What is a trading journal for?
A result alone says little about a decision: a good decision can lose and a weak one can win. A journal keeps what you were thinking at the time, so you can see when you repeat the same mistake.
Its real value is being able to answer “why” honestly after the trade.
Five fields for every trade
To keep it useful without making it long, write these for each trade:
- Why I entered: the setup and the condition
- Plan: entry, stop, target and risk
- Did I follow the plan: yes or no, and why
- Result and cost
- What I learned: one sentence
An example entry
“I entered before the breakout confirmed. The plan aimed for 2R; I closed by hand at 1.2R. Next session I will hold to the target.”
This note shows both the mistake and the next step, far more useful than writing only “loss”.
Use tags and screenshots
Give trades a strategy and tags so you can search and compare later, for example “breakout”, “pullback”, “pre-news”. Before and after screenshots keep the moment of the decision and the result in the same record.
Templates, tags, reason notes and screenshots are described in trading journal.
How the journal works in Tickrivo
When you open a trade in the order panel you enter the strategy, tag and a reason note. The trading journal lists executed trades with their notes; you can download it as CSV and send the CSV back into replay.
Records are tied to the session and saved to your account automatically, so you can continue from another device.
Weekly review: from journal to results
Once a week, reread the journal. Then look at R per trade, drawdown periods and profit concentration in Performance. RivoScope derives habits such as plan adherence and stop behavior from your records, marks missing evidence separately and suggests a practice goal.
The more complete the records, the more reliable the review. See RivoScope and the Strategy Lab.
Common journal mistakes
- Writing only the result
- Writing the note days later from memory
- Using different words for the same tag
- Leaving losing trades out
- Skipping the weekly review
Next, read how to set up your first backtest session.