How to Use Formiq
The first three minutes are all you need to get moving. Everything else is below.
Your first 3 minutes
Open the chart
No account needed to start. Signing in with Google raises your limits from 1 to 2 simultaneous indicators and from 1 to 3 backtests per day.
Change the pair and timeframe
Click the pair name at the left of the toolbar to search and switch. The timeframe sits next to it, from M1 to MN1. You can also press 1–9 to jump straight to a timeframe.
Add an indicator
Open 'Indicators' on the right of the toolbar and flip a toggle — it applies instantly. Alt+R gives you RSI, Alt+M gives you MACD.
Find it by what you want to do
How the app is laid out
Formiq is six tabs. On desktop they sit in the sidebar on the left; on phones (640px wide or less) they move to a tab bar along the bottom.
Ctrl (⌘ on Mac) + 1–6 switches tabs. Replay and the P&L calendar are not tabs of their own — they live inside the Chart and Record tabs respectively.
Glossary
Words the rest of this page uses without stopping to explain them. Come back here whenever one of them trips you up.
- Candle
- A single shape summarising a fixed slice of time. It shows the open, close, high and low.
- Timeframe
- How much time one candle covers. M15 is 15 minutes, H1 an hour, D1 a day.
- Pips
- The unit price moves in. On USDJPY 0.01 yen is 1 pip; on EURUSD 0.0001 dollars is 1 pip.
- Spread
- The gap between the buy and sell price. It's the real cost of trading — you start every position that far behind.
- Long / Short
- Long is buying, short is selling. Long if you think it rises, short if you think it falls.
- Lot
- The size of a position. The same price move swings your P&L further the larger the lot.
- TP (take profit)
- The price at which a winning position closes automatically.
- SL (stop loss)
- The price at which a losing position closes automatically. Setting one before you enter is the basic discipline.
- Risk-reward ratio
- What you're aiming to win against what you're willing to lose. 1:2 means risking one to make two.
- Indicator
- A line or number derived from price to make it easier to read. It's an input to your judgement, not the market itself.
- Moving average (MA)
- A line joining the average price of the last N candles. It smooths out the noise so you can see direction.
- RSI
- A 0–100 gauge of overbought and oversold. Below 30 is commonly read as oversold, above 70 as overbought.
- Backtest
- Applying a trading rule to historical data to work out how it would have performed.
- Win rate
- The share of trades that made money. A high one can still lose overall if the losses are large, so it never stands alone.
- PF (profit factor)
- Gross profit divided by gross loss. Above 1.0 means profits outweigh losses.
- Max drawdown
- The deepest fall from a previous equity peak. It tells you what you'd have had to sit through.
- Equity curve
- A line tracking your balance over time. Rising, with shallow dips, is what a stable strategy looks like.
An equity curve: up, down, up again.
The deepest fall from a peakis the max drawdown.
A simulation, 45 wins / 40 losses, PF 1.27. A stable strategy rises with shallow dips.
Feature reference
Working the chart
Everything is reachable from the toolbar across the top of the chart.
- Desktop: drag to move the crosshair, drag sideways and release to scroll, scroll wheel to zoom
- Mobile: drag for the crosshair, swipe to scroll, pinch to zoom
- Drag the price axis on the right to change the price scale
- The calendar icon in the toolbar jumps to a specific date and time
Press R to reset zoom and scroll position in one go. Home jumps to the most recent candle.
Indicators
Open the panel from 'Indicators' in the toolbar. 80+ indicators, sorted into trend, oscillator, volume and other categories.
- Flip a toggle and it appears on the chart immediately
- Every parameter — period, levels and so on — is editable per instance
- Moving averages come as SMA / EMA / WMA / SMMA / HMA
- Simultaneous indicators: 1 signed out, 2 on the free plan, unlimited on Unlimited
Save a combination you use often as a template and recall it in one click (desktop only).
Drawing tools
Pick a tool under 'Drawing' in the toolbar to enter drawing mode.
- Horizontal line, trendline, Fibonacci, box, channel, measure, risk/reward and vertical line
- Click to set the first point, then drag to place the second
- Colour, width and line style are editable after placement
- Select and press Delete to remove; Ctrl+Z undoes, Ctrl+Shift+Z redoes
H horizontal, T trendline, F Fibonacci, B box, L channel, M measure, X risk/reward, V vertical. Escape leaves drawing mode.
Replay practice & demo trading
Start from 'Replay' in the Chart tab toolbar — it is not a separate tab. Historical charts play forward one candle at a time and you trade them as they go.
- One-tap 'daily practice' starts a session without choosing anything
- 'Custom session' lets you set pair, timeframe, start and end date, starting balance, lot size and spread
- Playback speed is adjustable from 0.5× to 10×
- Place market Buy/Sell orders mid-session, plus pending limit and stop orders
- Set a stop loss and take profit and positions close automatically
- Finished sessions are logged under Review → Replay
Demo trading in Formiq is part of replay practice. There is no always-on order panel on the plain chart.
The future stays hidden. Step forward one candle at a time.
Enter now,or wait?
Demo orders exist only in here. There is no always-on order panel on the plain chart.
Backtesting
In the Backtest tab, combine technical conditions into a strategy and validate it automatically. No coding involved.
- Pick entry and exit conditions from dropdowns and combine them with AND / OR
- Choose any pair, timeframe, start date and end date (defaults to the past year)
- Supports TP/SL, a consecutive-loss brake and time-based exits
- Day-of-week and time-of-day filters narrow when trades may open
- Change the pair or timeframe straight from the report and re-run
- Runs per day: 1 signed out, 3 on the free plan, unlimited on Unlimited
Don't stop at win rate. Read profit factor (gross profit ÷ gross loss) and max drawdown alongside it — a high win rate with large losers still loses money.
The three numbers to read first on a results screen.
A win rate alonegrows nothing.
A high win rate still loses if each loss is large. Check that PF is above 1.0, and how deep the dips go.
Strategy library
In the Methods tab you build a strategy in conversation with Fommy. Describe it in plain language and it becomes rules you can test.
- Start from 'Create with Fommy'
- You'll work through entry → the opposite direction → exits → filters
- Say 'long only' and it proposes the symmetric condition (RSI 30 ↔ 70) for you
- Save finished strategies and manage them in the library
- 'Run Backtest' takes you straight to validation
Load a saved strategy into the Backtest tab to re-run it over a different period or pair without rebuilding the conditions.
Fommy — the AI assistant
Open the chat from the Fommy icon in the toolbar and drive the chart in plain language.
- 'Add RSI' or 'show the 20 EMA' adds and removes indicators
- 'Switch to USD/JPY' or 'make it 15 minutes' changes pair and timeframe
- 'Analyse the chart' explains what's currently on screen
- The microphone button takes voice input
- Usage: 10 messages per day on the free plan, 300 per day on Unlimited
Conversations persist across sessions, so you can pick up where you left off.
Alerts
Set these from 'Alerts' in the Chart tab toolbar (desktop only).
- Price alerts: notify when a price is reached
- Indicator alerts: notify on RSI, MACD and similar conditions
- Your browser must allow notifications — you'll be asked the first time
Review & journal
The Review tab gathers what your practice produced and everything you've tested.
- Record: the P&L calendar. Click a date to open that day in detail
- Closed demo trades are logged automatically
- You can also enter P&L and notes by hand (a real account's trades go in Account analysis)
- Monthly performance computes win rate, profit factor, expectancy and max drawdown
- The Replays, Backtests and Methods sub-tabs keep your history. Any trade opens on the chart with 'View on chart'
Replay history can be exported to CSV (Unlimited plan only).
Settings
App-wide preferences live in the Settings tab, along with plan changes and data management.
- Language: English / 日本語
- UI scale in four steps: small, default, large, extra large
- Display time (GMT) aligns chart timestamps with your broker's server time
- Account currency: JPY / USD / EUR — changes how P&L and balance are shown
- Chart theme, candle style, grid and other chart defaults
- Bulk download of historical data
'Delete account' at the bottom of Settings permanently removes your account and all of its data. This cannot be undone.
Keyboard shortcuts
Chart keys only work while the Chart tab is open, and never while a text field has focus. Press ? inside the app for the same list.
Frequently asked questions
Troubleshooting
If it isn't covered here, get in touch. Bug reports are welcome too.