What a complete journal entry holds

Most journals stop at a screenshot and a mood. An entry is only useful later if it records something you can test against the outcome.

The setup you claimed to be trading
Tag the strategy at entry, not after the result is known. Strategy tags are what make later comparisons meaningful, and they are the first thing that decays if you fill them in from memory.
The risk you actually took
Record the initial risk amount in account currency. Without it, realized R cannot be computed, and every “how big was that loss really” question becomes guesswork.
The trigger and the deviation
Write what your rules required and what you did. A profitable trade can still break your rules; a losing trade can still be executed perfectly. Only the note separates the two.
The reconciled numbers
Entry, exit, fees, swap and net P&L come from the import, not from typing. Orderblock preserves the exact decimal strings your broker reported so the journal and the statement agree.

Setting up a journal that survives month two

The journals people abandon are the ones that need twenty minutes per trade. Build the routine around import first, writing second.

  1. Bring in the history you already have

    Connect a supported account or upload a closed-trade CSV statement. Map the columns once, review the preview, then import. Existing history gives your first review a real sample instead of three trades.

  2. Tag strategies before you write anything

    Decide on four or five strategy names and use them consistently. Fewer tags applied honestly beat twenty tags applied loosely.

  3. Write at the close, not at the review

    Use a template so the entry takes ninety seconds: setup, trigger, risk, execution, one thing to change. Reminders can bring an open plan back when you next open Orderblock.

  4. Review weekly with the data open

    Filter to one account and one week. Open the largest gain and the largest loss, read the entries behind them, and record a single change for the following week.

The numbers your entries get read against

Every journal entry sits next to the metrics computed from the same closed trades. These are the definitions Orderblock uses, verbatim from the product.

Net P&L
Sum of each closed trade’s net P&L, in the selected account currency.
Win rate
Winning closed trades ÷ all closed trades × 100. Break-even trades stay in the denominator. Open trades are excluded.
Profit factor
Sum of positive net trade P&L ÷ absolute sum of negative net trade P&L. No losses with positive profits produces ∞; no closed trades, or only breakeven trades, is unavailable.
Expectancy
Net realized P&L ÷ number of closed trades. Includes break-even trades and fees.
Average realized R
Average of net trade P&L ÷ recorded risk amount. Only closed trades with a positive recorded risk amount are included.
Maximum drawdown
Largest peak-to-trough decline in cumulative closed-trade P&L. Starts at zero and excludes unrealized positions and deposits. Trades that close at the same instant move equity once, together, so row order cannot create a drawdown.

Journals, folders and reminders

Entries live in folders you organise around your routine: one per strategy, one per account, or one per review cycle. The rich-text editor autosaves, so a note survives a closed tab, and templates keep the structure identical from trade to trade.

A reminder attaches a plan to a future session. If you wrote a pre-market plan on Sunday, it comes back into view when you next open the workspace instead of being lost in a folder.

Notes link to an individual trade, so opening a trade from analytics or the calendar shows the reasoning recorded at the time. That link is the whole point: a metric tells you something changed, the entry tells you what you were doing when it changed.

Trade journal questions

Can I import my existing trading history into a journal?

Yes. Orderblock imports closed trades from comma, semicolon and tab-delimited CSV statements, with a guided column mapper and a preview before anything is saved. Supported broker connections can sync closed trades automatically. Imported figures keep the broker’s exact decimal values and account currency.

Which markets does the journal support?

Forex, stocks, options and futures. Contract multipliers and fees require explicit mapping or values at import, so instrument conventions stay correct rather than being assumed.

Does a trading journal actually improve results?

A journal does not change your edge on its own. What it changes is your ability to tell a rule break from variance. Recording the planned risk, the trigger and the deviation is what makes that distinction possible; without those fields a journal is only a slower copy of your statement.

What happens to my entries if I cancel?

Existing data, exports and billing management remain accessible after cancellation. You can export complete trade history at any time, and account deletion is available in Settings.