How to use the trading journal statistics calculator
- Paste your trades, one per line. Export closed trades from your broker or copy them from a journal spreadsheet. The calculator reads three things from each line:
- a date in YYYY-MM-DD form (optional, used for the monthly table and to sort trades),
- a symbol (optional: the first word on the line that contains a letter),
- the profit or loss: always the last number on the line.
- Check the skipped lines. Lines without a number (such as a header row) or with an impossible date are skipped and listed under the results, so nothing disappears silently.
- Enter your starting balance if you want drawdown in percent, monthly returns and the Sharpe ratio of per-trade returns. Leave it empty for dollar statistics only.
The example contains 40 trades from June to September 2026 across four fictional symbols, on a $25,000 account.
How each statistic is calculated
Expectancy = Net profit ÷ All trades
Profit factor = Gross profit ÷ Gross loss
Payoff ratio = Average win ÷ Average lossTrades with a result of exactly zero count in the total but are neither wins nor losses, and they end both winning and losing streaks.
Drawdownt = Peakt − Balancet, in % as Drawdownt ÷ Peakt
Recovery factor = Net profit ÷ Maximum drawdownPeakt is the highest balance up to trade t, including the starting balance. Without a starting balance the same is done on cumulative P&L starting from zero.
Sharpe ratio per trade = Mean return ÷ Standard deviation of returns
Monthly return = Month's P&L ÷ Balance at the start of the monthEach trade's return is measured against the balance just before it, so growth and drawdowns change the base. The standard deviation is the sample (n − 1) version.
When every line has a date, trades are sorted by date before the balance is built; trades on the same day keep the order you pasted. If only some lines have dates, the pasted order is used and the monthly table is left out.
A worked example
The 40 example trades made a net profit of $2,306.04, a +9.22% return on the $25,000 starting balance. Only 42.5% of trades won, but winners averaged $307.03 against -$126.67 for losers, a payoff ratio of 2.42 : 1, so each trade made $57.65 on average and the profit factor was 1.79: $5,219.56 of gross profit against $2,913.52 of gross loss.
The worst stretch was a maximum drawdown of $1,071.65, 4.12% of the peak balance, and it included the longest losing streak of 6 trades in July. The longest winning streak was 4 trades. The Sharpe ratio of per-trade returns was 0.239.
Reading the results
No single number says whether a trading record is good. Read them together:
- Expectancy and profit factor say whether there is an edge at all. A profit factor below 1 means losses outweighed gains, whatever the win rate.
- Win rate and payoff ratio say how the edge is earned. A low win rate with large winners, as in the example, is typical of trend-following and breakout trading; it brings long losing streaks that a high-win-rate style avoids.
- Maximum drawdown says what the edge cost to hold. The recovery factor of 2.15 means the net profit was a little over twice the worst drawdown. Compare your longest losing streak with the range the risk of ruin calculator predicts for your win rate: a streak far beyond it is a warning sign.
- Best and worst trade show concentration. If the best trade is a large part of the net profit, the result depends on one event. Here the best trade was $585.41 against a net profit of $2,306.04.
The drawdown in percent depends on the account size. The same trades on a $5,000 account would have been a 17.87% drawdown and a +46.12% return, because the dollar results stay the same while the base shrinks. Position size relative to the account, not the dollar result, decides how hard a drawdown hits.
Monthly and per-symbol breakdowns
The monthly table shows how steady the results were. In the example, Sep 2026 was the best month at $966.39 and Jul 2026 the only losing one at -$188.79. A record whose profit comes from a single month is much weaker evidence of skill than one that earns a little most months.
The symbol table shows where the money was made and lost. In the example, STOCK-A was the most profitable symbol at $878.03, while STOCK-B, the most traded, finished at -$82.10 over 14 trades with a 36% win rate. Patterns like this are why traders break results down by market, setup or time of day. Be careful about acting on them, though: a dozen trades in one symbol is a very small sample, and cutting every group that lost in the past is a reliable way to overfit.
Common journal mistakes
- Leaving out costs. Record P&L after commission, fees and financing, or the statistics will flatter the strategy.
- Splitting one trade into many. Scaling out of a position in three parts can show up as three winners. Combine partial fills into one trade per decision, or the win rate and streaks are distorted.
- Mixing position sizes. If your size changed a lot over time, dollar statistics are dominated by the largest trades. Recording each result in R-multiples (P&L ÷ initial risk) makes trades comparable; the calculator works the same way with R instead of dollars.
- Logging selectively. A journal that skips the trades you would rather forget is not a record of your trading.
- Including open trades. Only closed trades have a final result. Open positions belong in the statistics once they are closed.
What this calculator does not include
- Drawdown inside trades. The balance is measured at each trade’s close, so a trade that went deep into loss before recovering does not show up in the drawdown.
- Deposits and withdrawals. Cash added or taken out changes the balance without being a trade. Remove those lines, or the percentage figures will be off.
- Time-based ratios. The Sharpe ratio here is per trade and not annualized, and there is no time-weighted return.
- Overlapping positions. Each line is treated as one trade added to the balance in sequence; concurrent positions are not netted.