The financial markets are quite volatile and can be daunting as you try to keep up with trading-related risks. One characteristic of trading is either you succeed or make a loss. But the truth is nobody goes into trading with a mindset of losing. If you would like to navigate uncertainties in your trading journey, then you should keep a trading journal.
Generally, having a trading journal helps track your records and improve your success rate in trading over time.
Below, we give valuable insights into the world of journals and deeply analyze the best trading journals on the market.
What is a trading journal?
A trading journal is a kind of log you can use to fast-track your trading performance in stocks, forex crypto, options, etc. It helps you record previous trades and guides you on areas to improve regarding successful or unsuccessful trades. A trading journal enables you to work with your initial trading plan, not get off-track, and increase your future performance.
Some of the aspects to include in your trading journal include daily notes on what you've encountered in the execution of your trading strategy. You can also note your entry/exit points for each trade, observations, emotions, and thoughts. A trading journal entry can be anything from a manual entry of trading information in a notebook to digital journals like the ones discussed herein.
Edgewonk
Edgewonk is a trading journal software designed to help traders analyze their performance, identify strengths and weaknesses, and improve their trading strategies.
TradesViz
Tradesviz offers comprehensive trade analysis, visualization, and tracking tools to help traders make more informed decisions and improve their trading performance.
Trademetria
Trademetria is a comprehensive trading journal that helps traders track their trades, analyze their performance, and improve their strategies.
TraderSync
Tradersync is a cloud-based trading journal that allows traders to track their trades, analyze their performance metrics, and improve their trading strategies.
TraderVue
Tradervue is a trading journal and analytics platform that enables traders to log their trades, analyze their performance, and identify areas for improvement.
Chartlog
Chartlog is a trading journal software designed to help traders organize their trading data, and analyze their performance.
Top 6 Best Trading Journals in 2024
Let’s cut straight to the chase. Here are the six leading trading journals based on our latest research.
1. Edgewonk
Edgewonk has earned the trust of many traders due to its trade management features and customizable modules. This means that traders can customize the platform to suit their trading strategies and analyze their performance based on strengths or weaknesses.
The future simulator is another unique feature that enables traders to forecast potential trade outcomes based on different strategies. It is an excellent tool since traders can test their strategy in a simulated real trade environment with real-time market data without actual capital.
The wide range of custom statistics is great for evaluating trading performance and behavior. Moreover, the platform's professional support, such as sufficient educational materials and advanced training, helps traders improve their overall performance. The entry and exit genius examines your trading data then suggests possible order types or timing improvements.
Edgewonk offers versatility in trading by supporting different assets like foreign exchange, stocks, Futures, CFDs, and crypto. It's compatible with various brokers like Ameritrade, Interactive Brokers, Meta Trader 4&5, and TradeStation, thus enabling for easy importation of data. Finally, traders enjoy a flat fee of $169 per year.
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2. TradesViz
TradesViz deserves a spot on the best trading journals thanks to its innovative online trading tools. It deals with various asset classes like forex, futures, stocks, options, CFDs, and crypto. It has a TradingView API-powered charting feature that gives users advanced charting capabilities for carrying out detailed technical analysis.
Users can select different chart types, time frames, employ drawing tools, or apply trading indicators within the charting tool. They can also view trade executions by visualizing trade entry and exit points; this is great for evaluating trading results. Platinum users get access to seasonality charts that analyze the price volatility of specific strategies over a backdated period of up to 20 years.
Traders can visualize the analyzed statistics through the dashboard and enable tabs viewing for easy understanding. They can then classify the results into widgets like win/loss ratios, number of monthly trades, best sectors by profit/loss, or total winning days percentage.
TradesViz automatically syncs and imports trades from several brokerage accounts like Interactive Brokers, TradeStation, Ninja Trader, TD Ameritrade, etc. On pricing, TradesViz journal has a free plan, a Pro plan of $19.99, and a Platinum plan of $29.99 monthly. Fortunately, all the paid plans come with a free 7-day trial.
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3. Trademetria
Trademetria is an excellent platform for traders starting their journey in the trading world. It has simplistic features without complex jargon for easy navigation. The platform supports crypto, CFDs, forex, stocks, equities, futures, and options. Various journaling features are incorporated with trading integrations to help day/swing traders analyze and organize their trading strategies.
Users can customize the Trademetria dashboard with different widgets that align with their preferences. Trading gamification introduces a unique idea of trading challenges, which helps traders improve discipline, maintain motivation, and set goals. With this tool, users track their progress, create trading challenges, and share with other traders for support.
Trademetria displays your asset classes' distribution, portfolio allocations, and trade types; long/short, for easy assessment of trading strategies plus making necessary changes. The platform provides comprehensive fundamental research that covers extensive charts, earning dates, company profiles, and financial information from about 20 global exchanges.
It's trusted by thousands of traders across the globe since it supports up to 140 broker integrations or platforms, making it a versatile and sustainable tool. Advanced metrics like win rate, r-multiples, holding times, and profit factor are key indicators that help evaluate trading performance. Trademetria has a free trial option and charges up to $39.95 monthly for its premium services.
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4. TraderSync
TraderSync is a cutting-edge trading journal aiming to improve your performance in stocks, futures, options, and FX. It achieves this by providing effective tools for tracking, optimizing, and analyzing trading strategies. There are other range of features that include AI-powered insights, extensive reporting, and automated history imports.
The journal’s 900+ broker integrations, trading applications, and exchanges allow smooth trade data management delivery. AI-powered algorithms give traders detailed feedback on their trading patterns/strategies and help them identify strengths and weaknesses. Traders can utilize the market replay function to get insights into how their strategies could have turned out.
The platform's comprehensive analytics and intuitive interface allow beginners to use it easily. Expert traders focused on strategy management can use AI-driven insights and in-depth analysis to improve their decision-making or trading strategies. TraderSync has subscription plans of up to $79.95 per month.
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5. TraderVue
This comprehensive trading journal offers trade analysis and performance to active traders. It was among the first trading journals with an online presence and supports assets like options, stocks, forex, and futures. The interactive charts allow traders to dive deep, interact, and visualize overall trading performance. This interactivity is helpful if a trader is evaluating complex trading habits or patterns over long periods.
TraderVue has innovative reports and analysis tools that allow traders to analyze or track their strategies in detail. These tools include risk analysis reports, liquidity reports, and loss charts. The tools enable easy trading methodology tracking and importation of trades from different brokers. Besides, traders track various trading entries for easy evaluation of their trading performance over a specified period.
TraderVue's sharing feature is vital since it allows users to share ideas within an extended trading community. Traders can share with others information regarding their successful and unsuccessful trade setups.
In return, they can get valuable information from other traders on areas that need to be improved. With regards to pricing, TraderVue has a free option, a silver plan of $29/month, and a gold plan of $49/month.
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6. Chartlog
Chartlog is a trading analytics and journaling tool that helps traders track, interpret, and measure their trading performance. The platform has advanced built-in charting features incooperated from TradingView that automatically tag setups and trades. This is quite handy for traders using TradingView as a primary charting platform.
There are up to 100 indicators, including moving averages and On Balance Volume, for easy customization. Users can also access flexible drawing tools like Fibonacci retracements/extensions, flags, trend lines, and ABCD harmonic patterns. These charting tools help traders evaluate their performance based on trade groups, individual strategies, and trades, then figure out areas for improvement.
Chartlog gives users performance reports from their previous trading history and allows them to view metrics on the strengths or weaknesses of their trading strategies. Traders must make daily journal entries to document their emotional and mental states, which can help calculate performance outcomes later.
Chartlog has three pricing plans: Lite, Standard, and Pro, which provide unlimited automatic imports from trading accounts and support unlimited trade journaling. Luckily, it has a seven-day free trial option, which is great for newbie traders. The pricing ranges from $14.99 to $39.99 per month. The latter is the pro plan that allows users to make custom reports.
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Why do Traders Need a Trading Journal?
Having a trading journal may seem easy to new traders. However, it requires the input of a serious trader to update every occurrence consistently. A trading journal records all your trading data, helps you build successful strategies, and avoid making similar mistakes in the future.
Here are key benefits of a trading journal;
What’s the cost of trading journals?
The number of features offered by trading journals deeply affects their pricing modes. For example, a simple notebook trade journal, in which you can input notes manually, can cost as little as $10.
On the other hand, there are free trading journal template journals like Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets. Digital journals like the ones in this list have paid subscription plans and cost from $20 to $100 per month.
Conclusion
Using either of the above best trading journals will help you carry out comprehensive trade analysis. They allow you to identify strong/weak points in your trading style and the most profitable setups.
Selecting a trading journal shouldn't be difficult; just choose one that suits your needs. Next, look at the features the journal offers rather than the price. Some journals have free plans while others don't, so it's all up to you!
