Trading journal: how it works, from the Tradovate import to your statistics

From memory, you keep the memorable trades: the big win, the annoying loss. The others fade, and they are often the ones that say the most. The third trade of a day already in the red, the entry taken before confirmation, the stop moved “just a little”: over a week it does not show; over three months it is there in black and white.

A journal does not make a method profitable. It shows what you actually do with yours. That is why this one asks for little typing: the numbers come from Tradovate, the context is worked out on its own, and all that is left to log is what no platform knows, namely why you took the trade and how you managed it.

The journal is free for newsletter subscribers. Leave your address on the journal page: if you already subscribe, you get an access link; otherwise, the confirmation email signs you up and opens the journal. There is no account to create and no password.

Your trades stay in your browser. Nothing is sent to our servers: we see neither your results nor your notes. The trade-off is simple, and the journal reminds you of it: export a backup now and then, because clearing your browser data would erase the journal.

In Tradovate, open Account Reports, then the Performance tab. Pick the period and download the report as CSV with the download icon. That file is what you drop into the journal, as is.

The Performance report splits a trade entered or closed in several parts into several rows. The journal groups them back into the trade as you lived it: an average entry, an average exit, one result. And you can import the same file again, or a period overlapping the last one: a trade already there is not duplicated, and what you added to it is kept.

Only one setting matters here: the time zone of the times in the file, your Tradovate one. The journal uses it to convert everything to New York time, the reference clock for killzones.

Trades are shown by day, with the day’s result. For each: the entry time in New York, the instrument, the side, the number of contracts, the session worked out from the time (London killzone, New York killzone, lunch, afternoon…), the R when a stop is entered, and the result net of your fees.

Two signals catch the eye. The “to complete” tag marks a trade with no setup or no stop: it is the list of what is left to log after the session. And a day that breaks your own rules, a maximum loss or a maximum number of trades, is flagged in red. In the example below, September 22 has three trades against a rule of two.

Clicking a trade opens its sheet. The setup is picked from a list (sweep, FVG, OTE, Silver Bullet, Unicorn, indicator signal…). The planned stop, as a price, is all the journal needs to compute R: what the trade made, measured against the risk you had accepted. It is the measure that lets you compare a 2-contract trade with an 8-contract one.

Then comes what really makes you better: your state of mind, whether you followed the plan, and the mistakes ticked, such as entering too early, moving the stop, exiting too early, size too big, off plan or overtrading. A free note, and screenshots: paste an image with ⌘V or Ctrl+V, pick a file, or add a TradingView snapshot link.

The Statistics tab sums up the period: net result, number of trades, share of winning trades, profit factor, average win and loss, average R and maximum drawdown, then the account curve.

The tables are more useful than the totals. By setup, you see which ones work for you and which ones cost you. By session, whether your London trades look like your New York ones. By weekday, whether one day keeps ending in the red. And by mistake ticked, what each mistake cost you in dollars, which is often the most telling number in the journal.

One caution: over a few dozen trades, these numbers move a lot from one week to the next. A setup at “100%” over two trades says nothing. Read them as a mirror of what you do, not as a forecast of what you will do.

In the example, the two trades filed as “Other” were taken out of revenge, off plan, and both end as losers. And Tuesday is the only weekday in the red: it is the day of three trades against a rule of two. No platform would have said so; it had to be logged.

The Tradovate Performance report gives a gross result, without commissions. Enter your round-trip fee per contract in the settings, and the whole journal switches to net. You can also enter different fees on a given trade.

The settings also hold your daily rules, the maximum loss and the maximum number of trades, which the list checks against each day. Finally, the export: a full backup to restore in another browser, and a CSV to open in a spreadsheet if you want to take the analysis further.

After each session: import the day’s report, open the trades marked “to complete”, log the setup, stop, state of mind and mistakes, and paste a screenshot. Five minutes, no more, while the session is fresh.

Once a week: the Statistics tab, three questions. Which setup costs me? Which mistake keeps coming back? Did I stick to my daily rules? One thing to fix the following week is enough. It is the same discipline you apply to a prop firm challenge, and it is what makes an account last.