The Template Structure
This template is broken into three phases that mirror your trading process: what you record before entering, what you note during the trade, and what you review after exiting. Each phase has different fields because the information that matters changes as the trade progresses.
You can adapt this to a spreadsheet, a dedicated journal app, or a paper notebook. The fields are what matter, not the format.
Phase 1: Pre-Trade (Before You Enter)
This is the most important phase. Recording your reasoning before you enter a trade forces you to think clearly about what you are doing and why. It also creates a record you can compare against the actual outcome later.
Setup Identification
- Date: When you identified this setup
- Ticker: Symbol and exchange (e.g., BHP.AU)
- Direction: Long or short
- Timeframe: What chart timeframe shows the setup (daily, 4-hour, weekly)
- Strategy name: Which of your defined strategies does this trade fit?
Strategy Rule Checklist
This is a yes/no checklist specific to your strategy. For example, if you trade pullbacks to the 50 EMA:
- Stock is in an established uptrend (higher highs and higher lows)
- Price has pulled back to the 50 EMA on the daily chart
- Volume has declined during the pullback (no heavy selling)
- RSI is between 40-55 (oversold enough but not broken)
- No major earnings or ex-dividend date within 5 trading days
- Sector is not in a downtrend (relative strength is positive)
Every strategy should have its own checklist. If you cannot define the entry criteria in a concrete checklist, your strategy is not well-defined enough to trade consistently.
Entry Plan
- Planned entry price: Where you intend to enter
- Entry trigger: What specific price action confirms the entry? (e.g., "first green candle that closes above the 50 EMA")
- Stop loss price: Where your stop goes, and the technical reason (e.g., below the recent swing low at $42.50)
- Target price: Your initial profit target, and the technical reason (e.g., previous resistance at $48.00)
- Position size: Number of shares, calculated from your risk amount
- Risk amount ($): Dollar amount at risk if stopped out
- R-multiple target: (Target - Entry) / (Entry - Stop). Minimum 2:1 for most swing strategies.
Pre-Trade Thesis (Write 2-3 Sentences)
Force yourself to articulate why this trade should work. "BHP has pulled back to the 50 EMA after a strong earnings beat. Volume declined on the pullback, suggesting the dip is rotational rather than institutional selling. The materials sector is showing relative strength against the ASX 200."
If you cannot write a coherent thesis, that is a signal. You probably should not take the trade.
Emotional Check
- Confidence level (1-10): How strong is this setup?
- Emotional state: Am I calm and following process, or am I forcing a trade because I feel I need to be in the market?
- Recent results: Am I on a winning streak (risk of overconfidence) or a losing streak (risk of revenge trading)?
Phase 2: During the Trade (Entry Execution)
Record these as soon as you have entered the position.
Execution Details
- Actual entry date and time: When you actually entered
- Actual entry price: Your fill price
- Slippage: Difference between planned and actual entry
- Actual position size: Sometimes you adjust at the moment of entry
- Actual stop loss placed: Confirm your stop is live in your broker
- Order type used: Market, limit, stop-limit
Entry Quality Notes
- Did you enter at the planned price or did you chase?
- Did you follow the entry trigger you defined, or did you jump early?
- Did you place your stop immediately, or did you hesitate?
This phase should take under a minute. You are just confirming that you executed the plan you wrote in Phase 1.
Phase 3: Post-Trade (After Exit)
This is where the learning happens. Do this within 24 hours of closing the trade -- your memory of the emotional and decision-making aspects fades quickly.
Exit Details
- Exit date: When you closed the position
- Exit price: Your actual exit fill
- Exit reason: Was it your target hit, stop loss triggered, time-based exit, trailing stop, or a discretionary decision?
- Holding period: Days held
- Gross P&L: Before fees
- Fees: Brokerage costs
- Net P&L: After fees
- R-multiple achieved: How many R did you capture or lose?
Strategy Compliance Review
- Did you follow all entry rules? If not, which ones did you break?
- Did you follow your exit rules? Or did you exit early/late?
- Did you move your stop loss? If so, was it in line with your trailing stop rules or was it emotional?
- Did you adjust position size during the trade? Why?
What Went Right (Be Specific)
Write at least one thing you executed well. "Waited for the entry trigger candle instead of entering the day before" or "Held through the consolidation period without panicking when it went flat for three days."
What Went Wrong (Be Specific)
Write at least one thing you could improve. Even on winning trades, there is usually something. "Entered 15 minutes before the close instead of waiting for the opening of the next session as my rules specify" or "Took a larger position than my 2% risk rule allowed."
Lesson Learned
One concrete takeaway. Not vague statements like "need to be more patient." Specific and actionable: "When RSI is below 35 on the daily, the first touch of the 50 EMA is more likely to fail. Wait for a second test or a divergence signal before entering."
Would You Take This Trade Again?
With the benefit of hindsight, was this a good setup that you would trade again? Or was the thesis flawed from the start? This helps you refine your strategy rules over time.
Sample Completed Entry: BHP.AU Pullback Trade
Here is what a completed journal entry looks like for a real-looking ASX trade.
Pre-Trade
- Date identified: 15 March 2026
- Ticker: BHP.AU
- Direction: Long
- Timeframe: Daily
- Strategy: 50 EMA Pullback
Rule Checklist:
- Uptrend confirmed (higher highs since Jan 2026)
- Price touched 50 EMA on daily ($43.80)
- Volume declining on pullback (3 red days with decreasing volume)
- RSI at 46 (within 40-55 range)
- No earnings within 5 days
- Materials sector relative strength positive vs ASX 200
Entry plan: Buy at $44.10 (on first green close above 50 EMA). Stop at $42.40 (below recent swing low). Target at $47.50 (prior resistance zone). Position size: 580 shares. Risk: $986 (1.8% of $55,000 account).
R-multiple target: ($47.50 - $44.10) / ($44.10 - $42.40) = 2.0R
Thesis: BHP has pulled back to the 50 EMA after a strong move from $40 to $46. Volume dried up on the pullback, suggesting institutional holders are not selling. Iron ore prices firmed overnight. The materials sector is outperforming the ASX 200 over the past 10 sessions.
Confidence: 7/10. Clean setup, good sector context. Slight concern about copper price weakness but iron ore is the primary driver for BHP.
Emotional state: Calm. No recent losses affecting judgment. Following process.
During Trade
- Actual entry: 17 March 2026, 10:45 AEST
- Entry price: $44.15 (limit order filled 5c above plan)
- Slippage: $0.05 (acceptable)
- Position size: 580 shares (as planned)
- Stop placed: $42.40 (confirmed live in broker)
- Order type: Limit
Entry notes: Waited for the green candle confirmation on the daily. Entered mid-morning the following session after the open confirmed strength. No chasing.
Post-Trade
- Exit date: 25 March 2026
- Exit price: $46.85
- Exit reason: Trailing stop triggered (had moved stop to $46.50 after price hit $47.20)
- Holding period: 6 trading days
- Gross P&L: +$1,566 (580 x $2.70)
- Fees: $19.90 (entry + exit brokerage)
- Net P&L: +$1,546.10
- R-multiple achieved: ($46.85 - $44.15) / ($44.15 - $42.40) = +1.54R
Strategy compliance:
- Entry rules: All followed. Waited for confirmation candle.
- Exit rules: Trailing stop was correct, but I trailed too tight. My rules say to trail at 1 ATR below the highest close, which would have been $46.10, not $46.50.
- Stop management: Moved stop in line with rules as price advanced. No emotional stop adjustments.
What went right: Patient entry. Did not chase the first green candle on the 16th (which was a doji -- not a convincing close). Waited one more day for confirmation. Held through a flat period on days 3-4 without exiting early.
What went wrong: Trailing stop was tighter than rules specified. Price actually hit $47.40 before reversing. If I had used the correct 1 ATR trail, the stop would have been at $46.10 and I might have captured more of the move. Ended up leaving about 0.3R on the table.
Lesson learned: Stick to the 1 ATR trailing stop calculation. Tightening the trail because "it feels like it's running out of steam" is a discretionary override that costs money on average.
Would I take this trade again? Yes. Clean setup, good execution on entry, positive outcome. The only adjustment is the trailing stop calculation.
The Review Process: Weekly and Monthly
Recording individual trades is step one. The real value comes from reviewing your journal in aggregate.
Weekly Review (15-20 Minutes, Every Weekend)
Pull up all trades from the past week. Look for:
- Strategy compliance rate: What percentage of trades followed all entry and exit rules? If it is below 80%, your discipline needs work before anything else.
- Average R-multiple for the week: Is it positive? Negative? Flat?
- Emotional patterns: Did any trades involve negative emotional states (revenge trading, FOMO, overconfidence)? What were the outcomes?
- Best trade of the week: What made it work? Can you replicate the conditions?
- Worst trade of the week: What went wrong? What is the specific fix?
Write a 3-5 sentence summary of the week. This running log becomes a high-level view of your trading evolution over months.
Monthly Review (45-60 Minutes, First Weekend of Each Month)
The monthly review is more quantitative.
- Win rate by strategy: Is each strategy performing as expected? Any strategy below 40% win rate or with negative expectancy for two consecutive months needs examination.
- Average R-multiple by strategy: This tells you whether your winners are large enough relative to your losers.
- Profit factor: Total gross profit divided by total gross loss. Above 1.5 is solid. Below 1.0 means you are losing money.
- Max consecutive losses: Did you hit a losing streak? How did you handle it emotionally?
- Position sizing consistency: Are you risking consistent amounts or varying? Inconsistency often indicates emotional decision-making.
- Rule-breaking trades: Isolate every trade where you broke a rule. Calculate the aggregate P&L of those trades separately. Most traders find that their rule-breaking trades lose money in aggregate, even if individual ones occasionally profit.
Quarterly Adjustment
Every three months, use your journal data to make strategy-level decisions:
- Should you retire a strategy that has negative expectancy over 100+ trades?
- Should you increase position size on your highest-expectancy strategy?
- Should you add or remove entry criteria based on your data?
- Are there market conditions where your strategies consistently fail?
These decisions should be data-driven, not emotional. The journal is your data source.
Automating the Boring Parts
The biggest reason traders stop journaling is the manual data entry. Typing in prices, calculating P&L, tracking holding periods -- this friction kills the habit.
Modern trading journal software automates most of the numerical fields. SwingFolio, for instance, imports your trades from your broker, calculates P&L and R-multiples automatically, tracks holding periods, and generates the analytics for your weekly and monthly reviews. The AI review feature analyses your journal entries and flags patterns across your trade history.
Your time then goes entirely into the high-value fields: pre-trade thesis, strategy compliance notes, emotional state, and post-trade lessons. That is 2-3 minutes per trade -- a small investment for the data that will drive your improvement.
Whichever tool you use, the template above gives you the structure. Print it out, bookmark it, or set it as the fields in your journal app. Then fill it in on your next trade, and the one after that, and the one after that.
Consistency is the only thing that turns a template into a tool.