Jason H. 53 Posted January 24, 2018 I've been doing research on various trade journal web sites and applications. While many have some good features, none of them have everything I'm looking for in my trade journal. Being a software designer, I'm considering making my own. My question to you all is: What features and functionality do YOU want in a trade journaling app? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
wpicotte 16 Posted January 25, 2018 I imagine feature needs are tied to level of experience. As you become more experience, my hunch is that the scope of features narrows down quite a bit. Speaking for myself, I'm extremely new to trading and on the steep learning curve it presents. Hence, my journal (currently a OneNote file) is a moving target. I include a brief summary of my day, noting what I messed up, did correctly (mostly the former), and learned. I include screenshots of my P&L and Trade Log, and a section for each trade with screenshots of relevant 1-min and 5-min time periods, and trade summaries. Lastly, in addition to the OneNote file, I drop my account summary into an Excel file. The intent here is simply to aggregate profit / loss data over time. I summarize this in a pivot table and eventually will represent this graphically. I want to see trends in the right direction -- more profit, less loss. I don't use this to analyze minutia of daily trading decisions. Hope this is helpful. Big project you're considering. Keep us in the loop! Wesley Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Lee W 82 Posted January 25, 2018 Jason, this is a great idea. Thank you for offering up a place for our suggestions! My trade journal has input fields for the following: number of trades number of shares traded commissions to broker ECN, SEC, and FINRA fees It then calculates the following: total fees total fees per trade net P/L accumulated P/L average P/L per day (based on the number of NYSE trading days available during the year which is 250-ish) weekly total P/L estimated annual income (based on 250 available trading days during the year) Finally, my workbook has 4 separate tabs. All of the sheets are the same except for the commissions. tab 1: uses the commission and fee (ECN, SEC, FINRA) info from the DAS simulator Account Report tab 2: assumes $0.0035 per share and still uses the DAS sim fee info tab 3: assumes $0.005 per share and uses the ECN fee from the DAS sim. There are no SEC or FINRA fees on this one. tab 4: assumes a flat rate of $4.95 per trade; no additional fees' A field to enter notes would be helpful, as well. I created these tabs as I wanted to see how different trading styles affect the costs of trading. I also wanted to see the cost difference between IB's fixed and tiered plans. Finally, I wanted to see if a flat rate per trade is a better option, depending on number of shares trades. So that's mine. I hope you find some of this useful! I'm looking forward to what you develop! Oh, I'd love to have this app available on the PC, if that's an option. I use and iPhone and iPad, but all of this stuff, for me, is done on the PC. Thank you, Jason! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Lee W 82 Posted January 25, 2018 My trade journal has input fields for the following: number of trades number of shares traded commissions to broker ECN, SEC, and FINRA fees I left out one of the input fields. Here is the correction: My trade journal has input fields for the following: number of trades number of shares traded gross P/L commissions to broker ECN, SEC, and FINRA fees There we go. That's better. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Abiel 474 Posted January 26, 2018 Good idea Jason! Today was my second day of sim, I use an xls and a onenote files. XlS has these fields: Ticker Float FloatCat Long/Short Qty Entry price Target Stop Capital Cap. Risk Cap. Risk % Rwd/Risk Ratio Entry date: time Exit date: time2 Exit price P/L $Comisión $Net P/L %P/L Cap R multiple $ at work # W/L Sum W Strategy Reason for success / fail Comment and an Analysis section: Total net P/L Gross P/L Avg % loss on losers Avg % profit on winners Number of winners Number of losers Number of trades Hours spent P/L per hour Total net profits Total net losses Total % gains Total % losses Risk/reward ratio Expectancy The onenote file has these sections: 1. Overview of the end of trading day: Account, Trades and P&L (screenshots from DAS Trader) 2. Premarket routine: wake up time, brief notes on excercise and breakfast, start time in DAS, stock research, watchlist 3. Trades: detailed notes on my trades: strategy based / impulse based / chatroom call, why did I trade the stock, did I recognized pattern /strategy, reasons to fail / success and DAS screenshots 4. Learnings / insights Abiel Guerra BBT Team [email protected] @abielguerra Find your answers in our Knowledge Base Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Jason H. 53 Posted January 26, 2018 This is great, thank you for those who have contributed so far! If anyone is willing to share their spreadsheets with me I'd love to examine them in action. What other features outside of day to day logging are useful? I noted one app that has a way to choose and track strategies per trade (so you can say, choose that you used the ABCD strategy and then get a report on the percentage of time it was successful). Do you make a lot of use of screenshots? Thanks in advance! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Robert H 453 Posted January 26, 2018 Thanks for this undertaking, Jason. I especially like the strategy-based reporting feature as I am a stats junkie lol. Carlos and I shared our journal templates in this post. It may be useful for your design. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bartpuszko 6 Posted May 29, 2018 Hi Jason, I have scoured the web for journal apps and decided to create my own will all the bells and whistles. I'm semi-advanced in Excel however am not strong on programming so got a freelancer to program all the macros. All you need to do is paste your DAS tickets and it will work out about 30 metrics + charts/graphs. I updated it last week and broke something in a macro and am getting the programmer to have a look to fix it. Hope to have it by the end of this week. Maybe I can send it to you and we can turn the excel version into a software app? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Abiel 474 Posted May 31, 2018 Hey bartpuszko! Once fixed I would like to take a look at your spreasheet, if you are ok with this my email is [email protected].... Thx!! Abiel Guerra BBT Team [email protected] @abielguerra Find your answers in our Knowledge Base Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bartpuszko 6 Posted June 17, 2018 Hi guys, Total Trader, the journal I designed pretty much contains all the metric being discussed in this thread. It's now available for free download from my blog: http://daytradearcade.com Go to 'trading journal' on the top menu and add in your email and name. You will then receive a link to download it. Let me know if you find it useful! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
