# Handling Trades in SOAP
## Overview
The Trade List is a powerful feature in SOAP that allows you to view and manage your trades directly within the application.
It provides a comprehensive overview of your trading activity: active trades and archived trades.
A third, exceptional category — **orphaned trades** — can appear: executions found in a trade log file with no matching active trade entry.
This should never happen in normal operation; if you see one, it indicates the trade record was lost or desynced from its log file, and the Orphaned view exists to let you recover it rather than lose the executions.
To simplify trade management, the Trade List is organised per symbol and account:
Example of Trade List:
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## Grid Columns
| Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Account | IB account the trade belongs to (hidden if only one account is configured). |
| Id | Internal trade number. |
| Trade | Trade name. Double-click to rename (Active view only; the Model Trade and New Blank Trade entries can't be renamed). |
| Symbol | Underlying symbol. |
| DIT | Days In Trade, computed from the trade log's earliest execution. |
| DTE | Days To Expiration of the nearest leg. |
| Status | `1` = Monitored, `0` = Unmonitored, `-1` = Archived, `-2` = Orphaned. In Active view, click the dropdown (or select a row and press `0`/`1`) to toggle Monitored/Unmonitored — this subscribes/cancels live IB market data for the trade's legs. `-1` and `-2` are lifecycle transitions handled by the Delete/Restore buttons and can't be set directly. |
| Default / Share | Per-trade flags (Default column is hidden by default). |
Status lifecycle, at a glance:
- Active (`0`/`1`) ⇄ Archived (`-1`) — manual, via the Delete/Restore buttons.
- Active (`0`/`1`) ⇄ Orphaned (`-2`) — automatic only: SOAP detects/rehabilitates these itself, restorable via the Restore button when the log file is found; should normally never occur.
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## Toolstrip Features
### Symbol / Account
The symbol box mirrors the current Options Analysis symbol; the Account dropdown selects which account's trades are listed. Changing either repopulates the grid.
### View Button
Clicking **View** cycles the grid through three modes:
- **Active**: trades with Status `0` or `1` for the selected account — this is the normal working view.
- **Archived**: trades that were deleted (archived) or expired, listed by scanning the `Archived Trades` folder, filtered to the current symbol. Rows can't be edited directly, but a selected trade can be brought back to Active with the Restore button.
- **Orphaned**: trades with Status `-2`, filtered to the current symbol. This view should normally be empty — see the note on orphaned trades above.
### Delete Button
Deletes the selected trade **from the active list** after a confirmation prompt. This is not a permanent erase: the trade's log file is moved into `Archived Trades`, IB market data subscriptions for its legs are cancelled, and any open Options Analysis window showing the trade is cleared. Archived trades remain visible (read-only) in the Archived view and can be brought back with the Restore button (see below), so use this with care but not as a one-way trip.
### Restore Button
Enabled in both the **Orphaned** and **Archived** views. Switch to the Active view afterwards to see the restored trade.
- **Orphaned view**: moves the selected trade's log file back from the Orphaned subfolder into the active Trades folder, re-links it to its trade entry, and reloads its execution log.
- **Archived view**: moves the log file back from the `Archived Trades` folder, re-adds the trade to the active list with Status `0` (Unmonitored), and reloads its execution log — after which it shows up in the trade combo box on any open Options Analysis window for that symbol, and can be used in Rewind mode like any other active trade.
Note: restoring is a real, saved state change — it's written to `TradeList.csv` immediately, not just held for the session. But if the trade's legs are actually past expiration (the usual reason a trade was archived in the first place), it will be **automatically re-archived the next time SOAP starts** — every startup re-validates each active trade's expiry against the real current date, regardless of what date was being reviewed in Rewind. So an archived-and-expired trade you restore to review in Rewind is only available for **that session**; a trade archived while still genuinely unexpired stays active indefinitely, same as any other trade.
### New Empty Trade Button
Creates a blank, unmonitored trade entry (no executions yet) for the current symbol/account and puts its name into rename mode. Empty trades with no recorded trade log are automatically deleted when SOAP restarts.
### Execs Button
Opens the Execution Allocations form, which queries IB for execution details (quantity, price, time) and displays them in a table.
### Import / Export Buttons
**Export** writes the selected trade's metadata and execution log to a JSON file, so it can be shared or archived outside SOAP. **Import** reads such a JSON file back in as a new trade (with an `_import` suffix on the name) under the currently selected account.
### Import from ONE
Trades executed in tastytrade's **ONE** platform can be brought in with the **Import ONE TLog Report** button: export the TLog as CSV from ONE's Reports view, then use this button to import it.
The older paste-content style ONE import is deprecated.
### Load List Button
Reloads the trade list for the selected account from disk, discarding any in-memory changes not yet saved.
### Trade Log Button
Opens the Trade Log window for the selected trade, showing its full execution history (time, symbol, quantity, price, etc.).
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Go back to the main help page [SOAP2 Help Guide](index.md.html) or access help from the toolstrip.
Contact: [email protected]
