Trading Journal: What to Log After Every Trade (With a Template)

A trading journal is a record of every trade you take: why you took it, what the plan was, what happened, and what you would do differently. It sounds like homework, and most traders stop after a week. The ones who keep it find out things about their own trading that no indicator can show them.

The point is not to write a diary. The point is to collect the same few facts for every trade, so that after 20 or 30 trades you can see patterns: which setups pay, which hours hurt, and which mistakes keep coming back.

This guide covers what to log before the trade, what to log after it, a template you can copy, a worked example, and a weekly review routine.

Log the plan before you enter

The most useful part of a journal is written before the trade, not after. Once a trade is open, memory bends: a bad entry becomes "I was early", a missed stop becomes "the market was crazy". Writing the plan first keeps you honest.

Before you enter, write down:

• Market and timeframe. For example BTC/USD on the 4 hour chart.
• Setup. The pattern or reason in a few words: "pullback to support in an uptrend", "liquidity sweep of equal lows", "bull flag breakout".
• Direction. Long or short.
• Entry, stop and target. Exact prices, not "around". The stop loss guide shows where a stop belongs.
• Risk in money and in percent. How much you lose if the stop is hit, and what share of the account that is.
• Planned risk reward. Distance to target divided by distance to stop.
• A screenshot of the chart. Mark the levels on it. A picture of what you saw beats any description.

If you cannot fill in the stop, you do not have a trade yet. That alone filters out many impulse entries.

Log the result after you exit

After the trade closes, add:

• Exit price and reason. Target hit, stop hit, closed early, trailed out.
• Result in R. R is your initial risk. A trade that made twice what you risked is +2R; a full stop is -1R. Logging in R lets you compare trades of different sizes.
• Did you follow the plan? Yes or no. Be strict: moving the stop, adding to a loser or exiting early without a planned reason all count as no.
• Emotion or state. One word is enough: calm, rushed, bored, revenge, tired.
• One lesson. A single sentence. "Entered before the candle closed" is more useful than a paragraph.

A template you can copy

Prices are illustrative.

Worked example: five trades, one pattern

Imagine a week with five logged trades. The numbers are illustrative.

1. Gold, 1 hour, breakout long: +2R, followed plan.
2. BTC, 15 minute, breakout long entered before the close: -1R, did not follow plan.
3. EUR/USD, 4 hour, pullback long: +1.5R, followed plan.
4. BTC, 15 minute, revenge entry right after trade 2: -1R, did not follow plan.
5. Gold, 1 hour, pullback long: -1R, followed plan.

Total: +2 + 1.5 - 1 - 1 - 1 = -0.5R.

Without a journal this week feels like "the market was choppy". With it, the picture is clear. The three trades that followed the plan made +2.5R together. The two that broke the plan lost -2R, and both were on the 15 minute chart, one of them a revenge trade. The fix is not a new indicator. It is a rule: no 15 minute entries, and no new trade within an hour of a loss.

One week is far too few trades to judge a setup. But it is enough to spot a behavior that costs money, and behavior is what the journal shows best.

The weekly review

Once a week, spend 15 minutes with the journal and answer four questions:

• What is my total in R, and what is it for trades where I followed the plan? If the followed trades are positive and the broken ones negative, discipline is the problem, not the strategy.
• Which setup has the best results so far? Do more of it. Drop or pause the worst one after enough trades to judge it.
• Which mistake came up twice or more? Write one rule against it for next week.
• Is my average win in R bigger than my average loss? If not, look at where your targets and stops sit. The risk reward guide explains why this matters more than the win rate.

Keep the review short. A review you actually do every week beats a perfect spreadsheet you open once a month.

Common mistakes

• Logging only the losers. You need the winners too, or the numbers lie.
• Writing the plan after the trade. Then it is a story, not a plan.
• Tracking money instead of R. Position sizes change; R keeps trades comparable. Use the position size calculator so 1R is the same share of the account each time.
• Too many fields. If logging takes 10 minutes, you will stop. Keep it to what you will actually review.
• Never reviewing. A journal nobody reads is just storage.

FAQ

Should I use a spreadsheet, an app or paper?

Whatever you will keep using. A spreadsheet makes the R totals easy. Paper works if you add up the numbers each week. What matters is the same fields for every trade.

How many trades before the journal tells me something?

Behavior patterns, like revenge trades or early entries, often show up within a week or two. Judging whether a setup works takes many more trades. We do not give a magic number; the more trades per setup, the more you can trust the result.

Should I log trades I did not take?

Yes, briefly. Noting setups you skipped, and what happened after, shows whether you hesitate on good trades or rightly avoid bad ones.

Do I need screenshots?

They are the most useful single item. A marked chart shows what you saw at the moment of entry, which memory will not.

Try it on your own chart

ChartEdge AI reads a chart screenshot and gives you the trend, key support and resistance zones, and a plan with entry, stop and targets: the exact fields to write in your journal before you enter. Pro adds a built-in journal where each analysis is saved with your own notes. Try it with 3 free analyses, no card required. Educational only, not financial advice.