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• HomeWhat TradersWatcher does
• PricingPlans and what each one includes
• Live demoThe full app with sample data, no signup
• ComparisonsHow this differs from other journals
• Prop firmsRule tracking for funded accounts
• AboutWho builds this and why
• AffiliateReferral terms

How to export your trades /import

• Export trades from MetaTrader 5MT5 offers three reports and only one reconstructs your trades correctly. Which to pick, which columns it carries, and why the deals report doubles your trade count.
• Export trades from MetaTrader 4How to save a usable MT4 statement, which of its columns a journal needs, and why the balance rows in it are not trades.
• Export trades from cTraderHow to export cTrader trade history, and why its P&L column can already include commission — which makes double-counting costs the easiest mistake to make.
• Why stock and crypto exports need matchingStock and crypto platforms export a ledger of individual fills, not round trips. What that means for your statistics and where the matching can go wrong.
• Export from IBKR, Schwab and Trading 212Which export to take from each stock broker, which columns matter, and the one IBKR format that beats all the CSVs.
• Export from crypto exchanges and futures platformsWhat to export from crypto exchanges and futures platforms, and the two things that make their files harder to read than a forex statement.

Execution quality /execution

• What slippage actually costsHow slippage is measured, what a realistic amount costs over a year of trading, and why traders who say they have none have simply never measured it.
• MAE and MFE — how much of the move you keptHow far a trade went against you before it worked, and how much of the favourable move you actually captured. What the two numbers mean and what they change.
• What your statement hidesAn inventory of what no exported statement contains, so you can judge any trading journal by what it is honestly able to measure.

Trading terms, defined by how they are computed /glossary

• Net P&LThe result of a trade after commission and swap, and why the sign convention in broker exports makes double-counting so easy.
• Profit factorGross profit divided by gross loss, the edge case that breaks it, and why a high profit factor on few trades means almost nothing.
• ExpectancyThe expected value of one trade, the break-even win rate it implies, and why the figure needs an error bar to mean anything.
• R-multipleExpressing results as multiples of the amount risked, why it survives account growth, and the case where R stops being comparable.
• Win rateWhat share of trades finished positive, how break-even trades are counted, and why the figure is uninterpretable without the win-to-loss ratio.
• Maximum drawdownThe largest peak-to-trough fall in your account, and the measurement choice that decides whether a prop account survives.
• Trailing drawdownA loss limit that rises with your account and usually never falls back, plus the two sentences in a rulebook that decide when it can end your account.
• Consistency ruleA cap on how much of your profit may come from a single day or trade, why it exists, and how it turns a winning account into an unpayable one.
• Payoff ratioThe size relationship between a typical winner and a typical loser, how break-even trades drop out of both averages, and why the realised ratio rarely matches the planned one.
• SQN (System Quality Number)Mean R divided by the standard deviation of R, multiplied by the square root of the sample, and the two reasons the score is not comparable between accounts.
• Sharpe ratioMean daily result divided by its standard deviation and annualised, plus the three assumptions that make a trading journal's Sharpe different from a fund's.
• Sortino ratioDownside deviation instead of total deviation, the two competing conventions for computing it, and which one our implementation uses.
• Average holding timeHow long a typical trade stays open, why open positions are excluded from the average, and the reason a disposition-effect account reports a short one.

Trading psychology, with numbers attached /psychology

• OvertradingWhy volume rises without a decision being made, what it looks like in an export, and the threshold that is worth using instead of an invented number.
• Revenge tradingWhat happens in the minutes after a loss, why the next trade is different, and how to see it in your own history.
• TiltWhat tilt is, how it differs from ordinary frustration, and the three things in a statement that give it away.
• Losing streaksHow long a run of losses your own win rate produces by chance, and how to tell an ordinary streak from a method that has stopped working.

Keeping a trading journal /trading-journal

• What to recordThe minimum set of journal fields, chosen by which question each one answers, and the popular fields that answer nothing.
• Reviewing your tradesHow often to review, what to look at at each interval, and why reviewing after every session usually makes trading worse.
• Manual entry or automatic importWhat an import gives you, what it structurally cannot, and why the answer is not one or the other.

Free templates /free

• How to use the journal templateWhat each column in the template means, which ones to leave to your broker export, and how to run the filled-in file through the analyzers.

Choosing a trading journal /compare

• Why we removed our comparison tableWe published a feature grid against two competitors. This is what was wrong with it and why it is gone rather than corrected.
• Switching from another journalWhat survives a move between trading journals, what is lost regardless of the tool, and how to keep the history that matters.

Market hours and time /markets

• Broker server timeWhy MetaTrader timestamps carry no timezone, what brokers actually use, and how to find your own offset before trusting any analysis by hour.
• Sessions and overlapsWhen the major sessions run, why the overlap matters more than the session, and how daylight saving moves everything twice a year.
• Futures point valuesThe point value of the common CME, CBOT, NYMEX and COMEX contracts, how a ticker like NQH5 decodes, and what a journal does when it meets a contract it does not know.
• What "1" means in the size columnThe size column in a broker export means lots, coins, shares or contracts depending on the platform, and nothing in the file says which.
• Rollover and your statisticsWhat happens to a trading journal when the front month changes, why merging contracts under one root is the right default, and the one figure it makes meaningless.
• News windows and your instrumentHow to work out which currencies your instrument is exposed to, why the window matters more than the forecast, and where a firm rule replaces your judgement.

Prop firm rules, as arithmetic /prop-firms

• What actually breaches an accountStatic, end-of-day trailing, intraday trailing and lock-at drawdown, what separates them, and why a breach is checked against history rather than against your balance right now.
• Equity versus balanceWhy a prop firm measures equity rather than balance, what that does to open positions overnight, and why a withdrawal is not a loss but still changes what you can lose.
• What a rulebook actually containsThe parameters that genuinely differ between firms, the ones that only look different, and the two rules that are warnings rather than account-enders.
• Passing a challengeWhat the profit target is measured on, why the daily limit and the target pull in opposite directions, and how to work out the pace a deadline actually requires.
• Payouts and the consistency ruleHow a best-day share is computed, the difference between a rule that blocks a payout and one that blocks a pass, and why the fix is arithmetic rather than appeal.

Articles /blog

• "End-of-day drawdown" does not mean you are safe during the dayThe phrase describes when the limit is recalculated, not when it can stop you. Traders read it as protection and lose accounts at 2pm on an open position.
• The number that makes losing streaks expensiveA 50% loss needs a 100% gain to undo. The gap between what you lose and what it takes to get back is the strongest argument for small position sizes.
• The stop decides the size, not the other way roundChoosing a position size first and then placing the stop where it feels comfortable is the same decision made backwards — and it is how a plan quietly turns into a bet.
• When a trading journal outgrows the spreadsheetNotion and Excel are genuinely good trading journals right up to the point where typing the trades becomes the reason you stop journalling. Here is where that line sits.

Tools and analyzers /tools

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