What to Write in a Trading Journal After Every Trade

Starting a trading journal is easy. Keeping one is harder, and a common reason is that it records the wrong things: column after column of prices and share counts your broker statement already has, and very little about the decisions themselves.

A journal that actually helps you review your trading records three things: what you planned, what you did, and the gap between the two. This guide covers what to write before you enter, what to write after you exit, and how to turn it all into a short weekly review.

Your broker statement is not a journal

Your broker statement tells you what happened: when you got in, when you got out, and the result. It doesn't tell you why. Without notes, memory fills the gap, usually in your favor. The winner becomes a well-planned trade, and the loser becomes bad luck.

A useful journal answers questions the statement can't:

Were your losing trades taken according to plan, or did you break it?
Which setups do you execute well, and which ones not so well?
Is there one mistake that keeps coming back, like entering early or moving your stop?
Does your execution change with the time of day, your mood, or a losing streak?

The point isn't to collect data. It's to spot patterns, which is covered in how to stop repeating the same trading mistakes.

Before you enter: write down the plan

This is the foundation for everything else. If you didn't write the plan before the trade, you can't check later whether you followed it.

The setup. What kind of entry this is, for example a breakout from a base or a pullback in a trend, and which of your criteria are met. If one is missing, write that down too.
Entry, stop and target. Three levels set in advance. The stop matters most: it's your planned exit if the trade doesn't work, and it defines how much you're risking.
Position size and risk. How much you lose if the stop is hit. Treat that amount as one unit, called R, and measure every result against it. The full explanation is in R-multiple explained.
What invalidates the trade. A condition that means you don't enter, or that you get out before the stop. For example: "If a daily candle closes back inside the base, the idea is no longer valid."
Your state. Tired, stressed, distracted, or coming off a few losing days. One line is enough.

This isn't an essay. Five short lines written before you place the order are worth more than a full page written after the fact.

After you exit: write down the execution

When the trade closes, the main question isn't whether you made money. It's whether you did what you planned.

Exit reason. Target hit, stopped out, exited as planned, exited too early, or exited too late. Pick from a fixed list so you can count later.
Result in R, not just in dollars. A 1R loss at a stop you set in advance is a normal outcome. A 2R loss when you planned to risk 1R means something went wrong in the execution.
Did you follow the plan: yes, partly or no. This is the most important field in the journal.
If not, where you broke it. At the entry, the exit, the stop, the position size, or the frequency, meaning a trade that shouldn't have been taken at all.
Dominant emotion. Calm, FOMO, fear, impatience, or the urge to win back a loss. A fixed list works better here too.
One sentence on what you'd do differently. If the answer is "nothing," that's information as well.

A simple trading journal template

Field	When to log it	Why it matters
Setup and criteria	Before the entry	Shows which setups work for you
Entry, stop and target	Before the entry	The basis for R and for checking execution
Position size and risk	Before the entry	Shows whether you kept your risk
Exit reason	After the exit	Reveals early and late exits
Result in R	After the exit	Lets you compare trades of different sizes
Followed the plan?	After the exit	Separates a good decision from a good outcome
Emotion	After the exit	Shows whether one state keeps showing up in weak trades

The same columns work in a spreadsheet or in an app.

Habits that make a journal useless

Judging the decision by the outcome. A trade stopped out according to plan isn't a mistake. A trade that made money after you widened the stop is still a break from the plan.
Editing after the fact. If you moved your stop, log both the original and the new one. Deleting the original deletes exactly the information you need.
Logging only losers. Winners show what works, and without them you have nothing to compare against.
A thirty-field form. A journal that takes fifteen minutes per trade is hard to keep up. A few fields filled in every time beat many fields filled in now and then.
Waiting for the weekend. Logging on the same day, while the details are fresh, is more accurate.

The weekly review in five steps

The journal is raw material. The value comes from reviewing it. Once a week, at a set time, go through these five steps:

The week in numbers. How many trades closed, your total R and your average R per trade. Leave dollar figures out, so position size doesn't blur the quality of your decisions.
On-plan vs. off-plan. Split your trades into two groups and compare their average R. That comparison shows what breaking your plan is costing you.
The mistake that repeated most. Not every mistake, just the one that showed up most often, or the one that cost the most R.
What worked. A setup, a time of day, or a habit worth keeping.
One commitment for next week. Something you can check, like "no moving the stop against the plan" or "no entry unless every criterion is met." Next week, the first thing you check is whether you kept it.

One commitment beats a list. Changing five habits at once is hard, and if you try, you won't know which change made the difference.

How SwingLog handles this

In SwingLog, the trade review asks the same questions: entry reason, exit quality, whether you followed the plan and where you broke it, mistakes, emotional state, realized R and free notes. If you'd rather talk than type, you can document the trade with Kelly, your AI coach inside SwingLog. She walks through the trade with you by voice and writes what you said into your journal. At the end of the week she can run the weekly review with you too: what worked, what didn't, whether you followed the plan, the lesson, and one commitment for next week.

Want to try it? Start a 14-day free trial, no credit card required.

Frequently asked questions

Should I use a spreadsheet or a trading journal app?

A spreadsheet is enough if you log consistently and build the summaries yourself: average R, a breakdown by mistake, and a comparison of on-plan and off-plan trades. An app does that work for you and makes logging faster. For a list of questions that help you decide, see how to choose a trading journal app.

How long should it take to log a trade?

It depends on how your journal is set up. When most fields are picked from a fixed list, the plan takes a few lines before the entry, and the review after the exit is mostly a few selections and one sentence.

Should I journal the trades I skipped?

Yes, at least some of the time. A setup you passed on, and why, says as much about your criteria as a trade you took. If you keep passing on setups that meet all your criteria, that's a pattern too.

Do I need a journal if my broker already tracks my P&L?

Yes, because they answer different questions. Your broker records fills: prices, sizes and dates. Your journal records decisions: what you planned, why you entered, whether you stuck to the plan and how you felt. Without the second part, you can't tell whether a loss came from a weak plan or from execution that broke a good one.