What do you use to journal your trades?

[Rick Lee 10]

It's been a little while since there's been a post about journaling trades.

I saw the "Total Trader" spreadsheet which looks great but I can't get it to work on a Mac.

What's everyone using? Any recommendations?

thanks

[Gene 8]

Hi Richard,

It seems that two of the most popular journaling platforms are Chartlog and TraderVue. I personally use the free version of Chartlog and the paid version of TraderVue. Each has its advantages and disadvantages. However, both have free (limited) platforms, and they both have free trials to their "premium" features so you can take them for a test drive and see which platform suits you better.

 

https://www.chartlog.com/

https://www.tradervue.com/

 

Good Luck!

Eugene H.

Edited August 16, 2020 by Eugenius
Grammar Correction

[mhileman 21]

I use Chartlog as a secondary choice but I journal all my trades in OneNote with a screen shot of the trade after it's been completed with tables that show my entry and partials with P/L as well as if the trade was good and what I could have done to increase profits.  

[Rick Lee 10]

Thanks @Eugene H and @mhileman, I'll check out Chrartlog. Was hoping that someone had a nice google sheet template or something similar, anyone have one they'd like to share?

[Gene 8]

6 minutes ago, Richard Lee said:

Thanks @Eugene H and @mhileman, I'll check out Chrartlog. Was hoping that someone had a nice google sheet template or something similar, anyone have one they'd like to share?

 

Check out this link Richard. It contains all of Mike's journaling and trading plan templates. I've never really done a deep dive into them. But obviously, Mike knows what's up!

https://bearbulltraders.com/lessons/creating-a-trading-business-plan-mike/

 

Happy Trading!

Eugene H

 

[Jared R 10]

I use OneNote for Windows 10 on my laptop.  It is incredibly robust and user-friendly.  I screenshot the 1 and 5 min charts for every ticker I trade, the trades window on DAS showing all my executed tickets and then draw and type commentary/mark them up.  I also post video recaps to my hobo trader youtube channel, which I have found incredibly useful.  Trying to explain my trades out-loud gives me a deeper understanding of my decision making and that is the value I have gotten out of the recaps.

Here is one journal entry of one of my trades today.  The brackets mean I stopped out.  BE means bad entry and then I write some notes about what I was thinking on that trade.  I hope that's helpful!

[Chevey 1]

I use Tradervue Gold currently for my statistical journalling.  I've tried a lot of alternative spreadsheets and websites such as Chartlog, but I keep coming back to tradervue.  I really think Chartlog is on to something with their much more attractive chart presentation and psychological state journalling, but ultimately the hard data analysis is what's makes the most difference in my trading, and I haven't found anything I like better on that front than Tradervue so far.

Since Tradervue does lag behind on the more traditional journal features, I like to use OneNote to put together a general run down of each day, including screenshots from DAS.

[JC 22]

I use a combination of excel files.  I journal trades in samples of 20 trades. In addition I rebuilt Total Trader to be a bit more comprehensive particularly in tracking indicators / signals at the point of entry and expanding the chart content.  The journal takes time but is extremely valuable and works well for me

 

Edited August 18, 2020 by JC
additional commentary

[Rick Lee 10]

Thanks @peterB, looks very good and a free option if you post to twitter. I'll try it out this week.