“Trades” sheet
300 ready rows. Result in R, running total, drawdown and losing streak calculate themselves.
Trading journal template: free Excel and PDF
A spreadsheet that calculates your result in R and your statistics, plus two printable PDF pages. No sign-up, no email address. Opens in Excel and Google Sheets.
Excel: 60 KB · PDF: 127 KB, 2 A4 pages · English version
What's inside
“Statistics” sheet
13 measures with a short legend, from win rate to longest losing streak.
Printable PDF
Two A4 pages in our book's style: a trade log for 18 trades and a weekly review.
Spreadsheet columns
- date, instrument and direction (BUY or SELL from a list);
- entry, stop, target and exit prices, and volume;
- risk 1R and net result in account currency, after spread, commission and swap;
- result in R, calculated by a formula;
- strategy, execution rating 1–5 and a note;
- helper columns: running R total, peak, drawdown and losing streak.
Statistics that calculate themselves
- trades with a result in R, wins and losses;
- win rate, the share of winning trades;
- average R, the expectancy: what one trade brings on average;
- total R and profit factor, total gains divided by total losses;
- average win and loss, largest drawdown and longest losing streak in R;
- total without your 3 best trades, and rows without a result in R.
Empty rows break nothing: the formulas skip them without errors. Three example trades sit on a separate “Example” sheet.
How to calculate R
1R is the amount you lose if price reaches your stop. Result in R = net result ÷ 1R. With 1R = $200, a $392 profit is +1.96 R; a $124 loss with 1R = $100 is −1.24 R.
Without a 1R amount, the sheet uses prices: (exit − entry) ÷ (entry − stop), if the stop is on the losing side. That leaves out costs, so enter the net result and 1R when you can. Our online journal calculates R the same way.
Step by step: What is 1R and how to calculate expectancy in trading.
Spreadsheet or online journal?
Both are free. They differ in how much work stays with you and where your data lives.
| Excel spreadsheet | Online journal | |
|---|---|---|
| Entering trades | by hand, row by row | by hand, from an MT4/MT5 report, or automatically via a free MT4/MT5 add-on |
| Statistics | 13 measures from the sheet | the same plus a 90% interval for the average, the odds of your losing streak and drawdown in random orders |
| Control | full: your own columns and formulas | fixed layout, with a strategy plan and an assistant |
| Data | in your file | in your browser, no account |
| Phone | in a spreadsheet app | in the browser, offline too |
The spreadsheet gives full control, but you copy every trade by hand. The online journal pulls trades from MT4/MT5 and shows at once: edge or luck.
The full journal as a book
The PDF pages come from our 136-page paper journal: strategy plans with a decision rule, 100 trade pages, a checkpoint every 20 trades, and tables of losing streaks, drawdowns and sample size.
Coming soon
Questions
Does the template work in Google Sheets?
Yes. It uses only functions that Excel and Google Sheets share, such as COUNTIF and IFERROR. Upload the file to Google Drive and open it in Sheets.
What about a trade without a stop?
Without a stop there is no R: the row drops out of the statistics and shows up under “Rows without a result in R”. You can enter your planned loss as 1R, but that is an intention, not an order: the market will not stop there.
How many trades do the statistics need?
Below 20, no number tells you anything. With an average of +0.2 R and a standard deviation (the typical spread of results) of 1.5 R, you need about 225 trades: (2 × 1.5 ÷ 0.2)². The calculator on this site works it out from your R column.
For record-keeping and education, not financial advice.