How to use Formiq
The first three steps get you onto the chart and working it. Every feature is explained below them.
Getting started in 3 steps
Open the chart
No account needed to start. Logging in 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 summarizing 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 USD/JPY 0.01 yen is 1 pip; on EUR/USD 0.0001 dollars is 1 pip.
- Spread
- The difference between the bid and ask 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 judgment, 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.
- Profit factor (PF)
- 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 (on a phone, tap the date at the chart's top left)
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 logged 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
- Color, width and line style are editable after placement: double-click the line on a computer, double-tap it on a phone
- Select and press Delete to remove; Ctrl+Z undoes, Ctrl+Shift+Z redoes
- On a phone, press and hold a line for its menu (Style, Duplicate, Lock, Alert, Delete). Only the line you tapped to select moves with your finger
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 (on a phone, Sell, ▶ and Buy under the chart start it at once, and Trade in the toolbar holds the orders and the custom setup) — it is not a separate tab. Historical charts play forward one candle at a time and you trade them as they go.
- 'Random replay' starts a session in one click, 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 Record → Replays, and each of their trades also goes into the P&L calendar
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 can only be placed 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
- 'Create EA' on the report saves the same strategy as an MT4 or MT5 expert advisor (.mq4 / .mq5)
- Runs per day: 1 logged 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.
Win rate alonewon't grow an account.
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 Strategy tab you build a strategy in conversation with Fommy. Describe it in plain language and it becomes rules you can test.
- Start from 'New strategy'
- You'll work through entry → opposite side → exit → filters
- Describe only the long side and it proposes the mirrored short condition (RSI 30 ↔ 70)
- Save finished strategies and manage them in the library
- 'Go to 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 a chat with Fommy from 'AI' in the toolbar. It drives the chart, and answers questions about past prices, backtests and your own trades by measuring the actual data.
- 'Add RSI' or 'USD/JPY on 15 minutes' changes indicators, pair and timeframe
- 'Which weekday moves the most?' or 'does it bounce after RSI drops below 30?' measures price history
- 'What if I had bought every golden cross?' runs a backtest on the spot
- 'Where am I losing?' measures your practice and imported trades
- 'Draw support and resistance' or 'show me this year's biggest drop' marks and moves the chart
- 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
Record
The Record tab gathers what your practice produced and everything you've tested.
- Calendar: 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 manually (trades from a real account go in the Account tab)
- Monthly performance computes win rate, profit factor, expectancy, payoff ratio and max drawdown. Win rate is counted per trade
- The Replays, Backtests and Strategies sub-tabs keep your history. Any trade opens on the chart with 'View on chart'
- Days you ran a backtest get a dot on the calendar. A backtest is a simulation, so it is not counted in P&L
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 size: Small / Default / Large / X-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
- Download 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.