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Free trading journal spreadsheet

18 columns, 500 rows of working formulas, and a Summary tab that computes win rate, profit factor, expectancy, R-multiples and a real peak-to-trough drawdown from what you type. No email required. One click.

What is in it

Every column, and why it is there

This is the part most templates skip, and it is the reason most templates get abandoned: if you do not know why a column exists, you stop filling it in.

The 13 you type

• A · DateThe date the trade CLOSED. Everything on the Summary tab is grouped by close date, because that is when the money moved.
• B · SymbolEURUSD, XAUUSD, US30 — whatever your broker calls it. Keep it consistent or the per-symbol breakdown splits in two.
• C · Direction — dropdownLong or Short, from a dropdown. A typo here is the most common reason a per-direction breakdown looks wrong.
• D · Size (lots)Position size. Not used in any P&L formula — your broker already did that arithmetic — but it is what makes the R column meaningful when you look back.
• E · EntryYour fill price. Not the price you wanted; the price you got. The gap between the two is slippage and it is worth knowing.
• F · StopWhere the stop was when you ENTERED. Not where you moved it to. This is the single most important column in the sheet and the one everybody fudges.
• G · ExitYour actual exit price.
• H · Risk ($)What you decided to lose on this trade, before entering, in account currency. This is your 1R. Type it in — it cannot be derived from anything else, and that is the whole point.
• I · P&L ($)Net result after commission and swap, straight off your statement. Costs included: a trade that made $3 gross and paid $5 in commission lost you money.
• J · Setup — dropdownWhat you thought you were doing. Answers “which of my setups actually pays?” — add your own on the Lists tab.
• K · Mistake — dropdownWhat you actually did. This is the column that pays for the whole spreadsheet — see “Cost by mistake” on the Summary tab.
• L · Execution 1-5How well you executed, separate from whether it won. A good trade can lose. Rating losses 4-5 and wins 2-3 is the mark of somebody actually reviewing.
• M · NotesWhat the idea was and what you actually did. Also the honest place to record your intended entry, so you can measure slippage the sheet cannot.

The 5 that compute themselves

• N · RR-multiple: P&L ÷ planned risk. A +2R trade made twice what you were prepared to lose. Computed, never typed — and computed from the risk you PLANNED, which is why the Stop and Risk columns matter.
• O · ResultWin, Loss or breakeven, decided on the NET figure. Everything on the Summary tab counts from this column.
• P · EquityRunning account balance, starting from the opening balance you set on the Summary tab. This is what makes a real drawdown possible.
• Q · PeakThe highest the balance has ever been. Drawdown is measured from here, not from where you started — that distinction is why most spreadsheet drawdowns are wrong.
• R · DrawdownHow far below the high-water mark this trade left you. The maximum of this column is your maximum drawdown.

The Summary tab

17 figures, all derived from the Trades tab. The only cell you type on it is the opening balance. Each of these means something specific, and if you want the long version, the glossary has a page per metric with a worked example and an explicit list of what it does not tell you.

Underneath those there are two breakdown blocks: cost by mistake across the 8 mistake tags, and performance by setup across the 7 setup tags. Both read from the Lists tab, so adding your own tag adds it to the dropdowns and to the breakdowns at the same time.

The cost-by-mistake block is the one that pays for the whole spreadsheet. Not a count of how often you moved a stop — the actual figure it cost you, which is usually larger than anyone guesses.

What makes this one different

• R-multiples computed from planned risk, not typed in. Enter what you decided to lose before the trade and every result becomes comparable across position sizes and instruments. Most templates either omit R or make you calculate it yourself, which means you will not.
• A drawdown that is actually peak-to-trough. The Equity and Peak columns track a running high-water mark, so the drawdown figure is the real one and not "how far below your starting balance did you go", which is the mistake almost every free template makes. The percentage is measured against the peak it fell from rather than the highest peak the account ever reached — a distinction that quietly flatters every template that gets it wrong.
• Costs included. The P&L column is net of commission and swap, so a trade that made $3 gross and paid $5 in commission counts as a loss — because it was one.
• Dropdowns that feed the analysis. Setup and mistake tags are validated lists, and the Summary tab breaks P&L down by both.
• A last tab that tells you when to stop using it. See below.

When a spreadsheet is genuinely the right answer

Under about fifty trades, this is the correct tool and nothing we make is better. The typing is trivial at that volume, you get to see every row, and a spreadsheet you actually fill in beats a piece of software you do not open. Take the file and ignore the rest of this page.

It stops being right for reasons that are specific rather than vague, and the last tab of the workbook lists them in full: manual entry errors you cannot find, partial closes that do not fit one row, an equity curve that only steps at close time, no session or hold-time analysis, and the fact that your broker already has every trade you have ever taken with exact fills.

That last one is what TapeSheet does — it reads your MT4 or MT5 statement directly and computes all of the above and about twenty more, in your browser, in around three seconds. Free, no account, and the file never leaves your device. But we would rather you used a spreadsheet well than a tool badly, which is why the template is not crippled and the last tab is not a sales page.

Questions

Free trading journal ·What is an R-multiple? ·Maximum drawdown ·Position size calculator ·MT4 statement analyzer ·MT5 report analyzer

Nothing in the template or on this page is financial advice, and no figure it computes predicts anything. Full risk disclaimer.