A Tactic is a set of mechanical rules for managing a trade while it is open: when something happens, open an extra structure, and protect it with its own exit. The classic example is a delta defence: as the structure's delta reaches 50, sell a synthetic to bring it back; at 60, sell one more.
An adjustment is always an extra position opened on top of the main structure. It never changes the main structure's legs. Each adjustment (a tranche) has its own entry, contracts and exit, and the net P&L and the net delta add it to the structure.
Tactics live in two places, with the same library and the same manager:
You can build, edit and delete a Tactic from either place: one saved in the backtest is there in Rewind, and the other way round.
A Tactic is a list of rungs (up to 24). Each rung has:
The manager builds a Tactic as a ladder: one watched series and a list of thresholds.
Each threshold fires once per trade. A row whose level the series has already reached at the current minute is flagged, so you know it would fire immediately.
A touch series measures the distance between the underlying and the strike of the chosen leg, in points, growing toward the leg: 0 = the price touches the strike, −5 = 5 points before it, 10 = 10 points past it (in the money). With several legs of that kind, the first one the price would touch counts (the highest short put, the lowest short call). If the structure has no such leg, the threshold never fires.
The distance between the underlying and a level of the day's gamma exposure, in points, in the direction you pick: Points above the gamma flip is the index minus the flip, Points below is the flip minus the index (the same for the call wall and the put wall). 0 = the price is on the level, so a threshold at 0 fires the minute the price crosses it in that direction, and 10 fires 10 points past it. Example: Points below the gamma flip at 0 opens a hedge when the index drops into negative gamma. The levels move during the day, so the distance changes even when the price doesn't. A minute without a level (no flip in the ±3% window) has no value and doesn't fire. The levels use the dealer positioning chosen in Rewind's Gamma menu (open interest or trade flow, see Dealer positioning).
These series are Rewind only: the backtest engine doesn't compute gamma levels yet, and refuses a Tactic that uses them.
The legs are built as in Define, Backtest and Rewind: one row per leg with Sell / Buy, Put / Call, the quantity (− 1× +), the strike criterion and its value. Add a leg from the dashed bar (Sell Put · Sell Call · Buy Put · Buy Call), duplicate or remove it from the row. Structure opens the Tactic templates, which fill the legs (every value stays editable):
Legs that match no template are saved as a custom structure.
Strikes are always relative and resolved on the chain at the trigger minute, with two criteria: ± (points from spot, 0 = at the money) takes the quoted strike nearest to spot plus the points, Δ takes the strike whose delta is nearest to the target (typed in points: 30 = 0.30). A leg the adjustment sells is picked only among strikes with a bid (without a buyer the sale can't be executed). A Tactic never stores an absolute strike, so it applies to any day.
All optional (empty = off), all magnitudes:
Without an exit, a tranche is held to settlement like the main structure. Its exits are checked on its P&L net of the round-trip commissions; what it books pays the opening commission plus, for an early exit, the closing one (settlement pays no closing commission).
Save & arm stores the Tactic in your library and arms it: for the current run in Rewind, for the backtest when the manager is open from there (unless it watches a gamma level, which the backtest can't run, or six Tactics are already armed). Saving changes to a Tactic that is armed updates the armed copy.
The Tactics tab of the drawer lists the Tactics armed for this run (with their number of rungs and Disarm) and Manage, which opens the manager:
Editing a Tactic keeps its identity (whoever has it armed keeps it). A Tactic created from single rules rather than a ladder shows a note: saving it from the manager recreates the rules from the ladder.
Rungs are evaluated only when the playhead advances by one minute (playing forward or →), never on jumps, scrubbing or playing backwards, and only once the main structure is in play (from the minute after its entry: the run starts at the open). See What fires alerts and Tactics.
When a rung fires, the adjustment appears under Your adjustments (what-if) with its entry, contracts, exit rule and live P&L, and a Close now button. It also joins the positions bar, next to the main structure and any structure you mounted by hand; the header adds Net P&L and Net Δ, and the payoff's max/min become the whole book's. Every opening and closing is written to the journal and marked on the tape.
A Tactic needs a trigger. To open a structure whenever you decide, mount it by hand instead: Trading the day by hand.
On a trade replayed from a backtest whose recipe ran a Tactic, the backtest's adjustments come in at their booked times and P&L, so the day's P&L is the real one (Include the backtest's adjustments). Tactics you arm in Rewind add on top as a what-if; switch the backtest's adjustments off to try a different defence from the main structure alone.
In Rewind a condition can also watch any series of the alerts vocabulary and compare it with another series. Those rules apply in Rewind only.
Add Tactics to the plan's Manage row (+ Add management). Its window lists the Tactics armed for this backtest, each with its first rung and the structure it opens, Edit and Disarm:
You can arm up to six Tactics. They run side by side, each with its own ladder: rungs of different Tactics that fire in the same minute open in the order you armed them, and net delta and net P&L count the adjustments of all.
When the run starts, the rules and the name of each Tactic are frozen inside the recipe (with a fingerprint), so the result stays reproducible even if a Tactic is later edited or deleted. Before the run, the plan flags an armed Tactic the engine would refuse:
The run starts once none is flagged.
The engine then, for every main position:
Constraints in the backtest: the watched series must be structure delta, net delta, net P&L, underlying or a leg touch, and thresholds must be values (comparisons with another series and gamma level distances are Rewind-only). The manager marks a Tactic outside these limits Rewind only, and a recipe that names one is refused with a message saying so.
How adjustments appear in the results: