The buy and sell orders will need to be entered in the journal using the Trade Entry panel shown below.
The following fields are present in the Trade Entry Panel:
Symbol: This is the symbol of the stock that is being traded
Quantity: The number of stocks that are being traded
Order Type: This indicates whether the trade is a long trade or a short trade. If it is a Long Trade then the buy price is required for the trade to be entered in the Open Positions table. For short trades the sell price is required for the trade to be entered in the Open Positions table.
Initial Risk $: This is the amount of dollars that you are willing to risk in this trade. This information will be entered by the user.
Portfolio %: This field is automatically calculated and cannot be edited. It represents the size of the current trade as a percentage of the Total Portfolio Amount. The Total Portfolio Amount can be seen in the Summary Panel.
Commission: This field is updated by the user. This represents the total amount that is paid as commission to buy and sell stocks. This value is used in calculating Total Amount, Wins, Losses, Expectancy and Total Portfolio Amount.
Trade Date in Buy sub-panel: This represents that date at which the Buy trade was executed. This field is automatically refreshed for each trade. To refresh it manually the user can use the refresh button which is represented by the button with three dots to the right. The user can also use the scroll button to change the date. For example, to change the month click the month field and use up or down scroll button through scroll through and choose the desired month.
Price in the Buy sub-panel: This is the price at which the stocks were bought. It is used in several calculations. It is also edited for correct values. A non-zero value will need to be entered in this field for it to be considered valid. The value will need to be a number with or without a decimal value. For long trades a value will need to be entered to be able to log the trade to the Open Positions table. This field is automatically refreshed to blank after each trade and will need to be re-entered for each trade.
Market Trend in the Buy Panel: This represents whether the market was trending up or down when the trade was executed. Alternatively this field can also be used to track other trends such as the industry direction or any other trend that the user is interested in tracking. The trader may also choose to not track this value and select Not Used.
Trading Rules in the Buy Panel: This indicates whether the trader followed their own trading system/rules. All the trades where the trader followed their system/rules, i.e. they bought the stocks that met their criteria at an entry point based on their rules, is a good trade. In the Open Positions and the Closed Positions tables the Good Trades have a green color and the Bad Trades have a red color. The trader may also choose to not track this value and select Not Used.
Emotion in the Buy Panel: Since the trader’s environment and ultimately their emotion during the trade might also contribute to their strengths or weakness we offer this field to track the trader’s emotion. The trader has the option to choose from basic emotions such as Happy, Afraid, Angry, Disgusted, Sad and Surprised. Or the trader might choose to not use track this field and choose Not Used.
Trade Date in Sell sub-panel: This represents that date at which the Sell trade was executed. This field is automatically refreshed for each trade. To refresh it manually the user can use the refresh button which is represented by the button with three dots to the right. The user can also use the scroll button to change the date. For example, to change the month click the month field and use up or down scroll button through scroll through and choose the desired month.
Price in the Sell sub-panel: This is the price at which the stocks were sold. It is used in several calculations. It is also edited for correct values. A non-zero value will need to be entered in this field for it to be considered valid. The value will need to be a number with or without a decimal value. For short trades a value will need to be entered to be able to log the trade to the Open Positions table. This field is automatically refreshed to blank after each trade and will need to be re-entered for each trade.
Market Trend in the Sell Panel: This represents whether the market was trending up or down when the trade was executed. Alternatively this field can also be used to track other trends such as the industry direction or any other trend that the user is interested in tracking. The trader may also choose to not track this value and select Not Used.
Trading Rules in the Sell Panel: This indicates whether the trader followed their own trading system/rules. All the trades where the trader followed their system/rules, i.e. they sold the stocks that met their criteria at an exit point based on their rules, is a good trade. In the Open Positions and the Closed Positions tables the Good Trades have a green color and the Bad Trades have a red color. The trader may also choose to not track this value and select Not Used.
Emotion in the Sell Panel: Since the trader’s environment and ultimately their emotion during the trade might also contribute to their strengths or weakness we offer this field to track the trader’s emotion. The trader has the option to choose from basic emotions such as Happy, Afraid, Angry, Disgusted, Sad and Surprised. Or the trader might choose to not use track this field and choose Not Used.
Comments: This can be used by the user to enter any other information that the user might want to keep track of in the journal. This is edited for valid characters. All alphabets, numbers and punctuations except comma are supported. An error window pops up if a comma is entered.
Add Button: The add button serves several functions. When the Long Buy trade without the Sell Price or a Short Sell Trade without the Buy price is present in the Trade Entry panel. Pressing the Add button will cause the trade to be entered in the Open Positions Table. If both the Buy Price and Sell Price are present the trade will be entered in the Closed Positions table. When the add button is pressed all the Summary values will also be updated.
Clear Button: The clear button can be pressed to refresh the date fields and reset all other fields to zeroes or blanks.
