the campaign ends. Whatever you open afterwards starts a new one, even if that is the very next day. You were flat on the evening of 19 March, so a new campaign began on 20 March.
Had you sold the new put on 19 March within four hours of buying back the old one, the automatic detection would have recognised a roll, and everything would have stayed one campaign. The same rule means that someone who trades 0DTE every day (options that expire the same day) and is flat in the evening gets one campaign per trading day. A wheel in which you keep holding the shares, on the other hand, runs on without a break.
The automatic detection cuts by fixed rules. You decide what counts as one project.
How to link two campaigns
- In the Tradelog, open a row that belongs to one of the two campaigns, in the example the SPY put from 3 March. In the window, switch to the “Campaign” tab.
- Click “Link campaigns” in the footer of the window. The button only appears if there is another campaign on the same underlying in the same account. The window switches to link mode; “Cancel linking” takes you out again.
- In the events table, click “Link with another campaign …” on any event. The interface calls this event the “Link point”. Which one you pick does not matter.
- Select the target campaign in the dialog with its radio button, here the second SPY campaign. Only then does the preview show period, pause and result before and after linking. Confirm with “Link”.
What changes and what stays the same
After linking, the two campaigns have become one. In the example:
- Result: the results add up. −$272.60 + $617.40 = +$344.80, and the fees to 4 × $1.30 = $5.20.
- Period: the campaign runs from the start of the earlier one to the end of the later one, here from 3 March to 24 April, which is 52 days. The pause counts too: the days from closing the first campaign to opening the second, here 19 to 20 March, so 1 day.
- Risk: it is not added up. A campaign counts the largest risk any of its strategies had, here $55,360 from the first put (the second came to $54,170).
- Return: +$344.80 ÷ $55,360 = +0.62%. The annualised return is based on the 52 days: 0.623% × 365 ÷ 52 = +4.37%. The individual campaigns came to −11.23% and +11.89%.
- View: the events table shows both parts one below the other, with the seam row “Linked since …” and the pause in between. The “Linked” badge appears in the tab and in the Tradelog.
What stays the same
- The Tradelog: every row there is a strategy, a single put as well as a spread with two legs. The rows and their results stay as they are; only the “Linked” badge is added. The Tradelog shows results before fees (−$270 and +$620), the campaign after fees.
- Tags, journal entries and labels stay where they are.
- The link survives every re-detection.
Example 2: the same idea after a pause
On QQQ you trade a bull put spread 480/470: on 3 February you sell the 480 put for $5.10 and buy the 470 put for $2.60, so you collect $2.50 premium. The risk is (480 − 470) × 100 − 250 = $750. On 24 February you buy the spread back for $0.75. On 17 March you open the same spread on the next expiry, this time for $2.40 premium (risk $760), and buy it back on 14 April for $0.60. From the close on 24 February to the new opening on 17 March there are 21 days of pause, so the automatic detection makes two campaigns out of it.
- Separately: (2.50 − 0.75) × 100 − 4 × 1.30 = +$169.80 on $750 risk is +22.64% in 21 days (annualised +393.50%). The second run brings +$174.80 on $760, so +23.00% in 28 days (+299.82%).
- Linked: +$344.60 on $760 risk is +45.34%. The period runs from 3 February to 14 April, which is 70 days: 45.342% × 365 ÷ 70 = +236.43% per year.
The return rises because the results add up while the risk stays at the largest single value: the two runs use the same capital one after the other. The 45% is therefore not a better campaign but two runs added together, and only partly comparable with the return of a single campaign. The annualised return still falls, because the 21 days of pause now belong to the period.
When to link and when not to
As a rule of thumb: link if the second opening was a reaction to the first. The overnight roll is such a case: without the losing first put you would not have sold the second one. Keep them separate if you decided afresh. If you reassessed the situation after a pause and made a new decision to trade, these are two projects, even if they look the same.
In the QQQ example the decision is therefore yours: if the second spread was planned as a continuation from the start, link. If it was a new decision, keep the campaigns separate.
Pros and cons
What speaks for linking
- You see the total result of a project in one place instead of adding it up from several campaigns.
- An overnight roll no longer shows up as a loss plus a profit, but as one result.
- Your decision is kept through every re-detection.
- You can take it back at any time.
What to keep in mind
- Figures change their meaning: result and fees add up, risk, return and annualised return refer to the linked campaign as a whole. The pause counts towards the period.
- Evaluations at campaign level change: there are fewer, but larger campaigns.
- Undoing the link rebuilds the underlying and is not an exact step back in every case (see below).
What is not possible
- Different underlyings: linking only works for campaigns on the same underlying in the same account. The dialog does not even offer others; a project across SPY and SPX stays two campaigns.
- Parts of a campaign: you always link whole campaigns. Splitting a campaign at a point of your choice does not exist.
- Deleted link point: if the trade the link hangs on is deleted, the link no longer applies at the next re-detection.
Undoing the link
- In the Tradelog, open a row of the linked campaign and switch to the “Campaign” tab.
- Above the events table is the section “Links of this campaign”. Click “Undo link” there.
- Confirm the prompt with “Undo link”. sTraderZ.com separates the campaigns immediately and detects them again.
- Only the affected underlying is detected again. Other campaigns in the account stay untouched.
- On very large accounts this can take up to a few minutes. The prompt points this out.
- In simple cases like the SPY roll, the original campaigns come back with the same figures. Roll chains are rebuilt and are not identical to the state before linking in every case.
- Tags, journal entries and labels are kept.
Key points
- The automatic detection ends a campaign on every day you are flat on an underlying. An overnight roll thus becomes two campaigns.
- Link if the second opening was a reaction to the first. Then one campaign shows the whole result.
- Result and fees add up, the risk does not. That is why the return rises while the pause pulls the annualised return down.
- Every link can be taken back with “Undo link”.
Discussion
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