What is a Trading Journal?
A trading journal is a log of every trade you take: entry price, stop-loss, take-profit, result, and the reasoning behind the position. Most traders overestimate their win rate and average R:R. Memory skews toward the wins. A journal shows the actual split.
The Journal tab stores each trade with setup tags (Breakout, Reversal, S/R, Gap, Momentum, VWAP), psychology tags (Disciplined, Rule-based, FOMO, Revenge, Hesitated, Overconfident), a grade (A, B, C), notes, and an optional actual exit price for when you closed at a different level than your take-profit. At 30 to 40 trades, you start seeing which setups generate wins and where emotional decisions cost money.
How to Journal Your Trades
Log the trade the moment you enter it, not at the end of the week. The Calculator tab writes the entry, stop, target, position size, and planned R:R straight into the journal, so the only thing left to add is the setup tag, the grade, and a sentence on why you took it. Recording the reasoning before you know the outcome is what makes the entry worth reviewing later.
After the trade closes, reopen the entry, mark it won or lost, and log the actual exit price. Trades where you closed early, moved a stop, or sized up out of frustration are the ones your journal is really for. Filter by direction, result, grade, or ticker to pull up a specific slice, and export the whole journal to CSV whenever you want it outside the browser.
Set your rules once in the Plan tab and they appear as a checklist on every new entry. The journal then records which rules you actually followed, so the Analytics tab can compare your rule-following trades against the rest.
How the Analytics Tab Works
Once you have logged trades, the Analytics tab aggregates your history into performance breakdowns. The overview shows total P&L, expectancy per trade, win rate, profit factor, average win and loss, max drawdown, current streak, and an equity curve across all closed trades.
The Breakdowns section shows performance by setup tag (which setups make money), by grade (A vs C performance), by direction (long and short win rates and P&L), by day of week, and by ticker. The emotional loss ratio shows what percentage of total losses came from trades tagged with negative psychology. Track this across 50 trades and you have a dollar figure for what those decisions cost.
Logging Risk-Reward on Every Entry
The risk-reward ratio measures how much you stand to gain compared to how much you stand to lose on a trade. A 1:3 ratio means risking $1 to make $3. Most professional traders require at least a 1:2 ratio before entering any position, regardless of how confident they feel about the setup. The Calculator tab works out that ratio from your entry, stop, and target, and stores it on the journal entry so you can audit it later.
Mistakes Your Journal Will Catch
Setting targets based on round numbers rather than price structure. If you need a 1:3 ratio to justify the trade but resistance sits at 1:2, the probability of hitting that target drops. You get a great ratio on paper and negative expectancy in practice. A logged history of planned targets against actual exits is what makes the pattern visible.
Ignoring slippage and fees. Your realized R:R is worse than planned, more so in fast-moving markets or illiquid instruments. The Journal tab lets you log an actual exit price separate from your planned take-profit, so the Analytics tab can show you the gap between planned and realized R:R over your full trade history.
Widening stop losses after entry. You calculated a risk-reward setup before the trade, then moved the stop when price came close. Moving the stop destroys the planned R:R. How emotional trading destroys results covers this in depth.
Ignoring win rate. A 1:5 ratio with a 10% win rate produces negative expectancy. Theoretical R:R and real execution rarely match. Read why most beginners lose money trading for a full breakdown. Your journal measures the gap.
Building the Journaling Habit
Start every trade in the Calculator tab. Plug in your planned entry, stop-loss, and take-profit. If the R:R comes in below 1:2, reconsider the trade or adjust your levels. Save it to the Journal with the setup tag and grade you would assign before you know the result.
After closing the trade, log the actual exit and mark it won or lost. At 20 to 30 journal entries, the Analytics tab has enough data to show patterns. At 50, the numbers carry statistical weight. The Simulate tab then projects what your logged win rate and R:R produce over hundreds of trades and how much variance to expect along the way.
Review the journal weekly rather than trade by trade. A single loss tells you nothing; twenty entries tagged Revenge or FOMO, with their combined P&L next to your disciplined trades, tell you exactly what to stop doing.
Before risking real money, test your setups in the Tradicted stock market simulator on real historical charts. Start with paper trading to build the calculation habit, then use the position size calculator to find the exact share count for your account size and risk percentage.
