Best trading journal for scalping
If you scalp, you can take twenty trades before lunch. You're not going to screenshot twenty trades or write twenty honest notes, and a journal that expects you to will stop getting used. So the best journal for scalping is one that does most of the work for you. This is what I'd look for, and how Actal does it.
The short version
Pick a journal that needs almost nothing from you per trade and records how price actually moved. It should import every fill with your commission, record each trade without you pressing anything, and show you where your day turns, like the trade number, the hour and the trade after a loss. Actal imports from the platforms scalpers use. Actal Recorder (Windows 10 and 11) records your charts while you trade, and when you import, a clip of each trade and a picture of every entry, add and exit show up in your journal. Your rules for max trades, daily loss and cooldowns are checked every time you import.
- You have to screenshot or write a note for every trade
- Your P&L doesn't include commissions
- It can't show you what happens after your tenth trade of the day
- Afterwards you only have a still chart, so you can't see how price moved
- A clip and a picture of every fill show up in your journal by themselves
- Every fill comes in with your commission
- Your max trades, daily loss and cooldown rules are checked on every import
- You can see your results by trade number, hour and hold time
A picture at every execution and a clip that jumps to each one, on the trade after you import.
What a scalping journal needs to do
- Import every fill with fees. Scalping is small numbers. At 20 round turns a day and $4 a round turn, that's $80 a day in commissions, about $1,680 over 21 trading days. Actal keeps a commission for each account, so a file without fees still comes in net.
- Record how price moved. In scalping every second and every move counts: how fast price got to your level, whether it stalled, how hard it came back. You can't see any of that on a still chart or a screenshot afterwards. It has to be recorded while it happens, and the recorder does that for every trade without you pressing anything.
- Keep adds and scale-outs as one trade. A lot of scalpers scale in and out, and a journal that splits that into separate trades messes up your stats.
- Show you where your day turns: results by trade number, by hour and by hold time, and what happens on the trade after a loss.
- Check your rules for you. Max trades a day, a daily loss limit, a cooldown after a loss, no trading after a set time. A lot of scalpers lose their money in a few hours of overtrading, even when their setups were fine.
How Actal Recorder records your scalps
Actal Recorder is a small Windows app (Windows 10 and 11). It records the windows you trade from while you trade, your chart, your DOM or both. It knows windows from NinjaTrader, Tradovate, TopstepX, Rithmic, Sierra Chart, ATAS, Quantower, MotiveWave and TradingView, and it reads the market from the window title, so your NQ chart goes with your NQ trades.
- After the session you import your trades like you normally would. The recorder takes a picture at every entry, add, scale-out and exit, cuts a clip of each trade, and they show up in your journal on that trade.
- A short trade gets one clip from just before the entry to just after the exit. A longer one keeps the seconds around each fill, and you can skip straight to each execution.
- The full recording stays on your computer and gets deleted after the number of days you pick. Only the pictures and clips of the trades you import are uploaded.
- You can have it ask before it records, start by itself when your platform opens, or wait until you press Start.
On a 25 trade day that's 25 clips and a picture of every execution, and you didn't press a single key. A week later you can still watch how each trade moved.
The numbers that matter when you scalp
| Number | What it tells you | In Actal |
|---|---|---|
| Net P&L after fees | Whether your edge survives commissions | Every trade carries its commission |
| Results by trade number | The trade where your day usually turns | Trade number of the day, with lines like "From your 3rd trade of the day on, you lost $640" |
| Results by hour | Your best and worst part of the session | P&L by hour |
| Hold time | Whether you cut winners faster than losers | By hold time |
| The trade after a loss | Whether a loss throws you off | After a win, after a loss |
| Rule breaks | What overtrading and late trades cost you | Each broken rule, priced in dollars |
Expectancy and R matter just as much for scalpers. See trading expectancy, R multiples, and overtrading for the trade count side.
A ten minute review after a scalping day
- Look at the day by trade number. Where did your P&L peak, and what did you do after that?
- Watch the clips of your three worst trades. Skip to the entry and the exit and look at how price moved into them.
- Check the rule breaks: trade count, daily loss, cooldown. Add up what they cost you.
- Write down one thing for tomorrow. Over the week, Actal makes your most expensive mistake your focus.
Importing from the platforms scalpers use
| Platform | What to export | Guide |
|---|---|---|
| NinjaTrader 8 | Trade Performance, Executions tab | NinjaTrader import |
| Tradovate | Account Reports, Fills or Orders | Tradovate import |
| TopstepX | Trades tab export | TopstepX import |
| Rithmic R | Trader | Order History, one day per file | Rithmic import |
| Sierra Chart | Trade Activity Log, Fills or Orders | Sierra Chart import |
| ATAS | Statistics, the Journal sheet saved as CSV | ATAS import |
| Quantower | Trades panel export | Quantower import |
| TradingView | Trading panel, Account History or Order History | TradingView import |
Why I built the recorder
I'm Joakim. I trade index futures full time and I've coached traders one-on-one at Jusell Trading Academy since 2020, five at a time. Actal started as software I had built for that coaching, and students kept using it after we finished working together.
I built the recorder because every execution matters. In scalping every second counts, and every move. You can't see that on a stale chart, so the movement has to be recorded. The fast trades are also where bad habits hide, because they're over before you've had time to think. So the recorder records each trade while it happens, and the clip and a picture of every fill show up in your journal. I use it on my own trades.
Questions people ask
Actal Recorder records your charts while you trade. When you import, a picture of every entry, add and exit and a clip of each trade show up in your journal. It runs on Windows 10 and 11 and comes with Pro+. The journal itself has a Free plan, and you don't need a card.
Full-time index futures trader. Coaches traders one-on-one at Jusell Trading Academy, five students at a time, since 2020. No platform was built for developing traders, so he had his own coaching software built; old students loved it and kept coming back, and Actal is that software turned into a proper journal for what matters.