Quick start

This walkthrough takes you from a fresh account to a working analysis in about five minutes. You only need one thing: a CSV (or Excel) file of trades with, at minimum, a date and a profit/loss.

Open the app and sign in with email or Google. New accounts land on the Overview — your home base, with a greeting, a hero equity card and quick links into your modules. Until you upload data, both the Overview's module links and the sidebar show only Library — the analysis modules appear once a session has strategies.

Upload your trades

Go to Upload (or use the dropzone on Overview) and drag your file in. You can drop several files at once — each becomes a strategy. Accepted: .csv, .txt, .xlsx, .xls, up to 10 MB per file and 20 files per upload. Once the session has strategies, the full set of modules unlocks in the sidebar.

Confirm the mapping (only if asked)

Recognised broker formats import automatically. If VECTOR isn't fully sure which columns are the date and the P/L — or the date format is ambiguous — it opens a short review panel so you can confirm. See How import works.

Read your portfolio

A session is created and the Workspace shows the aggregated equity curve plus a KPI strip (CAGR, Max Drawdown, Sharpe, Win rate). Set an initial capital and adjust weights if you want — the curve updates live.

Go deeper

Open the modules from the sidebar: full Metrics, the Monthly P&L grid, Correlations between strategies, Monte Carlo scenarios, and Risk Sizing.

Save or compare

Happy with a setup? Save the portfolio to your library, or freeze a variant to overlay it against other configurations.

Sessions are temporary

A session lives in memory for 24 hours and is also cleared if the backend restarts. It is your scratch desk, not your filing cabinet. To keep work, save a portfolio or freeze a variant — both persist to your account. More in Core concepts.

Tips for a smooth first run

Use ⌘K / Ctrl-K. The command palette jumps to any page, sets equal weights, toggles strategies and saves variants — without hunting through menus.
One strategy per file is the simplest mental model. If a single file contains several systems (a Strategy or Account column), VECTOR can split it for you.
Set your defaults once. Settings lets you fix a default initial capital, currency, number/date format and Monte Carlo parameters so every session starts the way you like.
On a phone, tap the ☰ menu in the top bar to navigate. On small screens the sidebar collapses into a slide-in drawer; tap a destination — or the backdrop — to close it. Dense tables become stacked cards or scroll sideways, and charts adapt to the narrower view. Everything else works the same.