Free trading journal template (Excel, Google Sheets)

A spreadsheet journal that does the arithmetic for you: log the entry, stop, exit and risk, and it works out R, profit or loss and your running balance, then adds up your win rate, expectancy and profit factor.

Download: The Print Room trading journal (Excel, .xlsx). It opens in Excel, Numbers and Google Sheets (File, then Import, then Upload). Free, no sign-up.

What is in it

Journal: one row per trade, with date, ticker, long or short, entry, stop, exit, risk as a percent of the account, fees, setup and notes. R, profit or loss and the balance fill themselves in.
Stats: closed trades, wins and losses, win rate, expectancy in R, average win and loss, profit factor, total R, net profit and the return on your starting balance.
How to use: a short guide, and an example trade in the first row to show the format.

How it works out each trade

R = (exit − entry) ÷ |entry − stop| long R = (entry − exit) ÷ |entry − stop| short profit or loss = balance before the trade × risk % × R − fees

The example row is a BTC long at 76,600 with the stop at 74,700, closed at 82,000, risking 1% of a $10,000 account with $2 of fees. That is +2.84R, a profit of $282.21, and a new balance of $10,282.21. Leave the exit blank while a trade is open and it is left out until you close it. If R is new to you, what R means in trading explains it in five minutes.

What to log, and why

The initial stop, always. R is measured from it, and a trade without one cannot be judged.
The risk you actually took, as a percent of the account, so the profit or loss in dollars is right.
The setup, in the same words every time. After fifty trades you can see which setups pay and drop the ones that do not.
A one-line note: why you took it, and whether you would take it again. Reading these back is where most of the learning is.

A weekly review in ten minutes

Check the Stats sheet: is the expectancy still positive, and is the average loss near −1R? Losses bigger than 1R mean stops are being moved or skipped.
Sort the journal by setup and compare them.
Read the notes on the three worst trades. Was it the market, or a broken rule?
Put your numbers into the expectancy calculator and the risk of ruin simulator to see what they add up to.

For members: The Plan

Members of The Print Room get The Plan, a journal, forecast and position sizer in one page that works on a phone, logs a desk call in one tap, and keeps the plan in sync across devices if they choose. The spreadsheet is the free version of the same idea.