Trading Journal & Review

Maximum adverse excursion is the largest drawdown a position showed while you held it. The one metric that justifies a stop decision, and the one misapplication that makes it worthless.

Expectancy tells you what one average trade is worth. The formula with an example, how it differs from profit factor and R multiples, and why a good figure can still not be worth the effort.

Slippage is the gap between intended and actual price. How to record it per trade, normalise it in R, and use it to answer whether your problem is the idea or the route to it.

Tags turn a trade list into reviewable segments. Which five dimensions carry the insight, why twenty tags say less than five, and why the decisive number is trades per segment rather than in total.

A review needs a fixed appointment and a fixed list of questions. Weekly for completeness and rule compliance, monthly for a few numbers, plus per trade scoring that keeps process and outcome apart.

A spreadsheet carries you reliably for the first few months. Its limits are manual capture, partial fills, invisible formula errors and segmented review. Five signals show when a switch is due.

Profit factor divides your gross profit by your gross loss. The formula, a worked example, how to read typical values, and the three effects that distort the number most often.

A trading journal is only as useful as the metrics it tracks. These 5 numbers determine whether you truly understand your performance.