---
title: "Two Clocks, One Ledger"
description: "Shared capital across two timeframes: sizing, open-trade limits, and one chronological equity curve—not two parallel backtests."
canonical: https://www.tradelogger.dev/blog/dual-timeframe-one-wallet
date: 2026-07-02
---

# Two Clocks, One Ledger

*Shared capital across 15m entries and 4h entries*

Dual timeframe sounds like running two backtests and adding the curves. That's not how capital works when both legs can fire on the same symbol.

## Shared vs split

We support both, but shared capital is the interesting case: one equity curve, one max-leverage budget, two books (15m and 4h) interleaved in time. Entries size from current equity at the moment of the signal — not from a frozen slice allocated at startup.

## Per-leg limits

max_open_trades applies per leg, not globally. You can hold a 15m position and a 4h position simultaneously if the rules allow it — but you can't stack three 15m positions just because the backtester looped faster.

## Why chronological interleaving matters

- A 4h loss at 08:00 should shrink the 15m entry at 08:15 — not the other way around.
- Fees and slippage apply per fill; combined metrics must reflect one account, not sum of fantasies.
- Attribution per leg is reported, but equity compounding is shared — no double-counting initial capital.

The implementation is unglamorous: merge event streams, one portfolio, book keys that tag trades by timeframe for reporting. Unglamorous is good. It's how you avoid deploying a backtest that assumed two infinite wallets.
Canonical HTML: https://www.tradelogger.dev/blog/dual-timeframe-one-wallet