The point of the journal
Memory is a poor trading record. It remembers the big win, forgets the four small losses that funded it, and quietly rewrites the reasons you entered. A journal is what lets you find out whether your strategy works — and, more often, which part of it works.
What to record for every trade
| Field | Why |
|---|---|
| Date, pair, direction | The basics |
| Setup name | So you can group trades by idea |
| Entry, stop, target | Planned risk:reward |
| Exit and reason | Realised risk:reward, and whether you followed the plan |
| Result in R | Normalised — a 0.02-lot trade and a 0.5-lot trade compare fairly |
| One sentence on your state | Tired, rushed, revenge, calm |
Skip the profit in dollars as the headline figure. It hides whether the trade was good; R does not.
Review, don't just record
Once a week, sort the journal and ask three questions:
- 1.Which setup has the best expectancy? Do more of it.
- 2.Which exit reason costs the most? "Closed early" and "moved the stop" usually top the list.
- 3.Which state produces the worst trades? Then make a rule about it.
Summary
Record every trade in R with the setup, the plan, the exit and your state; review weekly; act on what the numbers say rather than on what you remember.