Navigating the workspace
Asset class scope, focus markets, and where each surface sits.
8 min read · beginner · lesson 6 of 8
What this covers
- Set the markets in scope so the workspace shows what you trade
- Move between an instrument's assessment, its chart and its levels
- Choose the surface that answers the question you actually have
- Record what you do so the outcomes can be reviewed later
- Recognise which surfaces require a plan and which do not
Scope comes first
The platform covers forex, indices and commodities, stocks, futures and crypto. Almost nobody trades all of them. A workspace showing all of them is a workspace where nothing is findable.
Market scope is a setting, not a filter applied each visit. Set it to what you trade and the navigation, the lists and the default views narrow to match.
This is worth doing before anything else. A reader evaluating the platform across every asset class sees a great deal of activity and no signal; the same reader scoped to four currency pairs sees a desk.
Which surface answers which question
| The question | Where it is answered |
|---|---|
| What is the current read on this instrument | Its market page, as an assessment |
| Why does the read say that | The Desk Note attached to the assessment |
| What does the price action look like | The chart, with the overlays turned on |
| Which levels matter right now | The levels surfaces under market analysis |
| What changed while I was away | Alerts, which report state changes |
| What did I do, and did it work | The journal and portfolio surfaces |
The market pages are the centre of it
Each asset class has a page listing its instruments with the current assessment against each. Start there. It answers the only question that applies to everything at once: where is anything happening.
From a row, the instrument opens into its own view: the assessment in full, the confidence attached to it, the Desk Note, and the levels the read refers to.
The chart is a separate surface rather than a smaller panel. Reading price action properly needs the room. The overlays there are the same structural features the assessment refers to, so the two can be read against each other rather than in sequence.
Alerts report changes, not instructions
Alerts fire on a change of state: a read that was balanced becoming directional, a level being reached, a condition shifting. They report that something is now different from when you last looked.
The framing is deliberate, and it changes how alerts should be used. An alert is a reason to open the instrument and read the current assessment. It is not the assessment, and nothing about it decides what to do.
Price alerts are separate and do exactly what the name says: they fire at a level you set.
The record surfaces
The journal records decisions. The portfolio surfaces record positions and their results. Together they are what makes any later review possible, because a review needs the read as it was at the time, not as it is remembered.
This is the part most often skipped and the part that makes the rest worth anything. An assessment you agreed with and one you overrode look identical a month later unless one of them was written down.
Some surfaces sit behind a plan
Parts of the workspace require a paid plan, and a few require the highest one. Where that applies the surface is visible and states what it needs rather than disappearing, so the shape of the product stays legible.
Everything in this Learning Hub is outside that. It requires no account at all.
Worth setting once
Market scope
The asset classes you trade. Everything else narrows to match.
Account size and risk per position
Held in trading preferences. Where these are set, size suggestions are computed against your actual risk policy rather than a default.
Alerts
Which state changes are worth interrupting you, on which instruments.
Notification delivery
Where alerts arrive, and how much of it you want.
Key takeaways
- Set market scope first; an unscoped workspace shows activity rather than signal.
- Start from a market page, open into the instrument, read the note beside the chart.
- Alerts report a change of state and are a reason to look, not a decision.
- The journal and portfolio surfaces are what make later review possible.
- Account size and risk per position belong in preferences, where sizing can use them.
Common mistakes
- Leaving every asset class in scope and reading the result as noise.
- Treating an alert as the assessment rather than as a prompt to read one.
- Reading the assessment without opening the chart it refers to.
- Recording nothing, then reviewing outcomes with no record of the reasoning.
Knowledge check
OptionalRelated
- How PecuDesk approaches market intelligenceUsing PecuDesk
- Reading a Market AssessmentUsing PecuDesk