A swing trading journal for MT5: compare the plan with the hold

Swing trades are mostly waiting. What to write before, during and after, how swaps and partial closes appear, and why a weekly review beats a daily one.

Swing trading is mostly waiting, and that is what a journal must capture

A swing trade lasts days or weeks. You place it, you hold it through noise and overnight gaps, you may add to it or trim it, and then you close it. The numbers MetaTrader 5 gives you at the end, entry, exit and result, are the least interesting part. The valuable record is what you planned, what you did while you held it and whether you left where you meant to. A swing journal is built around the comparison between the plan and the hold.

This guide lists what to record for swing trades on MT5, what to review weekly instead of daily, and how AI Trading Journal handles the details that make swing trades different, such as swaps, partial closes and positions that cross a weekend.

Before, during and after

Stage	What to write	The question it answers later
Before the trade	Setup name, the reason for the trade, the level that proves you wrong, the target, the risk in money and the hold you expect	Did I trade the plan I wrote?
While you hold	Dated notes when you move the stop, add, trim or change your mind, and how you felt	Where did the plan drift?
After the trade	How it ended, whether you left where you planned, one lesson, a rating for the execution	What would I repeat, and what would I change?

Write the “before” entry at the time you enter. Writing it afterwards turns it into a story that fits the result. The forex trading plan template has the fields, and a one-line version in the notes box of the Journal page is enough if you have no time.

Planned hold against actual hold

Time in a trade is a variable you can study. Record the hold you expected and compare it with the hold you got. Open and close times are saved for every position, so the actual hold is a subtraction away in the Excel report: the Trades sheet carries the open and the close time of each trade. Look for two patterns. Trades that you closed much sooner than planned usually point to fear, and trades that you held much longer than planned usually point to hope. Either is worth a rule.

What is different about swing trades on MT5

Swap. Holding a position overnight can add or cost a swap, and for a swing trader it is part of the result. AI Trading Journal records the net result: profit plus commission plus swap, so a long hold that earns a price move but pays financing shows its true figure.
Partial closes. Swing traders trim. A position closed in two or three pieces is one entry in the journal, with the parts added together and dated by the last exit, so the trade count is not inflated by your exit plan.
Adds. On a hedging account an add may be a separate position, and on a netting account it merges into the existing one. The hedging versus netting guide explains how each appears in the history.
Weekend gaps. A gap through your stop is a loss larger than 1R. Write it down. It is the clearest cost of holding over a weekend.
The server clock. Dates follow the broker’s server clock, the same as the History tab, so a trade that closed just after midnight server time belongs to the next day.

Review weekly, not daily

Daily reviews suit scalpers. For swing trades most of the information arrives slowly, and a daily check of an open trade is the habit that leads to moving stops out of nervousness. Choose one fixed time each week to review. A good order is:

Open the P&L calendar and the dashboard on the Weekly period to see which trades closed.
For every open position, reread the “before” note and ask whether the reason still holds. If it does not, that is an exit, not a hope.
For every trade that closed, compare the plan with the result and fill in the plan-followed answer and the rating.
Write one change for next week. One.

The weekly review checklist has a longer version, and the Progress page shows month by month whether the longer view is improving.

Metrics that suit swing trading

Metric	Why it matters for swing trades
Average R per trade	With few trades, the size of each one counts. See the R multiple calculator
Win rate against reward to risk	Swing setups often win less often and pay more. The breakeven win rate shows the line
Result by setup	With a small sample, compare setups only after many trades. Tag them consistently
Result by hold length	Do your two-day trades behave differently from your two-week trades?
Average loss against planned risk	Gaps and moved stops show up as losses larger than 1R

With few trades a year, patience with the sample is the discipline. Twenty swing trades are not enough to rank two setups, and a journal that keeps your whole history is how you reach a sample large enough to mean something. That is one reason the app reads your account’s whole history on the first run instead of starting empty.

A filled-in swing entry (hypothetical)

Field	Entry
Setup	Weekly pullback in an uptrend
Before	Buy the retest of the broken high. Stop under the swing low, risk 1% of the account, target 3R, expected hold about eight days
During	Day 3: moved stop to breakeven after a strong close. Day 6: gap lower on news, stopped near breakeven
After	Closed at breakeven after 6 days. Moved the stop before the plan said to. Rating 3
Lesson	My rule says breakeven after +1.5R. I moved it at +1R. Follow the rule or change the rule, not both

All the details above are invented to show the shape of an entry. Notice that the loss was small and the lesson was about a rule, not about the market. That is what a plan-versus-hold journal is for.

Honest limits

AI Trading Journal records closed positions, not floating results while a trade is open, so it cannot show the worst point a trade reached while it was open.
It does not store your plan. Write it in the notes box or in your trading plan, where the review can find it.
It is for MetaTrader 5 only and needs the terminal open and logged in to read it.
This page is general education, not trading advice.

Frequently asked questions

What should I record in a swing trading journal?

Before the trade: the setup, the reason, the invalidation level, the target, the risk and the expected hold. While holding: dated notes on stop moves, adds and trims. After: how it ended, whether you left as planned, a lesson and a rating.

How often should I review swing trades?

Weekly. Most of the information in a swing trade arrives slowly, and checking a daily result invites moving stops out of nervousness.

Does the journal include swap?

Yes. The result saved for each trade is profit plus commission plus swap, so a long hold shows its true figure.

How are partial closes recorded?

A position closed in parts is one entry with the parts added together and dated by the last exit, on the broker’s server clock.

Can I compare planned and actual hold length?

The open and close times of every trade are saved, and the Excel report’s Trades sheet carries both, so you can subtract them. Record the hold you expected in the trade notes.

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