The Luxabit trading journal
How to log trades in Luxabit's journal: statuses, fields, tags, your own rules per trade, realised R, win rate, expectancy, profit factor, equity curve, calendar and CSV export. Unlimited on every plan.
The journal is where you log every trade you take, and the ones you skip. It is unlimited on every plan, including the free Starter plan, so your history never sits behind a paywall.
Four ways in
- From the coach: a trade plan you record in the chat appears in your journal, linked to that conversation.
- Manually: click Log trade and fill in the form.
- From a file: click Import to bring in your earlier trades from a CSV or Excel file, such as your own spreadsheet journal or your broker's trade history. On every plan. See Importing trades from CSV or Excel.
- From your exchange or platform (Trader and Pro): connect OKX, Bybit or Binance with a read-only key, or cTrader by logging in there with read-only access, and your trades are imported by themselves, marked with the exchange's or platform's name. Trader connects 1 exchange or platform, Pro up to 3.
Statuses
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Planned | A plan you haven't entered yet. |
| Open | You're in the trade. |
| Closed | The trade is closed; fill in your exit. |
| Skipped | You decided not to take it. |
Logging skipped trades is worth it: it shows which ideas you rightly let go, and keeps your daily counts honest.
A planned trade you haven't opened 24 hours after you made it shows as Expired, under its own filter, so old plans don't pile up between the ones still to come. Nothing is deleted: open it to mark it as taken or skipped. A planned trade from a connected exchange or platform (OKX, Bybit, Binance or cTrader) is a limit order still waiting there (or, on cTrader, a stop order): it doesn't expire, becomes the trade once the order fills and is marked skipped if you cancel the order.
What you fill in
- Instrument and timeframe (15m, 1H, 4H, 1D, optional). Any market works: Crypto, Stocks, Forex, Commodities, Indices. A new trade starts without an instrument, so you always choose it yourself.
- Direction, entry and stop-loss. For a long the stop-loss is below the entry; for a short, above. No stop-loss? Leave it empty: the journal shows No stop, the trade has no R, and it fails "stop-loss set" in your Discipline Score.
- Take-profit (optional), used for your planned R:R. Taking profit in steps? Click Add take-profit for up to 4 take-profits, each with the part of your position it closes, in the unit you chose under size. Together they can't be more than your position. When every take-profit has a size, your planned R:R, and the R:R check in your Discipline Score, use their average weighted by size; otherwise the first take-profit. In the list the extra take-profits show as +1, +2 and so on next to the first.
- Opened and closed times. Your trading-hours and daily-limit checks use them.
- Exit price for a closed trade. Luxabit calculates your realised R from it. Have no exit price for an older trade? Enter the R you made instead. Once a trade is closed, tick Hit at each take-profit you reached and Luxabit calculates the exit for you: the average of those take-profits, weighted by size. If they didn't close your whole position, you enter the price the rest closed at, for example your entry after moving your stop to break-even, and it counts toward the average. This needs a size at every take-profit you hit. You can also leave the boxes empty and type the average price of all your exits yourself.
- Size and fees (optional), only for your profit and loss in money. Enter the size as Units (for example 0.006 BTC; the field shows the unit) or as an Amount you put in (for example 500 USDT), which Luxabit turns into units at your entry price. For forex pairs, metals, index CFDs and oil you can also enter Lots; Luxabit turns them into units with the usual contract size (see the position size calculator). Under the field you see the other one as a check, so a size that is far too large stands out.
- Risk as a percentage of your account (optional), checked against your maximum risk.
- Strategy / setup, such as "Breakout retest", so patterns can compare setups. When you pick a playbook below, its name is filled in here; you can type another.
- Tags for what happened, and your rules in this trade: for every free-text rule in your trading plan you answer yes or no, the general rules and, for a trade in a playbook, that playbook's rules. Rules you already ticked on the pre-trade check are filled in. Be honest; it feeds your Discipline Score.
- Which playbook? If your trading plan has playbooks: a button per playbook, In doubt or None of them (with one playbook: fits my setup, in doubt or doesn't fit). The answer you gave on the pre-trade check is filled in, and you can change it here. A trade in a playbook is scored against that playbook's own maximum risk, minimum R:R and rules. Trades you doubted or said didn't fit are marked in the list and grouped under the Setup in doubt filter. The answer itself doesn't count toward your Discipline Score; patterns compare your results by answer.
- Notes: why you took or skipped it, how you managed it, what you'd do differently.
Imported trades and your plan
A trade imported from your exchange that carries out a trade plan from the chat is linked to that plan and marked Plan in the list. The plan then no longer shows as a separate planned trade. Open the trade to see your plan next to your fills, and to unlink it if it is the wrong trade. A stop further from your entry than planned fails "stop as planned" in your Discipline Score. See the pre-trade check.
Tags
| Tag | Effect on your Discipline Score |
|---|---|
| Followed plan | None — for your own filtering and patterns |
| FOMO | No impulse trade |
| Revenge trade | No impulse trade |
| Moved stop | Stop-loss kept |
| Early exit | Exit according to plan (closed trades only) |
| Late entry | Entry on time |
| Oversized | Position size |
| News | None — for your own filtering and patterns |
Suggested tags
Trades imported from your exchange arrive without tags, and tagging is easy to forget. Luxabit therefore suggests a tag when your own journal points to it:
- Revenge trade: you opened the trade within 30 minutes after closing a losing trade.
- Oversized: the amount you risked to your stop (or, without stops, your position size) was at least 2× your usual in that instrument: the median of your last 20 trades there, from 5 trades on. Only for trades without a stated risk %, because those are already measured against your maximum risk.
- Early exit: you closed with a profit, but below 50% of the R:R you planned with your own take-profit.
Trades with a suggestion are marked tags to check and grouped under the To check filter. Open the trade and choose Add tag or Doesn't apply, then save. A suggestion never counts toward your Discipline Score by itself; only a tag you add does. A suggestion you dismiss doesn't come back for that trade.
How results are calculated
- Realised R = the move from entry to exit divided by the initial risk (entry to stop-loss). A long from 100 with a stop at 98 that exits at 104 is +2R. More in R-multiples, expectancy and profit factor.
- A closed trade within ±0.05R counts as break-even, otherwise as a win or a loss.
- Without a stop-loss there is no R. The trade is a win or a loss by its profit after fees (or, without a size, by the price move), and it is left out of net R, expectancy and profit factor, which are measured in R.
- Profit and loss = the move times your size, minus fees, in the instrument's quote currency. Only trades with a size count.
Two tabs: your trades and your statistics
At the top of the journal you see your Discipline Score and your most-broken rules (and, in prop firm mode, your challenge). Below them are two tabs: Trades, the list of your trades, and Statistics, with the figures, charts and patterns below. The journal opens on the tab you used last on that device.
Statistics
- Trades: the trades you took, split into closed and open.
- Win rate: winners as a share of winners plus losers; break-even trades are left out.
- Net R: the sum of the R of all closed trades.
- Expectancy: the average R per closed trade.
- Profit factor: total R of winners divided by total R of losers.
- Net P&L: profit and loss after fees, for trades with a size.
Below them, on Trader and Pro, are the patterns in your trading.
You can also ask the coach in the chat to go through your journal. It gets the same figures, without amounts of money or prices, tells you what they show about following your own rules and asks about your process.
Equity curve and calendar
On the Statistics tab you also switch between two views of your results over time. Both use your closed trades with a result in R, dated by when you closed them, in the timezone of your trading plan. A trade without a stop-loss has no R and is left out.
- Equity curve: your total R after each closed trade, oldest first, starting at 0R. It appears from 2 closed trades. Next to the total it shows your max drawdown, the deepest fall in R from an earlier high (the start counts as one), and how far you are below your high now. Hover over the curve, tap it or use the arrow keys to see each trade: its number, instrument, date, its own R and your total at that point.
- Calendar: one month at a time, with the net R and the number of trades you closed per day and per week, and for the month the net R and how many trading days ended above or below 0R. Click a day to open the Trades tab with only the trades closed that day; Show all trades brings the rest back.
Both show what happened in your own journal. They say nothing about future results, and nothing about whether you followed your rules: for that, see your Discipline Score and the daily routine.
Your trades
The Trades tab lists your trades, newest first, 50 at a time: Show 50 more adds the next ones. The filters above them show only open, closed, planned, expired or skipped trades, or the trades with tags to check or a setup in doubt. On a computer the list is a table: after the date and instrument come the status, Discipline Score, R and P&L, then the prices, and last the strategy and all your tags. On a phone each trade is a compact card with its direction, instrument, R, status and Discipline Score. Click or tap a trade to see and edit all its fields; on a computer a pencil at the end of the row shows this. The form checks what you fill in as you save, such as an instrument and an entry price, and says what's missing.
If you close the form with changes you haven't saved, Luxabit asks first. Deleting a trade asks you to confirm in the form itself.
After you close a trade
When you mark a trade as closed with a result, its post-trade review opens and the coach writes a reflection on your process straight away.
Exporting your data
Export CSV downloads your whole journal as a spreadsheet file, with dates, instrument, direction, status, prices, size, fees, risk, R, outcome, P&L, discipline score, strategy, tags, notes and source. A trade with several take-profits also fills the columns take_profit_2 to take_profit_4 and, per take-profit, the size it closes in units (take_profit_1_quantity and so on). Your data is yours; you can take it anywhere, and import it again. An import reads the take-profits and their sizes back in, but not which ones were hit.