For breakeven traders

Your edge exists. Something keeps eating it.

Breakeven does not mean you have no edge. It means you have an edge and you pay a tax on it. The tax is two or three habits that show up on a small share of your trades and give back what the rest made. You will not find them in a win rate. You find them by putting a price on mistakes.

Free during beta · No card · Founder's price for life
What most journals teach
I need a better setup.
What Actal grades
I need to stop paying for mistakes on the setup I already have.

Breakeven traders change strategy every quarter because the P&L says the strategy is not working. Split the same trades into clean trades and mistake trades and it flips: the clean ones usually make money, and a handful of bad ones pay for all of it. Actal does that split on every trade, in dollars, and puts the most expensive habit at the top of the page.

Why breakeven traders stay breakeven

The average hides the leak.

01
Clean trades and mistake trades share one P&L

Your setup might make money on every trade you execute to plan. You never see that number because the sheet averages it in with the revenge trade at 11:40.

02
The most expensive habit does not feel expensive

Moving a stop costs a few points each time. Over a quarter it is the difference between breakeven and a good month. No stats dashboard adds that up for you.

03
You trade the plan on good days only

Plan adherence falls apart after the first loss of the day, which is exactly when it matters. If you never close out the plan, you never measure it, so it never gets fixed.

04
You fix five things at once, so nothing changes

Every review ends with a list. Lists do not change behaviour. One thing, for a whole week, does.

01
Price the mistakes

Every mistake gets a running dollar cost.

Tag it once and Actal keeps the total: what moved stops have cost you, what chasing has cost you, what sizing up after a green morning has cost you. Insights opens with the biggest one and the trades behind it.

Clean trades versus mistake trades, side by side
Most expensive habit on top
The trades behind every number
actal.io/insights
Insights
4 findings · rule breaks first, then process, then patterns
Rule brokenlast 30 days
Daily loss limit: broken on 2 of 14 trading days.
5 trades that should not have happened, netting −$612. The limit was hit 4 times and respected 2. Latest: kept trading after the daily loss limit ($750) was hit.
kept
12 days
broken
2 days
−$612
on the breaking trades
Make this the weekly focus
Dismiss
Rule brokenlast 4 weeks
"Moved stop" has shown up 3 weeks running.
Logged on 7 reviewed trades across 3 consecutive weeks; those trades netted −$1,306. A mistake that repeats weekly is a rule you have not actually adopted.
−$1,306
on those trades
Make this the weekly focus
Dismiss
Dangerous winlast 30 days
Your 2 D/F-graded trades made money. That is the dangerous kind of win.
They paid +$640 while breaking your rules. Across all time, D/F-graded trades net −$2,180; the market is teaching the wrong lesson.
this window
+$640
all time
−$2,180
−$2,180
D/F trades, all time
Dismiss
Execution this week15 reviewed · 2 owed
84Solid 9 vs last week
A/B graded
86%
Mistake-free
80%
Rules kept
100%
Days planned
100%
Traded the plan
75%
Biggest drag: 3 of 15 reviewed trades carried a mistake (moved stop).
Six weeks
61
68
72
70
75
84
Weekly focusDay 4 of 7
Zero "Moved stop" this week
1so far this week · target ≤ 0
Mon · 0
Tue · 0
Wed · 1
Thu · 0
Fri · —
Happened once this week, on Wednesday. Two clean days left to close the week at 1.
02
Plan versus reality

Find out how often you actually trade your plan.

Scenarios before the open, a closeout after: which one played out, and did you trade it. Plan adherence becomes a weekly number, and the P&L splits into in-plan and off-plan. For most breakeven traders that split explains everything.

A, B and C per market
Off-plan days marked on the calendar
In-plan versus off-plan P&L
actal.io/journal
Plan & Review
Thu 4 Sep 2026
PremarketDaily review
Bias
Bullish above 23,400 after yesterday's close at the high. Cautious below: CPI at 8:30 can flip it.
AScenario A
If
Opens above 23,400 and holds the first pullback
Then
Long the pullback, stop under the low, target 2R
BScenario B
If
Chops inside yesterday's range
Then
One trade max at the range edge, otherwise sit out
CScenario C
If
Breaks the overnight low with volume
Then
Short the retest, no counter-trend longs
Filed 08:52 · closed out after the session
Save plan
03
Execution score

A process score that moves before the P&L does.

Grades, clean trades, rules kept, days planned and plans traded, weighted into one number every week. When it drops, you know a week before the account does. When it climbs, the money follows.

One number, five parts
The biggest drag named in a sentence
Six weeks of history
actal.io/dashboard
Dashboard
last 30 days · 41 trades
This week's execution
Execution 84 this week, up from 75.
The biggest drag: 3 of 15 reviewed trades carried a mistake (moved stop). Top rule break: "Moved stop" has shown up 3 weeks running.
See the 4 findingsReview 2 trades
Execution this week15 reviewed · 2 owed
84Solid 9 vs last week
A/B graded
86%
Mistake-free
80%
Rules kept
100%
Days planned
100%
Traded the plan
75%
Biggest drag: 3 of 15 reviewed trades carried a mistake (moved stop).
Net P&L, 30 days
+$3,589
after $102 commissions
Win rate
58%
expectancy $88 / trade
Profit factor
1.9
payoff 1.4
Max drawdown
−$1,240
8.1% off peak
September 2026
+$1,081.00
8/9 planned · 9/9 fully reviewed · 1 rule break
Open calendar →
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
letter = average grade · dot = plan filed · ! = rule broken · tint = net P&L · missed = setups not taken
What to fix next
Daily loss limit: broken on 2 of 14 trading days.
−$612 on the breaking trades
"Moved stop" has shown up 3 weeks running.
−$1,306 on those trades
Your 2 D/F-graded trades made money. That is the dangerous kind of win.
−$2,180 D/F trades, all time
04
One thing a week

Fix the leak, not the strategy.

Take the focus Insights suggests, or pick your own from the findings. It sits on the dashboard all week with live progress. Next week, the next one. Three months of that turns breakeven into a track record.

Weekly focus with live progress
Rule breaks ranked first
Skipped setups counted too
actal.io/trades/9e54…
Trade review
3 of 7 in the queue
MNQZ5Short · 4 contracts
28 Aug 10:42 → 11:07 · Apex Eval 50K
−$418.50
23,412.25 → 23,464.50 · 25 min
Add screenshot
Paste a screenshot to attach · click one to annotate
stop moved here
▤ library✎ annotate
annotated
10:55 Price came back to entry and I moved the stop instead of taking the flat. Third time this month.
Rule break on this trade
Kept trading after the daily loss limit ($750) was hit
2 trades after the line, netting −$418.50.
Discipline grade
A1
B2
C3
D4
F5
D · Rules broken, position held past the plan.
Mistakes
Moved stopTraded past daily loss limitChasedRevenge
Tags
pullbackopen driveNY session
Strategy
Opening drive
State
Frustrated
Trade 3 of 7 in the queue
J / K to move · 1–5 to grade · ⏎ to save
Save & next
The plan

Your first 30 days

Week 1

Import your last three months. Grade the last thirty trades and tag every mistake. Then read the mistake table. That is your leak, in dollars.

Week 2

Make the most expensive mistake your weekly focus. Nothing else. File a plan every morning and close it out at night.

Week 3

Check plan adherence and the in-plan versus off-plan split. If your in-plan trades are green, stop changing the strategy.

Week 4

Read the execution score and its biggest drag. Pick the next focus from the next most expensive habit. Keep going until the mistake table is boring.

Questions

Questions from breakeven traders

Grade thirty trades and split them into clean and mistake trades. If the clean ones make money, the strategy works and the execution is the problem. Actal shows that split and the in-plan versus off-plan P&L every time you open it.

Keep the edge. Drop the tax.

You already did the hard part, which is finding something that works. The rest is subtraction. Free while in beta, no card, everything unlocked.