The 0.1%

Trading Journals 101

 

Let’s cut through the fluff: if you’re trading without a journal, you’re not serious. You’re winging it. And in a market that eats retail like breakfast, that’s not a flex—it’s a death sentence. A proper trading journal isn’t just some cute productivity hack; it’s your personal alpha archive. Your feedback loop. Your edge refinement machine.

Whether you're scalping microcaps at the open or managing swing plays off macro catalysts, logging your trades—with intention—forces you to look under the hood. Why’d you enter? What were you feeling? What did the tape say? What was the macro backdrop? Did you stick to the damn plan? These are the questions that separate bagholders from assassins.

Here’s how you build one, how to use it like a sniper scope, and how to make it your daily discipline—so you stop chasing candle wicks and start running plays with conviction.

A trading journal is not your brokerage statement. It’s not your end-of-day P&L tweet. It’s the full story behind every move: the setup, the thesis, your emotional state, how the market looked, what you planned, what you actually did, and what you learned. It’s your war diary in the arena of price action. A statement shows what happened. A journal shows why it happened—and why you either crushed it or got smoked. Most traders lose because they repeat the same dumb mistakes without realizing it. A journal slaps you in the face with your own patterns. It forces accountability. You can’t hide from your paper hands or FOMO buys when they’re staring back at you in black and white.

 

Let’s be real: no one on FinTwit’s flexing their handwritten logs or annotated screenshots. But behind every consistent killer is a data trail of discipline.

A proper journal will:

• Expose your emotional tells like a poker player’s nervous tic.
   
• Reveal which setups pay and which are just dopamine hits.
   
• Help you level up faster by showing what you do well—not what some YouTube guru claims works.
   
• Keep your ego in check when you think you’re invincible after three green days.
   

You want edge? It’s not hiding in a new indicator or another guru’s Discord. It’s buried in your own trade history.

Format? Doesn’t matter. Excel, Notion, pen and paper, hell, scribbles on a napkin if you’re consistent. Use what you’ll actually maintain. The content matters more than the container. Here’s what your journal must capture: Date & Time: Context matters. Was this an open fade or a power hour breakout? Ticker & Direction: What were you playing, and were you long or short? Entry & Exit: Exact prices. Don’t round up. You’re not fooling anyone. Size: Were you playing size like it was a setup, or YOLO-ing on tilt? Thesis: Technical? Fundamental? News catalyst? What was the actual reason? Stop & Target: Did you even have one? If not, congrats—you were gambling. Market Conditions: Was SPX breaking support? VIX spiking? NFP drop just hit? Emotional State: Were you clear-headed or revenge-trading like a degenerate? Outcome: Win or loss, but more importantly—did you follow your plan? Post-Trade Notes: What worked? What didn’t? What would you do differently? And yeah—screenshots help. Mark up the chart. Circle your entry. Own your execution.

 

You don’t log trades a week later when the sting wears off. That’s just revisionist history. Log it right after the trade or at least before the session ends. Capture the raw emotion. That’s where the real data lives.

And don’t cherry-pick. Every scalp, every miss, every FOMO chase you “forgot to log” is the reason you’re bleeding edge.

“I don’t have time to journal.”
Cool. But you had time to stare at Level 2 for three hours and refresh Twitter 200 times?

“I don’t know what to write.”
Start with: What was the setup? Did I stick to my plan? What emotion showed up? What would I change?

“It’s too complicated.”
Then simplify it. Just log the basics. But log something. Perfection is the enemy of progress.

“I’ll remember the trade without writing it down.”
Sure you will. Until the next drawdown nukes your memory and confidence.

 

This isn’t optional. It’s not negotiable. If you want to survive—and actually thrive—in a game where 90% of players blow up or fade out, you need to treat this like a business.

A trading journal is your P&L’s lie detector. Your emotional barometer. Your roadmap to consistency. And yeah, it’s tedious. So is brushing your teeth. But neglect it long enough and things rot.

Want to stop bleeding capital? Start journaling. Want to build real edge? Start journaling. Want to become the disciplined assassin who doesn’t flinch when the market throws a fakeout? Start journaling.

Because while everyone else is chasing hype and gut feels, you’ll be quietly stacking data, refining process, and trading with brutal clarity.

That’s how pros are made.