Trading journal — a record of your own trades. Without one, a review turns into a set of memories, and in trading memories are almost always distorted: successful trades stand out more, and the reasons for entering get adjusted after the fact to fit the result.
Why you need it
- To see which situations you handle well and which you don’t.
- To tell a loss that followed the plan from a loss caused by breaking the plan.
- To spot recurring mistakes — they are almost always the same ones.
- To judge yourself by a series of trades, not by the last one.
The trade history in the terminal is not a journal. It shows what happened, but not why you made that decision. And it is the decision that you need to review.
What to record before opening a trade
Fill in this part before you enter, while the result is still unknown.
- Date and time.
- Instrument and direction.
- Entry price, stop loss, target.
- Distance to the stop in points and the risk-to-target ratio.
- Position size and risk in money.
- The reason for entering — briefly, in your own words.
- What would have been a reason to skip the trade.
What to record after closing
- Closing price and reason: stop, target or manual close.
- The result after costs.
- Whether you followed the plan — yes or no.
- If not, which rule exactly you broke.
- What you felt at the moment of the decision.
Sample journal entry
| Field | Example |
|---|---|
| Date | March 12 at 11:20 |
| Instrument and direction | EURUSD, Buy |
| Entry / stop / target | 1.0850 / 1.0820 / 1.0940 |
| Risk and target | 30 points of risk, 90 points of target — 1:3 |
| Size and risk in money | 0.03 lots, $9 |
| Reason for entry | Price at the lower boundary of the range, entry according to plan |
| Result | Closed at the stop, minus $9.4 after costs |
| Plan followed | Yes |
| Note | Wanted to move the stop, didn’t do it |
Any format will do: a spreadsheet, notes on your phone, a notebook. What matters is not the format but that the entry is made before the result is known and includes the reason for the decision.
How to review your entries
Review your entries not after every trade but once you have a series of them — for example, once a week. Don’t draw conclusions from a single trade.
- Count how many trades followed the plan.
- Look separately at the trades where you broke the plan: what exactly keeps repeating.
- Compare the results of trades that followed the plan with those that broke it.
- Find the situations that come up more often than others.
- Write down one change to your plan — not five.
What a journal usually shows
- That losing trades most often happen outside the plan, not within it.
- That rule breaks come in clusters: after a loss, at the end of the day, when you are in a hurry.
- That the result depends heavily on a few trades with an oversized position.
- That mistakes keep repeating until you name them out loud.
Check yourself
Write down the reason for entering as you would in your journal
Two or three sentences. The point is that a month from now you should understand why you made this decision — without referring to the result, which isn’t known yet.
Write your answer — the model answer will then appear.
Entered Buy on EURUSD at 1.0850. The price is at the lower boundary of the range, where the move has already stopped twice. Stop below the boundary at 1.0820, target at the upper boundary at 1.0940 — risk to target 1:3.
The entry states the entry condition, the reasoning behind the stop level and a comparison of risk with the target. An entry like this can be checked: a month later you can see whether the rule was followed.
Common mistake. Writing down the reason after the trade has closed or pointing to the result: “I entered because the price went up.” An entry like this describes the outcome, not the decision.
In short
- The journal records the decision; the terminal history records only the fact of the trade.
- Write down the reason for entering before the result is known.
- Record the result and whether you followed the plan separately.
- Review a series of trades, not a single one.
- A profit made by breaking the plan is a reason for a review, not for celebration.