What should you record in a trading journal?

Record each trade in two passes: the plan before you enter and the outcome after you exit. Writing the plan first keeps the journal honest, because you cannot quietly move the stop after the fact. The drawing at the top shows one hypothetical entry.

  • Date, time and symbol.
  • Setup: the name of the pattern from your plan, such as breakout or pullback, so trades can be grouped later.
  • Planned entry, stop and target, with the reason in one line.
  • Size and risk: shares or contracts, and the dollar loss at the stop. That amount is 1R for this trade.
  • Exit price and why: target, stop, time stop or discretion.
  • Result in R: the profit or loss divided by 1R.
  • Two screenshots: one at entry with the levels drawn, one after the exit.
  • Emotion before entry, as a word or a 1 to 5 score, and a mistake tag (or none).

How to calculate R, and why the journal uses it

R is the result measured in units of the risk you planned. Hypothetical: long 150 shares at $50.00 with a stop at $49.40 risks $0.60 a share, so 1R is $90. Selling at $51.20 gains $180, which is +2R; a stop-out is −1R.

R puts a $20 stock and a $400 stock, a small position and a large one, on the same scale, so trades and setups can be compared. The risk/reward ratio guide covers planned R:R; the journal records what actually happened.

Mistake tags: what are your errors costing you?

A mistake tag is a short label for a broken rule, chosen from a fixed list so it can be counted. A winning trade can carry one too: luck does not make a broken rule right. Keep the list short and write it into your plan:

  • Chased: entered well past the planned price.
  • Moved stop: widened the stop during the trade.
  • Oversized: risked more than the planned amount.
  • No setup: a trade outside the plan.
  • Early exit: closed before the stop or target without a rule.
  • Revenge: taken to win back a loss.

Turn your phone sideways to read the drawing. Tap to close.

Hand-drawn horizontal red bars for one hypothetical month showing the R lost on trades with each mistake tag: moved stop −3R, chased −2R, no setup −1.5R and early exit −0.5R, with the longest bar circled and a note reading fix this one first.

Trading journal metrics: average R and expectancy

With results in R, a few numbers describe your trading. Average R is the total R divided by the number of trades; over many trades it is your expectancy, which our risk/reward ratio guide works through as a formula. Then total the R lost on each mistake tag: in the hypothetical month above, a moved stop cost the most, so that is the next rule to fix.

The drawing below sorts 20 hypothetical trades by result: one at −2R, nine at −1R, two at 0, three at +1R, three at +2R and two at +3R. The total is +4R, an average of +0.2R per trade before costs. The −2R trade is tagged moved stop; with the stop respected it would have been −1R and the total +5R. Twenty trades is a small sample, so read this as a description, not proof. Also worth tracking:

  • Average R by setup, and by time of day.
  • The share of trades with no mistake tag.
  • The largest loss in R: anything beyond −1R points to gaps or broken stops.
  • The deepest run of losses in R; see risk management for drawdown rules.

Turn your phone sideways to read the drawing. Tap to close.

A hand-drawn histogram of 20 hypothetical trades by result in R: 1 at −2R (tagged moved stop), 9 at −1R, 2 at 0R, 3 at +1R, 3 at +2R and 2 at +3R, with loss bars in red and win bars in green, a dashed line marking the average at +0.2R and a note reading total +4R.

A weekly trading journal review in 30 minutes

Once a week, with the market closed, run the same loop, shown in the drawing. Our trading psychology guide has a worked example of what a weekly review can reveal.

  1. Complete the log: every trade has a result in R, screenshots and tags.
  2. Total the week in R, then split it: tagged versus clean trades, and by setup.
  3. Reread the screenshots of the two best and the two worst trades.
  4. Name the single biggest leak, usually the most expensive tag.
  5. Write one rule change, date it and keep it for several weeks before judging it.

Turn your phone sideways to read the drawing. Tap to close.

A hand-drawn cycle of five steps joined by arrows around the words weekly, market closed: log every trade, tag it, total in R, find the biggest leak and change one rule, which leads back to logging the next week’s trades.

Trading journal template

A spreadsheet is enough; a notebook or a journaling app works too, as long as every trade gets the same fields. One row per trade, with these columns: date, symbol, setup, entry, stop, target, size, 1R in dollars, exit, result in R, emotion (1 to 5), mistake tag, screenshot link and note. For a long, result in R = (exit − entry) × shares ÷ 1R; for a short, (entry − exit) × shares ÷ 1R. Subtract commissions if you want net R, and use the position size calculator to set the size from 1R.

On TradingView, the camera icon in the top toolbar, or Alt+S (Option+S on a Mac), takes a snapshot you can save or link in the row. Keep practice trades, such as those from Bar Replay, in a separate tab so they never mix with live results.

The usual ways a journal fails: logging only some trades, filling it in from memory days later, recording dollars without R, tracking so many fields that you stop, and changing rules after five trades. Our list of trading mistakes covers the errors the tags are meant to catch.