# Trade Journal Template

*Signal Pilot Education — companion to Lesson 26.*

Copy one **Trade Record** block per trade. Fill the pre-trade section
**before** you enter; if you cannot complete it, that is the signal to skip
the trade rather than to guess.

> **Educational only.** Trading involves substantial risk of loss. Not financial
> advice. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Every number in
> this template is one you record about your own trading.

---

## Trade Record

| Field | Entry |
| --- | --- |
| Trade # | |
| Date / time (with timezone) | |
| Symbol | |
| Timeframe of the read | |
| Higher timeframe state | |

### 1. Pre-trade analysis — complete before entering

| Question | Answer |
| --- | --- |
| What structure am I reading? | |
| Which cycle event printed, and on what close? | |
| Did every layer I require confirm? | Yes / No |
| What would make this read wrong? | |
| Where does the invalidation sit? | |
| Is that invalidation outside typical noise for this symbol? | Yes / No |
| Planned risk, as a % of account | |
| Position size from the calculator | |
| Correlated exposure already open | |
| Portfolio heat after this trade | |

**Skip-the-trade checklist** — any "no" is a reason to pass, not to proceed
smaller:

- [ ] The setup matches a rule I wrote down before today
- [ ] I am inside my session and market conditions
- [ ] The invalidation level is defined and outside noise
- [ ] I am not replacing a trade I just lost
- [ ] Portfolio heat stays inside my cap

### 2. Execution

| Field | Planned | Actual | Difference |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Entry | | | |
| Invalidation level | | | |
| Size | | | |
| Entry timing vs. bar close | | | |

Deviation notes:

### 3. Post-trade review — complete the same day

| Question | Answer |
| --- | --- |
| Outcome in R (result ÷ planned risk) | |
| Did I follow the plan? | Yes / Partly / No |
| If not, what did I actually do, and why? | |
| Was the *read* correct, regardless of outcome? | Yes / No |
| Was the *process* correct, regardless of outcome? | Yes / No |
| What would I repeat? | |
| What would I change? | |
| Emotion at entry | |
| Emotion at exit | |

A losing trade with a correct process is a good trade. A winning trade with a
broken process is a warning. Grade the process column, not the P&L column.

### 4. Screenshot log

| When | Link / filename |
| --- | --- |
| At entry | |
| At exit | |
| One week later | |

The one-week screenshot is the one people skip and the one that teaches most:
it shows whether the marks stayed where they printed.

---

## Running statistics

Recompute after every 20 trades. Fewer than 20 tells you almost nothing.

| Metric | How to compute | Value |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Trades recorded | count | |
| Plan adherence % | followed ÷ total | |
| Win rate | wins ÷ total | |
| Average winner | mean of positive results | |
| Average loser | mean of negative results | |
| Payoff ratio | avg winner ÷ avg loser | |
| Expectancy per trade | (WR × avgW) − ((1−WR) × avgL) | |
| Average R | mean of R multiples | |
| Largest loss vs. planned risk | | |
| Longest losing streak | | |

**Plan adherence is the metric to fix first.** Everything below it is noise
until adherence is high, because a rule you did not follow was never tested.

### Review prompts, once per month

1. Which single rule did I break most often?
2. Which market condition produced most of my losses?
3. What did I skip that I should have taken, and vice versa?
4. Which one change would remove the most damage next month?