Trading guides
Plain-language guides to journaling, risk and the numbers that tell you whether your trading works.
Day trading journal: what to log when you trade intradayA day trading journal records every intraday trade with its time, planned stop, fees and result in R, plus a short daily summary. Because…How to keep a trading journal (and actually keep it)Log every closed trade the same day, with the same fields, including the plan you had before you entered. Then review the log once a week…How to review your trades: a weekly routineOnce a week, check that every closed trade is in your journal, total the results separately for each setup (win rate, profit factor…Options trading journal: legs, multiplier and what to logAn options trading journal records each position, not each fill: every leg, the premium paid or received, the contract multiplier (100 for…Overtrading: what it means and how to measure itOvertrading is taking more trades than your plan calls for, usually lower quality ones taken out of boredom, impatience or a wish to make…Position sizing: the formula and the main methodsPosition size is how many shares or contracts you buy so that, if your stop is hit, you lose a set amount. The formula is (account × risk…Profit factor: what it means, how to calculate it, and what counts as goodProfit factor is your gross winning dollars divided by your gross losing dollars. Above 1.0 your trading made money over the period, below…R-multiple in trading: measure every trade in units of riskAn R-multiple expresses a trade's profit or loss as a multiple of the amount you planned to risk. If you risked $2 per share and made $6…Revenge trading: what it is and how your journal catches itRevenge trading is opening a new trade soon after a loss, usually bigger than normal, to win the money back. You rarely notice it while it…Risk reward ratio: the formula and how to use itThe risk reward ratio compares what you stand to lose on a trade (entry to stop) with what you aim to gain (entry to target). A 1:3 ratio…Stop loss vs stop limit: how each order behavesA stop loss (stop) order becomes a market order once your stop price is reached, so it usually fills but the price can be worse than the…Trading expectancy: the average result of each trade you takeExpectancy is what your trades made or lost on average, per trade, over a sample. The formula is expectancy = WR × avg win + (1 − WR) × avg…Trading journal examples: three complete entriesBelow are three filled-in journal entries from one hypothetical $20,000 account: a winning long stock trade, a losing short that slipped…Trading mistakes to avoid, and how to detect them in your journalThe most common trading mistakes are risking too much per trade, letting losses run past the stop, keeping a setup that loses, trading too…Trading plan template, with a filled-in exampleA trading plan is a one-page set of written rules: what you trade, which setups you take, how much you risk, when you stop for the day and…Trading psychology: what your own trade data showsTrading psychology is the gap between the trades your plan describes and the trades you actually take. You do not have to guess at it: it…What to write in a trading journalWrite three things for every trade: the plan before entry (setup, entry, stop, target, size), the facts after exit (prices, fees, result in…Win rate in trading: what it tells you and what it hidesWin rate is the percentage of your closed trades that made money: winning trades divided by total trades. It is the most quoted trading…Win rate vs risk reward: the break-even win rate for every ratioThe win rate you need to break even depends on your risk reward ratio: break-even win rate = 1 ÷ (1 + R:R). At 1 : 1 you need 50%. At 1 : 2…