# Trade Journal > Use when reviewing trading performance and decisions. Covers what to record, separating process from outcome, identifying real patterns in your own behavior, and turning a review into a rule change. - Skill: `nimadorostkar/trade-journal` (Agent Skill) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add nimadorostkar/trade-journal` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/nimadorostkar/trade-journal/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: Coding & Dev Tools - Author: nimadorostkar (https://skillmd.com/u/nimadorostkar) - Updated: 2026-09-17 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/nimadorostkar/trade-journal --- # Trade Journal ## Purpose Learn from your own decisions rather than from your outcomes. A profitable trade taken against your rules is a bad trade that will be repeated; a losing trade taken correctly is a good one. Without a journal, these are indistinguishable. ## When to Use - Recording a trade at entry. - Reviewing performance over a period. - After a losing streak, to determine whether the process or the market changed. - Identifying recurring mistakes. ## Capabilities - Structured trade recording: thesis, plan, execution. - Process-versus-outcome separation. - Pattern identification across trades. - Rule-adherence tracking. - Converting findings into rule changes. ## Inputs - The trades: entry, exit, size, and — crucially — the reasoning at the time. - The plan as it was stated *before* the outcome was known. - Market context. ## Outputs - A record that permits honest review. - Identified patterns, not anecdotes. - Specific rule changes with a date. ## Workflow 1. **Record the thesis before the outcome** — At entry, in writing: why, where the stop is, where the target is, and what would prove the thesis wrong. Written afterwards, this is a rationalization, and it will be a flattering one. 2. **Grade the process, not the profit and loss** — Did you follow your rules? That is a binary question with a clear answer, and it is the only one you control. 3. **Categorize by setup and by mistake** — Not by outcome. "Chased an extended entry" is a category. "Lost money" is not. 4. **Review a sample large enough to be meaningful** — Twenty trades minimum. Any five trades can be attributed to anything. 5. **Look for the pattern, not the story** — Are the losses concentrated in one setup? One time of day? Trades taken after a loss? These are behavioral patterns and they recur. 6. **Change one rule, and date it** — Then measure whether it helped. Changing five rules at once means learning nothing. ## Best Practices - The most common and most costly journaling error is writing the thesis after the outcome is known. Memory is not merely imperfect; it actively reconstructs the past to justify the present. - Grade every trade against the rules, independently of whether it made money. A rule violation that was profitable is the most dangerous event in trading, because it is reinforced. - Look for the revenge trade: the position taken immediately after a loss, larger than the rules permit, in a setup you would normally skip. It is nearly universal and it is visible in the data. - Track the trades you did *not* take. A rule that keeps you out of losers is doing its job, and it is invisible without a record. - Screenshot the chart at entry. Your memory of what the setup looked like will drift toward whatever justifies the outcome. - A journal you do not review is a diary. The review is the entire point. ## Examples **A trade record that permits an honest review:** ```markdown ## 2026-06-14 | LONG NVDA | Momentum breakout **Written at entry, before the outcome.** Thesis : Breaking out of an 8-week base on 2.3x average volume. Relative strength +6% vs SPY over 63 days. Earnings are 5 weeks away. Entry : 118.40 Stop : 112.80 (below the base low; the breakout is invalid below it) Target : 134.00 (the measured move; 2.8:1 reward-to-risk) Size : 340 shares. Risk $1,904 = 0.95% of equity. Within the rules. Invalidation: A close below 112.80, or a failed breakout that closes back inside the base. Regime check: trend up, volatility contracting. Breakouts are favored. PASS. Pre-trade gate: PASS (stop set, risk within limit, sector exposure 18%/30%). --- **Written at exit.** Exit : 113.10 on 2026-06-21. Stopped out. -$1,802 (-0.90%). Process grade: A. The setup met every criterion. The stop was where the thesis was invalidated. The size was correct. It was executed as planned and it did not work. Outcome : Loss. Lesson : NONE. This is what a losing trade taken correctly looks like. Do not change anything on the basis of this trade. The breakout failed. Some do. ``` **The review that finds the actual pattern:** ```text Q2 review: 47 trades. By outcome: 21 winners, 26 losers. Net +2.1%. By process grade: 38 followed the rules, 9 did not. The finding is in the second line, not the first: Rule-following trades (38): +8.4% win rate 55% avg R +0.31 Rule-breaking trades (9): -6.3% win rate 22% avg R -0.70 Every rule-breaking trade shares one characteristic: it was entered within 90 minutes of closing a losing position. Seven of the nine were in a setup graded "C" or worse. Six were oversized. This is a revenge-trading pattern. It is not a strategy problem; the strategy made 8.4% this quarter. It is a behavioral problem that cost 6.3%. Rule change, effective 2026-07-01: No new position within 2 hours of closing a losing trade. No exceptions, no override. This is a hard gate, enforced in the pre-trade checklist, not a resolution to be more disciplined. Measure: count rule-breaking trades next quarter. Target: zero. ``` ## Notes - The revenge-trading pattern in the example is close to universal among discretionary traders and is invisible without a journal — every individual instance feels justified in the moment. - The rule change is a mechanical gate, not a resolution. "I will be more disciplined" has never worked for anyone. A rule that cannot be overridden has. - This is educational material about trading process and review, not financial advice.