Quickstart: your first portfolio

This is the 5-step workflow run once, end to end, with opinionated first-run choices. Goal: a saved portfolio you've actually stress-tested — not a perfect one. Expect about ten minutes.

You'll need a Workbench account (Blueprint) and a rough idea of your account size — the Workbench scales buying-power numbers to it.

1. Browse: shortlist a handful of strategies

1. Open the Strategy Browser and set the backtest period. For a first pass, use the longest available period — judging a strategy on a short, friendly window is the classic beginner trap.
2. Filter down the 200,000+ variants. Start simple: pick one strategy family (say, MEIC), then tighten max drawdown until the list feels reviewable.
3. Skim the survivors' equity curves and stats. Add roughly five to ten strategies you'd be comfortable explaining to someone else.

Don't cherry-pick the single best-performing variant of the period — the top of any sorted list is where overfitting lives. A boring strategy that stays in the middle of the pack across metrics is a better first building block.

2. Build: combine and scale

1. Open the Portfolio Builder with your shortlist and save it as a portfolio — name it something honest like first-draft.
2. Look at the correlation view first. If two strategies move together, they're one bet wearing two hats; keep one, drop the other.
3. Scale contract counts so the combined margin load fits your account size with room to spare. Check the equity curve versus SPX and the drawdown figures as you adjust.

3. Stress-test: run the Monte Carlo

1. Send the portfolio to Stress Testing and run a Monte Carlo simulation — the default number of runs is fine for a first pass.
2. Read the drawdown distribution, not just the average path: the question is "can I sit through the bad percentile without abandoning the system?"
3. If the honest answer is no, go back to step 2 and scale down. A portfolio you'd abandon mid-drawdown has a real-world expected value of one panic exit.

4. Compare: challenge it

Duplicate the portfolio, change one thing — drop the strategy you're least sure about, or halve one contract count — and put both versions side by side in Compare. Same KPIs, same charts. Keep whichever construction holds up better across the board, and note why.

5. Export: take it with you

Export the keeper — Excel if you want to keep analyzing offline, the native engine format to share or re-import later, or OptionsApp-compatible files if you automate execution through your own broker connection.

Where to go next

• Strategy Browser — filters and metrics in depth
• Stress Testing — Monte Carlo — reading simulation results properly
• Data & Methodology — what's behind the backtests, and the honest caveats

Nothing above is a recommendation to trade anything — it's a tour of the analytics. Whether and what you trade stays your decision, at your own risk.