Trading journal
Definition
A trading journal is a regular record of every trade: asset, direction, amount, expiry, time, reason for entry, whether the rules were followed, result and your state at the moment of the trade. The broker's history answers "what happened", the journal answers "why". It is used to calculate your real win rate and expected value and to find the off-strategy trades that usually eat the profit.
What to record
The minimum set of fields is the one you can later calculate from or spot a pattern in.
| Field | Example | What it gives in a review |
|---|---|---|
| Date and time | 14:05 | the hours when you trade better and worse |
| Asset | EUR/USD OTC | assets where the strategy does not work |
| Direction and expiry | up, 1 minute | a bias towards buys or sells |
| Amount and progression step | $20, step 1 | amount violations, depth of streaks |
| Setup | bounce from support + oversold | results per setup |
| By the rules | yes / no | the cost of off-strategy trades |
| Result | +$17 | win rate, expectancy, profit factor |
| State | calm / after two losses | the link between mistakes and emotions |
Fill in the journal right after the trade, while the reason for entry is fresh. A couple of hours later the real reason is forgotten and the entry records the one you would like to see.
What the journal lets you calculate
Example: 100 trades of $10 at an 85% payout, 58 of them in profit. Profit 58 × $8.50 = $493, loss 42 × $10 = $420, net +$73. That gives three numbers:
- Win rate 58% against a breakeven threshold of 1 ÷ 1.85 = 54.05%, a margin of about 4 percentage points.
- Expected value +$0.73 per trade.
- Profit factor $493 ÷ $420 ≈ 1.17.
Now the "by the rules" column. 80 trades by the strategy gave 50 wins (62.5%) and +$125. 20 trades outside the rules gave 8 wins (40%) and −$52. All the profit came from the strategy, and the "gut feeling" trades took almost half of it back. Without a journal this looks like an ordinary week up $73.
How to keep a journal in binary options
- Every trade, no exceptions. Skipped losses make the win rate look better than it is.
- Mark violations separately. A trade without a setup, an amount above plan, an entry after the limit: tag it "outside the rules".
- Record the step when using a progression. Otherwise the per-trade win rate gets mixed up with the per-series result: with martingale a series can end in profit at a win rate below 50%.
- Review once a week. Filter the losses and check each one: strategy or mistake.
- Keep demo and real separate. They are different samples.
Repeated "outside the rules" tags in a row are an early sign of tilt: the journal sees it before you do.
In the terminal
In BinoView Supercharts the journal is kept by the trading manager. Every trade in an active session goes into the "Journal" tab on its own: time, expiry, asset, direction, progression step, amount and result. There are filters for today, 7 and 30 days and all time, with real and demo accounts separated. A trade can be edited if the amount was recorded wrongly, and you can leave a comment on the trade and on the whole session. For fixed-amount trading there is the "Free" strategy: the manager just records trades and totals the session. How the journal is used in manual trading is shown in the levels strategy with the trading manager. Whether your win rate is enough at the current payout is checked by the breakeven win rate calculator.
How it differs from trade history
The broker's trade history records the facts: asset, amount, time, result. It has no setup, no note about broken rules and no state, and those are exactly the fields that explain losses. So history is a good source of numbers for the journal but does not replace it.
Frequently asked questions
How many trades do I need to record before drawing conclusions?
At least 50, better 100 on one strategy. Over 20–30 trades a difference of one or two trades shifts the win rate by 5–10 percentage points, and a profitable week easily looks like a working strategy. If the strategy has several setups, collect a sample for each: the overall result can hide one setup in profit and another at a loss.
What should I write in a trade comment?
Three things: which setup the strategy gave (or that there was none), whether the entry and amount rules were followed, and what state you opened the trade in: calm, after two losses, in a hurry. No judgments like "stupid", only facts. A week later these notes are what show where losses were statistics and where they were mistakes.
Should I keep a journal on a demo account?
Yes, and separately from the real one. On demo you test the strategy itself: collect 100 trades and check whether the win rate is above the breakeven threshold. On a real account emotions are added to the strategy, and comparing the two journals shows what psychology costs: if demo gives 60% and real gives 52%, the problem is not the strategy.