A trading journal for Rithmic accounts. Apex, MFF, Bulenox and the rest.
A lot of prop firm accounts run on Rithmic, and R | Trader is the only place to see the fills. It shows orders. It does not show stats, and it certainly does not tell you that the fourth trade of the day broke your rule. Actal takes the Order History export and turns a day of fills into graded trades, checked against your rules, with the mistakes added up in dollars.
Does Rithmic have a trading journal?
No. R | Trader and R | Trader Pro are order and position windows. Order History shows completed orders for one account and one day at a time, with fill price, quantity, time and commission. There are no stats, no notes, no grades and no rules. Most Rithmic traders chart and click in another platform, like NinjaTrader, Sierra Chart, Quantower or ATAS, and use R | Trader only when they need the fills. That export is exactly what a journal needs.
Where Rithmic traders get stuck, and what a week with Actal looks like.
Rithmic gives me a list of orders for one day. I have no idea what my week looked like, let alone my month.
Import each day and the dashboard does the rest: a calendar, a P&L curve and an execution score across every account and every day, with nothing doubled if you import a day twice.
Three Apex accounts on Rithmic, all copied, and I blow them on the same kind of day.
Every account side by side with one set of rules. The day you broke the daily loss limit on all three is red on the calendar, and the mistake behind it has a dollar cost and becomes your focus.
Commissions are sometimes in the file, sometimes blank, sometimes only a rate. My P&L never matches the statement.
If Commission is there, it is used. If only Commission Fill Rate is there, it is multiplied by the filled quantity. If neither, your per-contract default is applied. Net P&L lines up with the account.
I trade the plan for an hour, then I am revenge trading and R | Trader just keeps filling orders.
Rules are checked on every import: max trades, daily loss, cooldown after a loss. The revenge trade is a rule break on the day it happened, with the cost next to it.
I know I move stops. I cannot tell you how much it costs because the fills do not say which order was a stop.
You tag moved stop once in the review, with the chart marked up. Actal keeps the running cost, and after a month that number is the reason you stop doing it.
Stats journals imported my Rithmic file and gave me a win rate. I needed to know what to fix.
One weekly focus, picked from the most expensive mistake first, with progress on the dashboard every morning. Fix that, then the next one.
Order routing, positions and the order history stay in R | Trader, and your charts stay wherever you trade from. Actal needs one CSV per day from Order History.
How to get the file out of Rithmic.
Written from Rithmic's own documentation and checked against real files where we have them. The same guide shows on the import page and next to any error.
The file has two sections, Working Orders and Completed Orders, each with its own header. Actal reads only Completed Orders, and only rows with Status Filled or Complete. The Update Time is used as the fill time.
Rithmic names the zone in the column header, for example Update Time (EDT). Actal uses that zone, whatever your profile says, so times are right even if you export from a machine in another country.
Order History exports one trading day at a time. Import each day's file. Duplicates are skipped, so dropping in a day you already imported does nothing, and a week of files can go in at once.
R | Trader only exports the columns you can see. Before your first export, add Qty Filled, Avg Fill Price, Update Time and Order Number. The setting sticks, so you do it once.
- 1Open R | Trader and go to File > Order History (Recent Orders shows today only).
- 2Select the account and the date.
- 3In Completed Orders, right-click the column headings, choose Add/Remove Columns and make sure Qty Filled, Avg Fill Price, Update Time and Order Number are visible; hidden columns are not exported.
- 4Click the clipboard or export icon at the top of the window and save the file as CSV.
- Rithmic exports one trading day at a time; import each day's file, duplicates are skipped automatically.
- Only the Completed Orders section is read, and only rows with Status Filled or Complete. The Update Time is the fill time.
- The time columns name their zone in the header, for example (EDT); that zone is used, whatever your profile says.
- If Commission is blank but Commission Fill Rate is present, commission is that rate times the filled quantity; otherwise the per-contract default applies.
- Prop firms on Rithmic (many Apex, MFF, and Topstep accounts) export this same file. Verified against a real export.
Recent Orders shows today only and exports the same layout. Handy right after the close. For earlier days use File, Order History.
If you trade Rithmic through NinjaTrader, Sierra Chart, Quantower, ATAS or MotiveWave, that platform's export works too and often covers a whole month in one file. Each has its own guide on the supported brokers page. Pick one source per account so the same fills are not imported from two places.
Some Topstep accounts run on Rithmic and export this same file. Accounts on TopstepX use the TopstepX Trades export instead, which has the P&L already computed.
Every trade checked against your rules, then graded.
Daily loss limit, max trades, size and cooldowns are checked the moment the file lands. Then each trade gets a grade on execution with your own setup criteria as the checklist, a mistake tag if there was one, and the chart marked up so the lesson sticks.
Five things that happen with Rithmic files, and the fix.
The export has no Completed Orders section, usually because the day had no fills or the file was saved from Recent Orders with nothing selected. Pick the account and a day with trades in Order History and export again.
The columns were hidden when you exported. Right-click the column headings in Completed Orders, Add/Remove Columns, add Qty Filled, Avg Fill Price, Update Time and Order Number, and export again.
That is how Rithmic exports. Export each day you want, or use the platform you trade through for a longer range. Overlapping imports never double a trade.
The position was held past the end of the trading day, so the exit is in the next day's file. Import the next day and the trade closes itself.
Check that the Commission or Commission Fill Rate column was visible when you exported. If neither is in the file, set the per-contract default on the preview to what your firm charges.
Sim, eval, funded and live, side by side.
Each Rithmic account becomes an account in Actal with its own rules where they differ, and one dashboard across all of them. A habit that shows up on every account is easy to see.
Rithmic questions
Import today's Rithmic session. Grade it tonight.
One export, one minute, and the rules tell you how the day actually went. Free while in beta, no card, everything unlocked.