Why write before and after
Memory rewrites decisions: afterwards, a winning idea looks obvious and a loss seems down to bad luck. A journal filled in before entry locks in the hypothesis, the stop and the quantity. The part filled in after the exit measures the gap. Without the first part, the second has nothing to compare against.
What to note
- Before: date, instrument, data source and timestamp, hypothesis, entry, stop, target, quantity, planned risk in euros.
- During: every change to the stop or the quantity, with its reason.
- After: exit price, costs, net result, plan followed (yes or no), and a one-sentence lesson.
- Trades not taken: the scenarios studied and then rejected, with the reason. They show whether your filters work.
Eight fields filled in every time are better than thirty fields abandoned after a week.
Expressing the result in multiples of the risk
The result in R (R multiple) equals net result ÷ planned risk. It makes trades of different sizes comparable. A loss of −1 R means the plan was followed; a loss of −1.3 R points to slippage (a worse execution price than expected), an opening gap (the price opening well away from the previous close) or a moved stop.
A fictitious week, planned risk of €100 per trade
- Trade 1: +€180, i.e. +1.8 R. Plan followed.
- Trade 2: −€100, i.e. −1.0 R. Plan followed.
- Trade 3: −€130, i.e. −1.3 R. Stop lowered during the trade: plan not followed.
- Trade 4: +€60, i.e. +0.6 R. Early exit provided for in the plan.
- Two scenarios rejected: data too old for one, insufficient ratio for the other.
Total: +0.1 R. Plan followed: 3 trades out of 4. If trade 3 had been cut at the initial stop, the total would have been +0.4 R. Four trades prove nothing about the method; they do, however, show where the execution gap lies.
The weekly review
- What share of decisions followed the plan written before entry?
- Do the losses larger than −1 R have a common cause?
- Would the trades not taken have won or lost? Rereading them avoids judging only the trades you took.
- Which single rule will you apply the following week?
Sorting mistakes into categories (early entry, moved stop, size not recalculated, data not checked) reveals repetitions that a trade-by-trade reading hides.
Common pitfalls
- Recording only the interesting trades, or forgetting the trades not taken.
- Rewriting the hypothesis after the exit so that it fits the result.
- Judging the method on a dozen trades: the sample is too small to separate skill from luck.
- Confusing a good result with a good decision, and vice versa.
The journal is the natural extension of paper trading: the BULLSAGE simulation keeps the plan, the costs and the result of each exercise. For the “plan followed” column to mean something, start by preparing a trade plan.
Get the trading plan kit (PDF)
The plan to fill in, the eight questions to ask before acting, the position size calculation and a journal template. You will also be told when the platform opens, on 1 January 2027.