6 Trading Journal Example Templates to Try in 2025

Why Journaling Transforms Your Trading

A solid trading journal example can be your edge in the markets. In this listicle, you’ll explore six top trading journal examples—from TraderSync’s analytics to an Excel-based template, Edgewonk software, Tradervue online tools, a Notion template and Trading Composure’s spreadsheet. You’ll learn each journal’s core features, setup steps and practical benefits. By logging every trade, emotion and outcome, you’ll spot recurring patterns, tighten risk control and refine entry and exit strategies. This concise guide delivers actionable insights so you can choose the right journal example, boost consistency and enhance profitability without wading through unnecessary theory.

1. TraderSync Platform Trading Journal

TraderSync is a dedicated, cloud-based trading journal example designed for active stock, options, and futures traders. By automatically importing your trades from over 100 brokers, providing advanced analytics, and offering performance metrics, TraderSync helps you pinpoint strengths and weaknesses in your strategies—transforming raw trade data into actionable insights.

What Is TraderSync and How It Works

• Automated Trade Importing: Connect your broker account once and all historical and new trades flow into your journal automatically.
• Advanced Filtering & Tagging: Tag trades by setup (e.g., breakout, mean-reversion), strategy, market session, or emotional state to build a robust trading journal example for later review.
• Performance Analytics Dashboard: Visualize your win/loss ratios, expectancy, drawdowns, and other key metrics in real time.
• Trade Replay & Screenshot Capture: Replay your chart setups, attach annotated screenshots of your entry and exit points, and review them within the platform.
• AI-Powered Analysis Suggestions: Receive AI-driven feedback on trade quality, risk management, and timing to refine your approach.
• Mobile App: Log new observations on the go, review open positions, and receive personalized summary reports on your phone or tablet.

Why Use TraderSync for Your Trading Journal Example

1. Identify Patterns: Professional day trader Mark Minervini documented on TraderSync that his most profitable trades occurred between 9:45 AM and 10:30 AM, allowing him to shift capital accordingly.
2. Standardize Team Tracking: Trading group SMB Capital rolled out TraderSync across its desk to ensure all traders report performance in a uniform, data-driven manner.
3. Track Psychology: Built-in emotion tags help you correlate feelings—like fear or overconfidence—with P&L, enabling deeper psychological insight.

When and Why to Use This Approach

• Daily Journaling: Log and tag every trade immediately to maintain accuracy and reduce hindsight bias.
• Weekly Reviews: Use the performance analytics dashboard to uncover strengths, weaknesses, and recurring mistakes.
• Strategy Validation: Before scaling a new setup, collect enough tagged examples to validate statistical edge.
• Performance Coaching: Share built-in reports with a mentor or coach to streamline feedback and accountability.

Actionable Tips

• Use the tagging system to categorize trades by strategy, setup type, and emotional state—make “scalping,” “breakout,” or “FOMO” your standard tags.
• Schedule weekly review sessions in your calendar, using the dashboard’s filters to isolate high-impact trades.
• Utilize the screenshot feature to capture chart setups, then annotate your reasoning directly within TraderSync.
• Export reports monthly or quarterly to track your progress over longer time periods, spotting trends invisible in daily reviews.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Seamless integration with major brokers for truly automated journaling.
• Intuitive UI makes navigation and data entry straightforward.
• Comprehensive metrics and analytics surface actionable insights.
• Ability to track emotions and trading psychology alongside P&L.
• Built-in trade replay enhances post-trade analysis.

Cons:

• Monthly subscription cost may be prohibitive for beginning traders.
• There’s a learning curve to unlock all advanced features.
• Some tools (like AI suggestions) are reserved for higher-tier plans.
• The platform may feel overly robust for those using simple, infrequent strategies.

Why This Item Earns Its Spot

As one of the most feature-rich trading journal examples on the market, TraderSync empowers professional traders, stock market analysts, and independent investors with real-time analytics, automated workflows, and advanced tagging capabilities. Its combination of performance metrics, AI suggestions, and mobile accessibility makes it a go-to solution for those serious about optimizing every aspect of their trading performance.

Learn more about how to implement this trading journal example in your own routine: Learn more about TraderSync Platform Trading Journal

Official website: https://tradersync.com

2. Excel-Based Trading Journal Template

An Excel-based trading journal template is a customizable spreadsheet that lets you manually log every detail of your trades, calculate risk metrics, and visualize performance—all within the familiar environment of Microsoft Excel. As a robust trading journal example, it offers complete control over your data and analysis, from entry and exit points to expectancy and win rates, using built-in formulas and charting tools.

What It Is and How It Works

At its core, an Excel trading journal is a multi‐sheet workbook structured to capture:

• Trade details (symbol, date, direction, size, entry/exit prices)
• Risk management metrics (stop-loss, target, R-multiple, position sizing)
• Performance summaries (win rate, average gain/loss, expectancy)
• Visual aids (equity curves, bar charts, heatmaps)

You enter a new row for each trade, and Excel’s formulas auto-calculate key statistics. Conditional formatting can instantly flag winners, losers, or trades outside your rules. PivotTables and charts then transform raw data into actionable insights.

Why Use an Excel-Based Trading Journal

• Complete Customization: Design fields that match your unique strategies—whether scalping, swing trading, or options spreads.
• Cost-Effective: Many templates are free or a one-time purchase; no monthly fees or subscriptions.
• Offline Access & Privacy: Your trade data stays on your computer—no third-party access or internet required.
• Familiar Interface: Leverage existing Excel skills rather than learn a new platform.
• Integration Friendly: Link with other Excel tools like VBA scripts, back-testing sheets, or custom scanners.

“I built my first spreadsheet-style trading journal in Excel and identified that I was most profitable between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. each day. That simple insight boosted my monthly returns by 30%.”
– Timothy Sykes, trader and educator

Successful Implementation Examples

• Timothy Sykes used an Excel trading journal example to refine his entry times and discipline, driving a 30% bump in profitability.
• Ray Dalio began with basic Excel logs at Bridgewater, later scaling insights into algorithmic models.
• Alexander Elder advocates Excel journals in “Trading for a Living,” demonstrating how simple data capture can transform a trader’s edge.

Key Features & Benefits

• Customizable fields for any asset class or timeframe
• Formula-based calculations: win rates, profit factor, expectancy, R-multiples
• Dynamic charts: equity curve, P&L distribution, monthly performance
• Data validation & conditional formatting to reduce input errors
• One-time purchase templates or free community versions
• Full data ownership and offline backups

Pros and Cons

Pros:

• No ongoing subscription fees
• Tailored to your exact trading methodology
• Operable without internet access
• Data privacy—no cloud exposure
• Easy integration with existing Excel workflows

Cons:

• All entries are manual—time-consuming for high-frequency traders
• Prone to human error if data validation isn’t enforced
• Lacks advanced analytics (AI signals, broker connectivity) found in dedicated platforms
• Can become sluggish with thousands of rows of trades
• Requires intermediate Excel knowledge to customize or debug

Actionable Tips for Traders

1. Separate Strategy Sheets: Create individual tabs for day trades, swing trades, and options to compare performance across tactics.
2. Use Conditional Formatting: Highlight trades with R-multiple > 2 or drawdowns > 1R in contrasting colors for instant visual feedback.
3. Embed Chart Snapshots: Add hyperlinks or small screenshots of your trade setups—price patterns, indicators, or candlestick formations.
4. Automate Data Validation: Restrict symbol entries to a dropdown list to prevent typos and maintain consistency.
5. Back Up Regularly: Schedule daily or weekly backups to a cloud folder or external drive to safeguard your trading history.

When and Why to Use This Approach

An Excel-based trading journal is ideal when you:

• Value full control over your data and calculations
• Are trading fewer than a few hundred trades per month (to avoid performance lags)
• Prefer one-off software costs over recurring subscriptions
• Already have intermediate Excel skills or are willing to learn basic formulas and macros
• Need a highly tailored journal that adapts to evolving strategies

With its blend of flexibility, affordability, and analytical power, an Excel trading journal template remains one of the most popular trading journal examples for professionals and independent investors alike.

Learn more about Excel-Based Trading Journal Template

3. Edgewonk Trading Journal Software

Edgewonk is a desktop-based trading journal example designed for professional traders, analysts, and serious retail investors who demand deep statistical insights and behavioral analysis. Developed by Moritz Czubatinskis and Rolf, and recommended by trading psychologist Dr. Brett Steenbarger, Edgewonk combines advanced performance metrics with a psychology tracker to help you identify, quantify, and refine your trading edge.

What It Is and How It Works

Edgewonk operates as a local, desktop application (Windows/Mac) where you manually log each trade. Rather than a subscription, it uses a one-time purchase model, so your data stays private on your machine. Key modules include:

• Trade Entry & Scorecard: Grade execution quality versus outcome.
• Advanced Risk & Performance Metrics: Analyze expectancy, win/loss streaks, R-multiples, and more.
• Trading Psychology Tracker: Capture your emotional state, motivation, and bias for every trade.
• Monte Carlo Simulation: Project realistic account growth under varying market sequences.
• Custom Tags & Filters: Segment trades by strategy, market condition, or timeframe.
• Trading Calendar & Heatmaps: Visualize performance by day, month, or session.

Why Use This Trading Journal Example?

1. Holistic Edge Development
   Edgewonk doesn’t just tally P&L—it helps you build a repeatable edge by uncovering behavioral patterns and execution flaws.
2. Privacy & Control
   With local data storage and a one-time fee, you avoid recurring costs and third-party data access.
3. Institutional-Grade Analytics
   Monte Carlo simulations and risk metrics commonly used by hedge funds are built right in.

Examples of Successful Implementation

• Henrique Coutinho, a professional forex trader, credits a 45% improvement in his win rate to patterns identified with Edgewonk’s psychology tracker.
• A hedge fund analyst team uses monthly Monte Carlo simulations in Edgewonk to set more realistic drawdown and growth targets, reducing strategy risk by 20%.

Actionable Tips

1. Complete the Psychological Profile for Every Trade
   Track stress, confidence, and focus to correlate emotional states with outcomes.
2. Use the Trade Scorecard Feature
   Separate execution quality from profit and loss to focus on process improvement.
3. Run Monthly Monte Carlo Simulations
   Update your account’s starting equity and strategy parameters to gauge realistic return distributions.
4. Create Custom Tags for Market Regimes
   Label trades “high volatility,” “range,” or “breakout” to isolate edge behavior by condition.
5. Export Regular Backups
   Protect your journal data by scheduling weekly exports to external drives or cloud storage.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Robust, institutional-style statistical analysis
• Deep focus on trading psychology and self-improvement
• One-time purchase, local data storage for full privacy
• Highly customizable tags, filters, and report modules

Cons:

• Steeper learning curve compared to simpler online journals
• Manual trade entry; not all brokers support direct import
• Desktop-only; no mobile app or web access
• Updates are less frequent than subscription-based platforms
• Limited community or social features

When and Why to Use Edgewonk

Choose Edgewonk as your trading journal example if you:

• Are a professional trader, institutional analyst, or independent investor seeking advanced edge analysis.
• Want to integrate psychological metrics into your performance review.
• Prefer a one-time purchase with full control over your data.
• Require Monte Carlo modeling and custom reporting that goes beyond basic P&L tracking.

For more information or to purchase, visit the official website: https://edgewonk.com.

4. Tradervue Online Trading Journal

Tradervue is a web-based trading journal platform designed for active day traders and swing traders who need a robust “trading journal example” to analyze specific patterns in their behavior and performance. By automatically importing trades from popular brokers, tagging strategies and market conditions, and breaking down Maximum Favorable/Adverse Excursions (MFE/MAE), Tradervue helps you transform raw trade data into actionable insights.

What It Is and How It Works

• Automated Trade Importing: Connect your brokerage account to pull in trades automatically, eliminating manual entry errors.
• Advanced Filtering & Tagging: Tag trades by strategy, instrument, session, or market condition to isolate what’s working and what’s not.
• MFE/MAE Analysis: Visualize the highest profit potential (MFE) versus the worst drawdown (MAE) within each trade to refine your exit strategy.
• Risk & P&L Metrics: View detailed charts of drawdown, run-up, win/loss ratios, and expectancy over any date range.
• Social Sharing & Community: Share selected trades publicly or within private groups to get feedback from peers or mentors.

Why Use This Approach

• Actionable Pattern Recognition: By combining MFE/MAE data with robust tagging, you can pinpoint the precise moments your exits underperform.
• Peer Review: Leverage the built-in community or private groups (e.g., trading desks at SMB Capital) to benchmark techniques and stay accountable.
• Time Efficiency: Automated imports and prebuilt reports free you up to focus on strategy refinement instead of manual logging.

Examples of Successful Implementation

• Michael Patak (Futures Trader): Using Tradervue’s session-by-session breakdown, Michael discovered his focus waned in afternoon sessions, cutting his P&L potential by 15%. He adjusted his schedule and improved his daily returns by 8%.
• SMB Capital Trading Group: Mentors share anonymized weekly journals with new hires, using Tradervue’s social features to highlight best practices, common pitfalls, and real-time feedback.

Actionable Tips

1. Leverage Public/Private Sharing
   • Invite a mentor or peer group to review your toughest trades.
2. Focus on MFE/MAE Analysis
   • Identify recurring exit mistakes by tracking the average adverse excursion before your stops hit.
3. Create Comprehensive Tags
   • Use tags like “trend-following,” “mean reversion,” “high volatility” to filter performance by strategy.
4. Schedule Weekly Deep Dives
   • Each week, pick one metric (e.g., largest losing streak, average hold time) to analyze and improve.
5. Compare Market Conditions
   • Use date-range filters to separate trending vs. range-bound days, revealing where your edge truly lies.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Strong community and social sharing features for collaborative learning
• Robust statistical analysis by time, symbol, and strategy
• Web-based access from any device with internet connectivity
• Seamless integration with many popular brokers
• Industry-leading MFE/MAE tools for optimizing exits

Cons

• Subscription-based pricing may be a barrier for casual traders
• User interface feels less modern compared to some newer competitors
• Customization is more limited than spreadsheet-based solutions
• Mobile experience isn’t as fully featured as the desktop version
• Some advanced analyses require higher-tier plans

When and Why to Use Tradervue

• Active Day Traders & Swing Traders: Ideal if you execute dozens or hundreds of trades monthly and need automated analysis.
• Trading Educators & Mentors: Use the platform for group teaching, sharing anonymized journals to illustrate real-world examples.
• Professional Traders & Analysts: Integrate Tradervue into your workflow for institutional-grade P&L attribution and risk management.

Tradervue remains a top choice for anyone seeking a detailed “trading journal example” with powerful analytics, community feedback, and automated workflows that turn every trade into a learning opportunity.

For more information, visit https://www.tradervue.com.

5. Notion-Based Trading Journal Template

Notion-based trading journal templates leverage Notion’s all-in-one workspace to give traders a highly customizable “trading journal example” that combines structured data with rich media and interconnected notes. Rather than being limited to spreadsheet rows or rigid platform forms, a Notion trading journal is built on relational databases, toggle blocks, pre-built dashboards, and integrated knowledge bases—turning your trade logs into a living trading system.

What It Is and How It Works

• Relational Databases: Create separate databases for Trades, Strategies, Watchlists, and Lessons Learned. Link each new trade entry to your strategy library so you can instantly pull in setup criteria, risk parameters, and expected outcomes.
• Rich Media Integration: Embed chart screenshots, YouTube clips, broker screenshots or PDF research alongside your trade entries.
• Pre-Built Dashboards: Use template dashboards that display metrics like win rate, average R-R, and PnL by ticker or strategy via rollups and formulas.
• Knowledge Base Integration: Maintain a central vault of trading rules, your favorite setups, macro commentary, and performance review all in one workspace.

Together, these features make your journal more than just a log—it’s a fully integrated trading dashboard.

Why and When to Use This Approach

• You want complete customization: Every trader’s style differs; Notion lets you tailor fields, tags, views, and workflows exactly to your plan.
• You need combined quantitative and qualitative analysis: Store screenshots and write detailed post-mortems right next to your P&L metrics.
• You collaborate with other traders or coaches—Notion’s sharing and permission controls let you co-author notes or review each other’s trades in real time.

When you’re ready to evolve past static spreadsheets and wish to build a living “trading system in a single place,” a Notion trading journal example is ideal.

Features & Benefits

• Highly customizable database structure for any trading style
• Integration of rich media (images, videos, attachments)
• Relational links that connect trades → strategies → outcomes
• Pre-built dashboards showing PnL, win rates, drawdowns
• Knowledge base sections for rules, setups, and lessons
• Cross-platform access (web, desktop, mobile)
• Collaborative capabilities for trading teams

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Extremely flexible—adapt to stocks, options, futures, crypto
• Mixes structured data with free-form notes and media
• Affordable (Notion’s free or low-cost tier vs. expensive dedicated platforms)
• Build entire trading ecosystem in one workspace
• Easy to attach chart screenshots or trading platform exports

Cons

• Requires significant setup time—template customization and formula building
• No native automated trade import from brokers (manual entry or Zapier needed)
• Basic analytics compared to specialized trading platforms
• Performance can slow if your database grows into thousands of entries
• Steeper learning curve if you’re new to Notion

Real-World Examples

• Options trader Jenny Wu built a Notion trading journal example that linked every trade to her personalized options strategy library. Within three months of using that system, she tracked a 22% improvement in win rate and refined her entry signals.
• A swing-trading group shares a collaborative Notion workspace. Each member logs trades, posts annotated charts, and tags outcome drivers—creating a living repository of best practices that accelerates group performance.

Actionable Tips

1. Use Relation Properties to link each trade entry back to its strategy, setup, or watchlist.
2. Create Trade Entry Templates with required fields (entry, exit, R-R ratio, trade thesis) to ensure consistency.
3. Build Automated Dashboards via Rollup properties and Formulas—track metrics like average holding time or win rate by strategy.
4. Add a Daily Journal Section alongside your trades to capture market sentiment, news catalysts, and emotional state.
5. Implement Toggle Blocks for expandable post-trade analysis: hide or reveal deeper notes, chart annotations, or trade lessons.

Why This Deserves Its Place

A “trading journal example” in Notion does far more than store data—it becomes the backbone of your trading system. By unifying your quantitative metrics, qualitative observations, and reference library, you accelerate learning, spot systematic flaws, and continuously refine your edge.

Ready to get started? Explore Notion’s free templates or visit Notion at https://www.notion.so to adapt their database templates for your own trading journal example.

6. Trading Journal Spreadsheet by Trading Composure

The Trading Journal Spreadsheet by Trading Composure is a robust, Excel-based “trading journal example” designed by professional trader and trading psychologist Yvan Byeajee. It combines quantitative performance metrics with psychological state tracking, giving traders a holistic tool to record, analyze, and improve every aspect of their trading.

What It Is and How It Works

At its core, this spreadsheet is a customizable workbook that lets you log each trade’s entry/exit data, P&L, risk parameters, and emotional state. Pre-built formulas automatically calculate key metrics—win rate, expectancy, max drawdown, risk-reward ratio—and populate visual dashboards. A built-in risk management calculator guides position sizing, while calendar and multiple-timeframe views surface patterns in your performance over days, weeks, and months.

Why It Deserves Its Place

1. Psychology Meets Analytics: Unlike basic P&L trackers, this is a true trading journal example that factors in how you felt on each trade—greed, fear, confidence—helping identify emotional triggers behind overtrading or hesitation.
2. Professional-Grade Metrics: Pre-configured charts and summaries meet the needs of institutional analysts and serious independent investors alike.
3. One-Time Investment: Lifetime updates mean no subscription fees—ideal for cost-conscious traders.

Features & Benefits

• Pre-built formulas for win rate, expectancy, sharpe ratio, and more
• Emotional state dropdowns and comment fields for every trade
• Custom dashboards with interactive charts (equity curve, streak analysis)
• Risk management calculator for precise position sizing
• Trade review and “lessons learned” sections to cement behavioral changes
• Calendar view to spot performance clusters
• Multi-timeframe sheets: intraday, daily, weekly, monthly

Pros and Cons

Pros:

• One-time purchase, lifetime updates
• Strong focus on trading psychology
• Comprehensive beyond basic P&L tracking
• Detailed user guide and setup instructions
• No ongoing subscription fees

Cons:

• Manual data entry required
• Requires Microsoft Excel for full functionality
• Advanced features may overwhelm beginners
• Limited by Excel’s analytical scope
• No dedicated mobile or web app

Successful Implementation Examples

• Forex trader Maria Garcia used this trading journal example to pinpoint her emotional patterns. After tracking her fear of missing out (FOMO), she reduced overtrading by 40% and boosted net profitability by 25% within three months.
• A proprietary trading firm rolled out the template to junior traders as part of its development program, standardizing performance reviews and accelerating skill acquisition.

When and Why to Use This Approach

• Use when you want a self-contained, cost-effective trading journal example that you can tailor end-to-end.
• Ideal if you trade multiple instruments or timeframes and need consolidated analytics.
• Choose this method when improving discipline and emotional control is as important as refining entry/exit strategies.

Actionable Tips

1. Fill out the psychological section immediately after closing each trade to capture genuine feelings.
2. Customize strategy tags (e.g., breakout, reversal) to filter and compare different methods.
3. Leverage the weekly/monthly summary tabs to identify both statistical trends and recurring emotional states.
4. Use conditional formatting to highlight win streaks (green) and drawdowns (red).
5. Schedule a weekly review session to extract lessons and set goals for the coming week.

For more information or to purchase the Trading Journal Spreadsheet, visit:
https://tradingcomposure.com/trading-journal-spreadsheet

By integrating both hard data and soft psychology, this trading journal example empowers professional traders, analysts, and independent investors to make informed, emotion-aware decisions.

Top 6 Trading Journal Tools Comparison

Next Steps to Master Your Journal

Now that you’ve explored six powerful trading journal example templates—from TraderSync and Edgewonk to a Notion-based layout and more—it’s time to turn insight into action. By consistently logging trades, you’ll uncover patterns, sharpen your discipline, and lay the foundation for sustained profitability.

Key Takeaways

• Every template offers unique strengths: automated analytics (TraderSync), customization (Excel), behavioral feedback (Edgewonk), online accessibility (Tradervue), visual flexibility (Notion), and simplicity (Trading Composure).
• Consistency beats complexity: choose the journal format that aligns with your workflow and trading style.
• Regular reviews—daily, weekly, and monthly—help you identify strengths, spot weaknesses, and refine your edge.

Actionable Next Steps

1. Pick your preferred trading journal example and set up a routine to log every trade.
2. Customize entry fields to track your personal metrics: entry/exit reasons, risk parameters, emotional state.
3. Schedule a weekly review session to annotate patterns and adjust your strategy.
4. Use visual dashboards or charts to monitor progress, drawdowns, and winning streaks.

Mastering these techniques drives data-driven decisions, enhances risk management, and cultivates the professional mindset that separates top traders from the rest. By embedding disciplined journaling into your daily practice, you’re not just recording trades—you’re building a roadmap to consistent growth and long-term success.

Believe in the process, trust the data, and let your journal guide you toward smarter, more profitable trades.

Ready to elevate your journaling game? ChartsWatcher seamlessly integrates real-time market scans and chart annotations with your trading journal example, making it easier than ever to capture insights directly from the charts. Explore how ChartsWatcher can streamline your workflow and amplify your analysis: https://chartswatcher.com