Lesson 5 of 6 · 8 min

The Journal and the Weekly Review

Memory is a poor accountant. We remember good orders as our own skill and bad ones as bad luck. A trading journal gives you facts you can rely on. A plain table is enough, and you record entries right away, while the memory is fresh.

What to record for each order

• Date, time, pair and direction.
• Entry, stop-loss, target, position size and the amount at risk.
• Reason for entry, one sentence tied to a rule from the plan, with a chart screenshot.
• Exit, fees and the result in euros and in R.
• Plan adherence: yes or no, and if no, which rule was broken.
• State before entry: sleep, fatigue, mood, a rating from 1 to 5.

R is a multiple of the amount put at risk in advance. If the risk is €20 and the profit is €30, the result is +1.5R. This lets you compare orders of different sizes and see how the system performs regardless of the account balance.

A 30-minute weekly review

• Numbers: number of orders, win rate, average win and loss in R, total in R and fees.
• Discipline: the percentage of orders that fully followed the plan.
• Costliest mistake: which violation cost the most R?
• Best decision: not the biggest profit, but the decision that makes you proudest, perhaps even a skipped order.
• One measure: what exactly are you changing next week? Only one thing, so it can be verified.

Numbers take patience. You can start drawing the first meaningful conclusions about a system after at least 30 to 50 orders in similar conditions, and even then they are only indications, not proof. Good results on a demo account are no guarantee of real results either: there is no real fear of loss, and performance can differ.

Time for practice. On the demo account, make five purchases according to your plan, with a stop-loss and a position size calculated in advance, and record each one in your journal following the list above. The demo order history shows the last 15 orders with the average price, quantity and fee, but not the reason or the result in R, so you keep the journal yourself. The goal is not profit, but to have all five purchases fully recorded.