What to Record in a Trading Journal: 15 Fields That Matter

A trading journal is only as useful as what you put in it. Record too little and you cannot find patterns. Record too much and you stop journaling after a week. Here are the fields worth keeping, grouped by what they help you learn.

Trade facts

These come straight from your broker, so import them rather than typing them.

1. Date and time of entry and exit. Time of day matters more than most traders expect. See finding your best trading hours.
2. Symbol and asset class. Stocks, options, futures, forex, CFDs and crypto behave differently and should be compared separately.
3. Side. Long or short. Many traders are much better on one side.
4. Size. Shares, contracts or lots.
5. Entry and exit prices, including partial fills.
6. Fees and commissions. Small per trade, large over a year. See how fees affect your results.

Plan fields

These turn a trade into something you can measure against a plan.

7. Setup. A short name from a fixed list: "opening range breakout", "pullback to 20 EMA". A fixed list matters because "breakout" and "break out" will otherwise show up as two setups.
8. Planned stop. Without it you cannot calculate risk or R-multiples.
9. Planned target, if you use one.
10. Planned risk in money. Your size times the distance to your stop.

Execution and behavior

11. Mistakes. Tags such as "chased", "moved stop", "oversized", "no setup". Over a few months, these tags usually explain most of the gap between your best and worst months. See tagging trades.
12. Emotion before or during the trade. One word is enough.
13. Execution rating. One to five stars for how well you followed the plan, not for the result. A losing trade that followed the plan perfectly deserves five stars.

Context

14. Market context. One line: trend day, range day, news, earnings, low volume.
15. Screenshot or chart. A picture of the entry and exit is often worth more than a paragraph. See using screenshots in your journal.

What you can skip

You do not need a paragraph per trade. If you trade ten times a day, a setup, a mistake tag and a rating per trade, plus one daily review, is plenty. Long notes are for unusual trades: the biggest win, the biggest loss, and anything that broke a rule.

A sample entry

Let the software do the arithmetic

R-multiples, holding time, P&L after fees and results by setup should not be calculated by hand. A journal like TradeThink imports the trade facts, calculates the metrics, and leaves you only the fields that need your judgment. If you are starting from scratch, the trading journal template gives you a ready layout.