Pick the right trading journal.
Written by a trading coach who has put students on every one of these. Where the other option is better, the page says so. Prices are checked and dated.
Against the ways most traders journal today
Against other trading journals
Guides
The loop Actal makes you run
Every journal in these comparisons can show you statistics. Some have replay, backtesting, hundreds of reports and an assistant. In six years of coaching I have not seen any of those move a trader's results on their own. What moves results is a short loop done every day and every month, and the difference with Actal is that it makes you do it.
- 1File a premarket plan before the open: A, B and C scenarios per market and a bias. No plan, and the calendar shows the day as unplanned.
- 2Close the day out: which scenario played, and did you trade the plan. That answer becomes a weekly number and feeds the execution score.
- 3Grade every trade on discipline, A to F, separate from what it made. Mistakes get tagged and priced.
- 4Take one weekly focus, chosen from what cost you most, and watch its progress all week.
- 5Do a monthly review: a reflection, your best and worst trades ranked by grade first, and goals for next month with live progress.
The calendar, the execution score and the insights are built on top of that loop, not beside it. Each screen is on the features page, and the whole thing is free while Actal is in beta.
The one thing every page agrees on
Other journals are built around statistics and features. Actal is built around improvement: a premarket plan you file before the open, a closeout after, a grade on every trade, one thing to fix a week, and a monthly review with goals. Free during beta.