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Variants & comparison

A variant freezes a moment of your analysis so you can compare alternatives — "all days" vs. "Mondays off", $50k vs. $100k, this weighting vs. that one — on the same chart.

What a variant captures

Each variant stores both halves of a configuration:

  • the recipe — initial capital, mode, the strategies with their weights, visibility and per-strategy sizing (plus the daily budget and compounding), and the weekday filters;
  • the results — the computed equity, drawdown and metrics at the moment you froze it.

For strategies in dynamic sizing the variant also keeps their trade-level data alongside the snapshot, so restoring it reproduces the exact same allocation (premiums and intraday order included).

Variant vs. saved portfolio

A saved portfolio is a reusable starting point you reload and edit. A variant is an immutable snapshot you compare against — it remembers exactly what you were testing, results and all.

Variants vs. History

History is the volatile, automatic log of every change in the current session, with undo/redo. A variant is the persisted snapshot you create on purpose. Explore in History, then save the versions worth keeping as variants.

The lifecycle

1

Freeze

Save the current session as a variant (from the status bar or the command palette). You can also freeze a saved portfolio without disturbing your live session.

2

Pin to compare

Pin variants to overlay them on the Workspace charts — each gets its own colour and dash — and add delta columns to the metrics so differences are explicit. Once at least one variant is pinned, the Current cell in the tray becomes a toggle: switch it off to hide the live session and read the pinned variants on their own. It turns back on automatically when the last pin is removed. Pinned variant curves are independent of the live session's strategies as well: hiding or switching off every strategy in the current session never removes them from the chart.

3

Restore

Open a variant to restore its recipe into a new session and continue from there. The variant itself stays frozen.

4

Rename or delete

Add a note to remember the idea, or delete the variant when you're done.

See what changed

Every variant's actions menu in the Workspace tray has "What changes vs Current". It opens a side-by-side matrix: the live Current session is the reference column, and every saved variant sits in its own column next to it. Each row is a strategy, showing its weight (contracts), whether it's active, and its weekday filter, exactly as in the Workspace.

Anything a variant changes versus Current is marked in amber — a hidden strategy, a different weight, a toggled day, a changed capital or mode — so your eye lands on the differences first. The strategy name and the Current column stay pinned while you scroll across many variants, and you can restore any variant into a new session straight from its column.

Reading the matrix

The Current column is never highlighted: it is the baseline, and amber always means "this variant differs from Current here". A variant with no amber is configured identically to your live session.

Automatic naming

When you freeze a variant, VECTOR suggests a name from what changed versus the previous one — for example V3 · Mon OFF · AAPL ×0.6. The diff understands capital changes, mode switches, weight changes, strategies added or hidden, and weekday toggles, so a glance at the name tells you what each variant is testing. You can always rename it.

A good comparison workflow

Start from a baseline, freeze it, change one thing (a weight, a day, the capital), freeze again, and pin both. Because only one variable moved, the overlay shows you exactly what that change did.