A trading plan and journal template you can use today

Copy the two templates below into a spreadsheet or a notebook and they are ready to use. No software, no
sign-up.

The trading plan template — one page

A plan must be specific enough that someone else could read it and trade exactly as you do. Until it reaches
that standard it is not a plan, only an intention.

• Instruments and timeframe — for example:
  EUR/USD and
  XAU/USD on H1.
• Hours — for example: 08:00 to 15:00 UTC, no trading after 14:00 on Friday.
• Entry conditions — keep it to three. More and you will negotiate with yourself; fewer and
  the filter is too loose.
• Conditions for NOT entering — as important as the above and usually omitted. For example:
  within 30 minutes of high-impact news; a spread wider than normal; two losses already today.
• Where the stop goes — a specific rule, not “it depends”.
• Where you take profit — the target and how partial exits are handled.
• Position size — the risk percentage per trade and the sizing formula.
• Limits — maximum trades per day; total risk open at once; the daily and monthly stop
  levels.
• Target cost per lot — the figure you want to hold to, checked monthly.
• Review process — only change the plan after at least 30 trades, and change it on the data
  rather than on the most recent trade.

The journal template — the columns

Recorded before entry

• Date and time · Instrument · Direction · Size
• The reason for the trade — one sentence. If you cannot write a clear sentence, that is a
  signal to skip the trade.
• Stop and target levels, with the reasoning for each
• The intended risk-reward ratio
• Your own state — calm, impatient, wanting to win something back. One word is enough.

Recorded after closing

• The result in money and in R (multiples of risk)
• Whether you followed the plan — the most important column, more so than the profit or
  loss
• If you departed from it: where, and why
• A chart screenshot at entry and at exit

How to read the journal: four boxes

Classify every trade on two axes — process followed or not, and profit or loss:

• Process followed, profit — the outcome you want to repeat.
• Process followed, loss — entirely normal, nothing to fix.
• Process broken, loss — the group to work on.
• Process broken, profit — the most dangerous, because it rewards the bad
  habit.

People who keep no journal usually cannot tell the second box from the
third, and so keep fixing a strategy that was not broken.

The monthly cost spreadsheet template

Seven columns, taken from the MetaTrader report: instrument · lots · commission · swap · estimated spread
cost · rebate · net profit and loss.

Four figures to track: total monthly cost, average cost per lot, cost as a share of gross profit, and net
cost after the rebate. If the third exceeds 40%, the problem is cost rather than strategy.

This article is for information only and is not investment advice. Conditions and fee levels are published by the brokers and can change at any time — check with the broker you actually use. Leveraged forex and CFD trading carries a high level of risk and can cost you your entire deposit.