A trading journal for the book you actually trade

The minimum row

Traders abandon journals because they try to write a memoir per fill. The desk does not need a memoir. It needs when the trade opened, the symbol and side, the stop you actually used, net P&L after costs, and one mark: in plan, or the break.

• Session comes from the open time. You should not retype Asia, London, or New York.
• R needs the initial risk. A screenshot of the winner does not carry it.
• One mistake tag. Six labels on every ticket means none of them will have a sample.

Import, then tag

If the fills already exist in MT5, import the statement onto the right account and add the human layer the file will never have: plan, grade, note. The file knows the money. Only you know whether the stop was real. A tag added three days later is a story about the person you wish you were.

The longer version of that habit is on the blog: how to journal a trade so the numbers can talk, and why discipline is a score, not a mood.

Read the leak, not the curve

P&L mixes edge, luck, and leverage. A green day that ignored the stop is still a process loss. Pnlytix splits the book by the grade you put on the ticket: in plan, early exit, size break. In-plan trades should carry the P&L. If they do not, the plan is the problem. If the broke-plan bucket is green, you are learning the wrong lesson.

Live brokerage and a prop eval do not share a risk model. Keep them in separate accounts even when the setup is the same NQ idea. That split is the prop firm journal.