Guide
How to keep a trading journal that improves your results
A trading journal is a record of every trade you take and why you took it. Kept consistently, it shows you which setups make money, which habits lose it, and whether you follow your own plan. Here is what to record and how to review it.
1. Record the same fields on every trade
Consistency matters more than detail. If every trade has the same fields, you can compare them later.
- Date, time, symbol, direction, entry, exit, size and fees
- The setup or strategy you traded
- Why you entered and where your stop and target were
- How you felt before and during the trade
- A chart screenshot at entry and exit
2. Track the numbers that show an edge
P&L alone hides whether your process works. These metrics show whether your results come from an edge or from luck.
- Win rate: winning trades divided by all trades
- Average win and average loss, and the ratio between them
- Expectancy: (win rate × average win) − (loss rate × average loss). It is what you expect to make per trade
- Profit factor: gross profit divided by gross loss. Above 1 means the system makes money
- Maximum drawdown: the largest peak-to-trough fall in your account
3. Review on a schedule
Look at your journal at the end of each day and do a deeper review each week. Sort trades by setup, time of day and emotion, and ask which group made or lost the most. Cut what loses, size up what works, and write one rule to follow next week.
4. Let software do the bookkeeping
A spreadsheet works until it doesn't: manual entry gets skipped, formulas break and patterns across hundreds of trades are hard to see. A trading journal app imports the trades, calculates the metrics and, with SuperTrader, uses AI to point out the patterns for you.
Comparing trading journals?
See how SuperTrader stacks up against TradeZella, TraderSync, Tradervue and Edgewonk on features, pricing and AI.