How to keep a trading journal

A trading journal is a record of every trade you take (instrument, direction, size, entry, exit, stop, costs and result) plus the context a broker statement leaves out: which setup it was, whether it followed your written plan, and the state you were in when you clicked.

A statement tells you what happened. A journal lets you ask why, and then measure whether the answer repeats. That is the whole point: to find the one or two behaviours that cost you the most and remove them first.

Split the fields into what the platform can record for you and what only you know. The first group should never be typed by hand; the second takes under a minute per trade if you do it the same day.

• Expectancy: the average result per trade. Formula: (win rate × average win) − (loss rate × average loss). In R: 45% wins averaging +1.8R and 55% losses averaging −1R give 0.45 × 1.8 − 0.55 × 1 = +0.26R per trade (worked example).
• Average R: results divided by the risk you planned. It makes a $50 loss on a $50 stop and a $500 loss on a $500 stop the same mistake size.
• Profit factor: gross profit ÷ gross loss. Below 1.0 the trades lost money before you even count your time.
• Maximum drawdown and the longest losing streak: these decide whether you survive a prop firm's max loss, not the average.
• Results by setup, session, weekday and hour: most journals reveal one setup or one time window that carries the losses.
• Costs as a share of gross profit: if commissions and spread eat a large slice, trade less often before trying to trade better.

1. Connect your trading platform so every trade arrives on its own. A journal you fill by hand stops being complete within weeks, and an incomplete journal lies.
2. Write your plan before the session: the setups you trade, risk per trade, the daily stop and the hours you trade.
3. Tag each trade with its setup the same day, while you still remember it.
4. Add one line per trade: did it follow the plan, and one word for your state (calm, rushed, angry, bored).
5. Once a week, run the 30-minute review below.
6. Pick ONE change for next week and write it at the top of your plan.
7. Check the change after at least 20 trades, not after one good or bad day.

1. 10 minutes on numbers: expectancy, average R, worst day, rule breaks, costs.
2. 10 minutes on your three worst trades: was each one the setup failing, or you breaking the plan?
3. 5 minutes on mistake tags: which tag cost the most money this week?
4. 5 minutes to write next week's single fix, as a rule you can check ("no new trade within 15 minutes of a loss"), not a wish ("be patient").

Fewer than you hope is enough to notice, and more than you hope is needed to trust. The table shows how wide the honest range is around a 50% win rate. The same logic applies to any statistic: split by setup or session, each slice has fewer trades and a wider range.

A spreadsheet works for one account, a few trades a week and a trader who never skips a day. It breaks on three things: several accounts at once, typing errors in prices and sizes, and missed trades on bad days, which are exactly the trades you most need to see.

Use a spreadsheet if you are just starting and want to learn what to record. Move to an automatic journal once you trade more than one account or more than a handful of trades a week.

• For each account: the firm, program and phase, and the fee paid.
• Distance left to the daily loss limit and to the maximum loss, every day.
• Which drawdown type applies (static, end-of-day trailing or intraday trailing), because it changes how much open profit you can give back.
• Days when a single trade moved more than the firm's consistency rule allows.

Elave syncs MT4/MT5 accounts through the Elave Connector EA and imports CSV files from MetaTrader, TradingView and Myfxbook. It never opens a trade on its own; at your prop firm's daily limit it closes open trades. Besides MetaTrader 4 and 5, Elave syncs cTrader (sign in with cTrader ID), TradeLocker, ProjectX (TopstepX) and NinjaTrader 8, including Tradovate and Rithmic accounts connected through NinjaTrader (a Windows add-on).

The journal is free with a signed-in account, no card. It has no manual trade entry: trades come from sync or file import. Each trade has notes, a rating, a single-trade chart replay and an AI review that scores how impulsive the trade looked from 0 to 100.

• Free trading journal for MT4/MT5Elave's journal: automatic sync and CSV import.
• Best trading journals comparedSeven journals, every cell sourced and dated.
• AI trading coachPatterns found in your own trades.
• Prop firm glossary

• How to stop revenge trading
• How to backtest a trading strategy
• Best trading journal for prop traders: what to look for
• Prop firm rules directory
• Prop firm and backtesting glossary
• Free Trading Journal with MT5 Auto-Sync | Elave
• AI Trading Coach That Reads Your Own Trades | Elave
• Trading guides, rules and tools

Elave (elavefx.com) is a free trading platform for retail and prop-firm traders: an auto-synced trading journal, Guardian rule checks on MetaTrader 5, an AI Coach that reads your own trades, a report for TradingView Strategy Tester backtests, a Telegram trading desk and application-only coaching (Elave Bootcamp). The platform is free with no subscription and no card; Elave is funded by partner-broker (introducing-broker) relationships.

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