Trading journal examples: three filled-in entries

Seeing a finished entry is the fastest way to know what to write. Here are three hypothetical entries and the lesson each one carries.

What a good journal entry looks like

A trading journal entry is a short record of one trade: what you planned, what happened, and what you learned. People often imagine long essays. In practice a useful entry fits in a few lines, and the most valuable parts are the plan you wrote before the trade and the honest answer to whether you followed it. Below are three filled-in examples. All numbers are hypothetical and chosen only to show the format; they are not real trades, signals or advice. Results are shown before commission and swap, which MT5 lists separately.

Example 1: A clean forex win

Field	Entry
Trade	EURUSD sell, 0.50 lots
Setup	Break and retest of Asian-session low, trend down on the 1-hour chart
Planned risk	20-pip stop = $100 (1R) at $10 per pip per lot
Entry / exit	1.0850 in, 1.0820 out (30 pips)
Result	+$150 before costs, +1.5R
Followed plan?	Yes
Emotion before entry	Calm
Lesson	Waited for the retest instead of chasing the break. Repeat.

What this entry teaches: the result is secondary. The record shows the trade matched a written setup, risk was defined in money before entry, and the trader can see it was a good decision regardless of outcome.

Example 2: A gold (XAUUSD) trade

Field	Entry
Trade	XAUUSD buy, 0.10 lots (10 oz on a typical MT5 gold contract)
Setup	Pullback to the 50-period average in an up-trending hour
Planned risk	Stop 4.00 below entry = $40 (1R)
Entry / exit	2,400.00 in, 2,408.00 out
Result	+$80 before costs, +2R
Followed plan?	Yes, but I moved the stop to break-even early
Emotion before entry	Slightly rushed after missing the first move
Lesson	Moving to break-even early cut my winner short. Test a later rule.

What this entry teaches: a winning trade can still contain a note worth acting on. Contract sizes differ between brokers, so check yours before copying any lot arithmetic; the gold trading journal page covers what to log for XAUUSD.

Example 3: A losing trade that broke the rules

Field	Entry
Trade	GBPUSD buy, 0.50 lots
Setup	None written. Opened four minutes after the previous loss
Planned risk	30-pip stop = $150 (1R)
Entry / exit	1.2700 in, 1.2670 out (stop hit)
Result	-$150 before costs, -1R
Followed plan?	No
Emotion before entry	Annoyed
Lesson	No setup, no trade. Add a ten-minute pause after any loss.

What this entry teaches: the loss is exactly one planned unit of risk, so the damage was contained. The real finding is the missing setup and the short gap after the previous loss. That pattern is covered in revenge trading and your journal.

What the three examples have in common

Risk is written in money and R before the trade, so every result can be compared on the same scale.
There is a plain yes or no for following the plan.
There is one word for the emotion and one sentence for the lesson.
None of them is long. Consistency beats detail.

Turning entries into a review

After a few weeks you have enough entries to look for patterns. Group them by followed plan, then compare the totals; group by weekday, symbol or emotion and look for clusters. The metrics guide explains the numbers to calculate, and the weekly review checklist gives the order to read them in. A small sample proves little, so treat early patterns as questions to test, not conclusions.

Where to keep the entries

Paper or a text file: fine to start, but hard to search or total.
A spreadsheet: good for totals; see the free MT5 trading journal template.
Notion: searchable, with views and room for screenshots; see how to journal trades in Notion.
An automatic journal: the trade data is recorded for you, and you add the plan and lesson.

AI Trading Journal is the last kind for MetaTrader 5 on Windows. It saves each closed position in your own journal on your PC (with an optional copy in your own Notion workspace) about every 5 minutes, and your notes are never overwritten, so the fields in the examples above (plan, followed plan, emotion, lesson) are the part you add. It is read-only, with a 7-day free trial and a one-time $19.99 price.

An honest note on privacy. Notion is itself a cloud service, so your trades do sit on Notion's servers, in your own workspace, under your own account and token. What AI Trading Journal removes is the extra middleman: there is no separate journal vendor holding your trades and no broker login sent to a website. No tool is risk-free, so protect your accounts, including Notion if you connect it, with a strong password and two-step verification.

This page is general education. It is not trading or investment advice.

More concrete review examples: measure holding time for winners and losers, or tag gold trades by session.

Frequently asked questions

What should a trading journal entry include?

The setup, planned risk, entry and exit, result, whether you followed your plan, a one-word emotion and a one-sentence lesson. Keep it short enough to do after every trade.

Are the example trades real?

No. Every number on this page is hypothetical and used only to show the format. They are not signals or advice.

What is an R-multiple?

The result divided by the amount you planned to risk. A trade that risked $100 and made $150 is +1.5R; one that lost the full $100 is -1R.

How long should a journal entry be?

A few lines. A two-minute entry you actually complete after every trade is worth more than a long essay you skip.

Can a journal record trades automatically?

Some can. AI Trading Journal reads closed trades from your MT5 terminal on Windows and saves them in your own journal on your PC (with an optional copy in your own Notion workspace) about every 5 minutes; you add the plan and lesson.

Related guides

Record the trade data automatically, write the lesson yourself

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