How to Keep a Trading Journal (and What to Look For in It)

Why a journal matters

Memory is a poor record keeper. After a few weeks most traders remember their big wins and the one painful loss, and forget the dozens of ordinary trades in between. Those ordinary trades hold the real information: which setups work for you, at what time of day you trade badly, and how often you break your own rules.

A journal is simply a record of what you did and why, written at the time. Reviewing it is how you find mistakes that repeat. Without one, the same mistake can cost money for years without being noticed.

What to record for each trade

The basics: date and time, stock, buy or sell, quantity, entry price, stop-loss, target, exit price and the result after charges.

The reason: one line on why you entered. Was it a plan you prepared, an indicator signal, a breakout, a tip someone gave, or just a feeling? Be honest; "I was bored" is a valid and useful entry.

The plan versus what happened: did you exit at your stop or target, or earlier or later? If you changed the plan, why?

Your state: tired, rushed, angry after a loss, overconfident after a win. These notes often explain more than the chart does.

Optionally, a screenshot of the chart at entry. It shows what you actually saw, not what you remember seeing.

Weekly review: questions to ask

Set aside 20 minutes once a week. Sort trades by reason and see which reasons make money and which lose it. Many traders discover that trades from their prepared plan are positive while impulsive ones are negative.

Compare your average win with your average loss. If losses are much bigger, look at whether stops were moved or ignored.

Look at timing. Are most losses in the first 15 minutes after the open, or late in the day? Many people trade worse at specific times.

Count rule breaks. How many trades had no stop-loss, were bigger than your size rule, or came right after a loss? Each one is a habit to work on.

Patterns that commonly show up

Cutting winners early and holding losers: the planned 1:2 trades end up as 1:0.7 in practice.

Revenge trading: a burst of trades right after a loss, often larger than normal.

Overtrading on slow days: many small trades when nothing clear is happening, mostly paying charges.

Tip-based trades performing worse than self-prepared ones.

Better results with fewer, higher-quality setups.

None of these are visible without a record. With one, they often become obvious within a month.

Keep it simple so you keep doing it

The best journal is the one you actually maintain. Start with just three fields beyond the trade details: the reason, whether you followed the plan, and one word for your state of mind. Add more only once that is a habit.

Write the reason before or immediately after entering, not at the end of the day. Reasons written later get rewritten to fit the outcome.

Common journaling mistakes

Recording only the trades you are proud of. A journal with the bad trades missing will tell you that you are better than you are.

Writing reasons after you know the result. "I knew it would bounce" is easy to write once it has bounced. Note the reason before or right at entry.

Collecting data but never reviewing it. The value comes from the weekly review, not from the typing.

Tracking too many fields at the start, then giving up after a week. Three or four fields kept for months beat twenty fields kept for days.

Judging a rule after a few days. Give each change a few weeks and enough trades before deciding whether it works.

Turning reviews into rules

Each review should end with at most one or two changes, written as rules: "No new trades in the first 15 minutes", "Stop trading for the day after two losses", "No trades from tips". Too many new rules at once rarely stick.

After a few weeks, check whether the rule improved the numbers. Keep the ones that helped and drop the ones that did not. Over time your rules become a personal playbook built from your own evidence.

A worked example of one review

Suppose a month of practice shows 40 trades. Grouped by reason: 12 from a prepared plan (net positive), 15 from indicator signals (about flat), 8 from tips seen online (net negative) and 5 marked "just a feeling" (net negative, including the biggest loss). The obvious first rule is to drop tip and feeling trades, which removes 13 trades and most of the losses.

The same review may show that 9 of the 15 losing trades happened within 20 minutes of the open. A second rule, "no entries before 9:35", is worth testing next month. Two small rules, both taken from your own data rather than from someone else's opinion.

A built-in journal on iTradeChart

Every paper order on iTradeChart has an optional "Why are you buying / selling?" field with quick tags (my plan, indicator signal, breakout, dip buy, news, someone told me, just a guess) and a one-line note. The Orders page shows them next to each trade.

The Report card then does the review for you: results by reason, win rate, average win versus average loss, oversized positions, trading at market close, missing stop-losses and overtrading, with a grade and specific tips each week.