What is a trading journal?

Why keep a trading journal?

The primary goal of maintaining a trading journal is to foster self-improvement and the refinement of one's trading strategies to improve trading performance. In simple terms: the goal of keeping a trading journal is to make more money as a trader.

1. Become a Master of Your Mistakes (and Wins)

Every trade is a lesson. But without a journal, those lessons will not stick. Record your trades, and you can revisit them anytime. Analyze what worked, what didn't, and why. This self-reflection helps you identify winning strategies and avoid repeating costly mistakes.

2. Fine-Tune Your Trading Strategy for Maximum Profit

The market is a complex beast. What works one day might fail the next. A trading journal helps you understand how your strategies perform under different conditions. See which tactics consistently deliver profits, and adjust your approach for even better results. The goal? More winning trades, smaller losses.

3. Stay Disciplined and Avoid Costly Emotional Decisions

We all get caught up in the heat of the moment. A trading journal keeps you grounded. By logging your trades regularly, you develop a disciplined approach. No more impulsive decisions based on fear or greed. Your journal becomes your accountability partner, reminding you to stick to your plan and avoid emotional pitfalls.

4. Set Goals and Track Your Progress Like a Pro

Every successful trader has clear goals. A trading journal helps you define yours. Maybe you want to achieve a specific return, improve your win-to-loss ratio, or refine your trade selection criteria. Your journal tracks your progress, so you can celebrate wins and identify areas for improvement. It's your roadmap to long-term success.

Trading is a journey, and a trading journal is your map. It helps you learn from your experiences, stay disciplined, and achieve your trading goals.

Bigger winning trades

Edgewonk´s risk and trade metrics show you when you are leaving money on the table.

Identifying situations where you could have realized bigger trades can help traders improve their approach.

Letting winning trades run longer and cutting losses effectively can make a huge difference.

Find your strengths

Edgewonk´s analytics identify your strengths and show you exactly what is already working well for you so that you can do more of that.

With the help of our in-depth performance analysis, the Edgewonk trading journal is able to take an x-ray look into your trading data and help you find your edge.

Eliminate your weaknesses

Every trader is unique and with the customization features, Edgewonk identifies your biggest problem areas.

Once you know where you are losing most of your trades, you can work on your trading targetedly to turn your weaknesses around.

Strategy refinement

Edgewonk´s unique exit analysis helps you understand the price dynamics of your trading strategies. 

You can fine-tune your take profit approach to maximize winning trades, and improve your stop loss placement to potentially improve your winrate. 

Trading Psychology

Edgewonk goes one step further than most conventional trading journals and we combine powerful data analysis with mindset-related evaluations.

Edgewonk assesses your trading discipline, how well you can execute your trading rules and visualizes your efficiency. 

Self-coaching & accountability

Edgewonk´s milestone feature gamifies your journaling experience. Pick from nine helpful journaling objectives and keep track of your progress. 

The milestones help you build better trading habits and make recording your trades a fun experience.

More confidence

Gain confidence in your trading and your strategies by better understanding your performance and trading behavior.

Through validating your trading performance and reliving your trades, you gain a deep understanding of your trading, helping you trade with more clarity and purpose.

Market insights

Easily track market-related data such as your traded timeframes, market correlations, the impact of news events and daily trading sessions. 

Edgewonk is fully customizable and you can track any data point to reveal new insights into your trading.

Growths with you

Edgewonk works for beginners and professionals alike.

Edgewonk adapts to your needs and no matter where you are in your trading journey, you find the optimal features for your trading.

For all traders

Edgewonk works equally well for day-traders and swing traders. All trading styles are supported.

Edgewonk also supports all currencies and stocks worldwide. 

Large losses

Most traders can trade well for a few weeks, or even months, but then give back all their profits on just a few trades.

Edgewonk´s risk analysis helps traders understand their destructive patterns and shines a light on negative behavior so that traders can become aware of their weaknesses and change their behavior.

Small winners

A major problem many traders face is that their winning trades are not big enough. This is due to a fear of letting winning trades run and struggling traders close their winners too soon.

Edgewonk helps traders understand the profit potential of their trades and helps optimize the exit strategy. 

Emotional trading

Revenge-trading, over-trading, and impulsiveness are common problems many traders face.

Often they arise from uncertainty and a wrong understanding of their trading strategy and what to expect.

Edgewonk visualizes mindset-related behavior and shows traders exactly when they are most likely to lose money and how much emotional trading is costing them.

No confidence

Trading without confidence can lead traders to make the wrong trading decisions, losing money and missing out on potential profits.

Edgewonk calculates your potential trading performance and shows you if your trading decisions are effective or not, allowing you to make targeted adjustments based on your own data.

Repeating mistakes

Many traders are constantly repeating the same mistakes. The shocking thing is that the majority doesn´t even know that the same mistakes and negative behavior are keeping them from becoming profitable traders.

Edgewonk analytics show you your biggest weaknesses and help you identify your most destructive patterns. 

Lack of trust

Struggling traders do not trust their trading system and don´t know what to expect from their trades. 

This can easily be fixed by starting a journaling routine and confronting the hard data in your broker account. By seeing their progress, confidence can be built in no time.