Futures Trading Journal Template: Point Values, Ticks at Risk and R, Worked Out for You.

Download the futures trading journal as an Excel workbook (.xlsx) or a CSV with the values but no formulas. It's our free trading journal template turned into a futures trading log with the arithmetic futures need: type the contract symbol, and the sheet looks up its point value, then works out the Risk, the Result net of fees, the Ticks at risk and the R multiple. The workbook has four sheets: Trades, Summary, Specs (35 contracts) and Read me. No email, no account.

Every Risk, Result, Ticks at risk and R in that table is a formula in the workbook, recalculated in LibreOffice before we published it. Delete the three rows marked EXAMPLE and log one row per closed trade.

What should a futures trading journal include?

The free template's eighteen columns, with Size renamed Contracts, and two more: the point value and the ticks at risk. You type the rest; Risk, Result, R multiple, Win/Loss, Point value ($) and Ticks at risk are formulas.

The workbook's Read me says it in one line: "Fees are the whole round turn: commission, exchange and clearing fees, as your statement shows them." Type them as one positive number; the Result formula takes them off once.

How do I calculate risk and R on a futures trade?

Risk = |Entry − Stop| × Point value × Contracts. A point is a move of 1.00 in the contract's own quote, and the point value is what that move pays on one contract: $50 on ES, $2 on MNQ, $10 on MGC. Result = (Exit − Entry) × Point value × Contracts, sign flipped for a short, minus Fees. R multiple = Result ÷ Risk. An ES long from 6000 with a stop at 5995 on 2 contracts risks 5 × $50 × 2 = $500.

The point value comes from the Specs sheet, which is built from our futures tick value table (src/data/futures-ticks.ts). It lists 35 contracts: 17 read from CME Group's contract specifications on 22 October 2026, 17 kept only where two futures brokers' published tables agree, checked on 25 October 2026, and palladium from NYMEX's own rule filing. The sheet's Checked column gives each row's own date: 2026-10-22 for the CME rows, 2026-10-25 for the rest. The three contracts in the examples:

The lookup matches the Symbol cell exactly, so type the root symbol (ES), not a contract month. A contract the table leaves out (it skips ZT, 6A, 6C, 6J, BTC and ETH, where the published tables disagree or only one lists them): type its point value over the formula in that row, as the Read me says. Check your broker's specification before you trade either way.

Ticks at risk = |Entry − Stop| ÷ tick size. It's the stop counted in ticks, and the futures position size calculator takes a stop in ticks or points to give you the contracts for a dollar risk. The formulas, as row 2 of the Trades sheet holds them:

Risk (J2):          =IF(OR(E2="",F2="",I2="",S2=""),"",ABS(E2-F2)*S2*I2)
Result (K2):        =IF(OR(E2="",H2="",I2="",S2=""),"",(H2-E2)*IF($C2="Short",-1,1)*S2*I2-N2)
Point value (S2):   =IF($B2="","",IFERROR(INDEX(Specs!$C$2:$C$200,MATCH($B2,Specs!$A$2:$A$200,0)),""))
Ticks at risk (T2): =IF(OR($B2="",E2="",F2=""),"",IFERROR(ABS(E2-F2)/INDEX(Specs!$D$2:$D$200,MATCH($B2,Specs!$A$2:$A$200,0)),""))

Risk is fixed at entry. Keep the initial stop in the Stop cell even if you move it during the trade, so a moved stop shows up as a loss beyond −1R, which is what the sheet is there to catch. Why R and not dollars is argued in count R, not money.

What does a filled futures trading journal look like?

The edition's three example rows, worked by hand. All three are made up and marked EXAMPLE; prices are illustrative, not quotes.

ES, long 2 contracts, target hit. Risk = |6000 − 5995| × $50 × 2 = $500, and 5 points ÷ 0.25 = 20 ticks at risk. Result = (6010 − 6000) × $50 × 2 − $8.40 = $991.60. R = 991.60 ÷ 500 = +1.98R. A planned win: the line in Notes says "Target hit as planned."

MNQ, short 3 contracts, stopped out. Risk = |21000 − 21020| × $2 × 3 = $120, 80 ticks. The stop was 21020, but the fill came at 21024.5: 4.5 points of slippage, 18 ticks. Result = (21024.5 − 21000) × −1 × $2 × 3 − $2.22 = −$149.22, which is −$120 planned, −$27 of slippage (4.5 × $2 × 3) and −$2.22 of fees. R = −1.24R. The plan was followed; the loss went beyond 1R because of the fill, the ordinary cost of a fast market. Had it filled at the stop, the row would read −$122.22, or −1.02R.

MGC, long 2 contracts, closed early. Risk = |3350 − 3340| × $10 × 2 = $200, 100 ticks of 0.1. Result = (3356 − 3350) × $10 × 2 − $1.48 = $118.52, or +0.59R. Followed plan: N. Mistake tag: Early exit. The note: "Closed at +6 on a wobble; the plan was the 3370 target." With the edition's own formula, the target would have paid (3370 − 3350) × 10 × 2 − 1.48 = $398.52, or +1.99R, if price had gone on to reach it. The row can't say whether it would have; what it can do is count the Early exit tag, so on Sunday you see how often you leave before the plan does.

The Summary sheet on these three rows reads 3 trades, a 66.7% win rate, expectancy +0.44R per trade, total R +1.33R, total result $960.90, a profit factor of 7.44, a largest loss of −1.24R and $12.10 of fees. Plan followed averages +0.37R; plan broken, +0.59R. On three rows the broken plan comes out ahead, which is why three rows prove nothing either way. For whole entries with the reason and the lesson written in, see six trading journal examples.

How do I journal trades from NinjaTrader?

Export the Trades display of NinjaTrader 8's Trade Performance window to CSV or Excel, then copy each trade into a row. NinjaTrader's help guide, read 29 October 2026, gives the pieces on separate pages:

1. "The Trade Performance window can be opened by left mouse clicking on the New menu within the NinjaTrader Control Center and selecting the menu item Trade Performance."
2. "To generate a performance report:" "1. Select the From date" "2. Select the To date" "3. Press the Generate button"
3. Pick the display. The page lists "Summary", "Analysis", "Executions", "Trades", "Orders" and "Journal". The Trades display "shows all historical executions in a data grid. A Trade defined is a completed buy/sell or sell/buy transaction sorted by time and matched by the market position and quantity of the execution."
4. Export from the grid: "Right mouse clicking within any data grid will bring up a menu with several grid actions." Choose "Export..." and "select either "CSV" or "Excel"."

The guide doesn't spell this out as one sequence; joining the pages is ours. The Executions tab of the Control Center "displays all executions for the current day", so for a week or a month, use Trade Performance with a date range. One quirk, in the guide's words: "NinjaTrader generates reports from the last time you were flat."

The Trades display's columns, as the guide names them, mapped to the journal:

Read NinjaTrader's "Profit" column only as a cross-check against Result: the pages we read don't say whether it is before or after those fees. And note how it counts scaling: "Positions which have been scaled in or scaled out will be considered as separate trades." If you scaled into one idea, decide whether it's one row or several, and do the same every time.

How do I export trades from TopstepX or Tradovate?

TopstepX. Topstep's help article, read 29 October 2026, gives the steps: "Click the Orders or Trades tab at the bottom of the page." / "Click "Export."" / "Select your desired date range and click "Export."" / "A confirmation will appear at the bottom-left of your screen once complete." / "From there, upload your file to Excel, Google Sheets, or any program you prefer." Use the Trades tab: it holds "All completed round-trip positions", one row per journal row. The same article lists what a completed trade shows (in its mobile section): "Symbol, Size, Time, Entry Price, Exit Price, P&L, and Fees." Those fill Symbol, Contracts, Date, Entry, Exit and Fees; P&L is your cross-check against Result. The main article doesn't name the file format; Topstep's troubleshooting page says CSV for the Orders export.

Tradovate. We couldn't read Tradovate's trader help centre on 29 October 2026; it answered with errors. So we give no menu path. Its partner documentation, written for organisation admins and read the same day, describes a Performance report that lets you "Find each trade's entry and exit time, fill price, and P/L", with a "Download CSV" option among the report outputs, and its release notes record "Trading Performance Report has been added" in 2017. Whether your trader login shows the same report and columns, check in the platform itself.

Whichever platform: the stop, the target, the setup and the plan flag are never in an export. Write them down when you place the trade, and the export only fills in what happened.

How do I use the futures journal in Google Sheets?

Upload the .xlsx, not the CSV. In Google Sheets, choose File → Import → Upload, pick futures-trading-journal-v1.xlsx and create a new spreadsheet. That keeps the formulas, the Summary, the dropdowns and the Specs sheet the point values come from. Then check that the Summary reads 3 trades and +0.44R before you delete the examples.

The CSV has the 20 columns and the 3 example rows with their worked-out values but no formulas, so rows you add won't calculate, and there's no Specs sheet. If you start from it, type each contract's point value into column S yourself and paste the Risk and Result formulas above into J and K for every row you add, with the row number changed.

For R multiple and Win/Loss, paste these into L and M:

=IF(OR(J2="",K2=""),"",IFERROR(K2/ABS(J2),""))
=IF(K2="","",IF(K2>0,"Win",IF(K2<0,"Loss","Breakeven")))

In Excel, open the .xlsx. The workbook is prepared for 500 trades; copy the last formula row down for more.

What should I review every week?

The five numbers from the free template, read off the Summary sheet: total trades, expectancy in R, plan followed against plan broken, the largest loss in R, and profit factor. The printable version of the review is page 5 of the printable trading journal. Then three futures questions:

1. What did the fills cost? Every loss beyond −1R on a plan-followed row is slippage or fees. The MNQ row lost 1.24R, not 1R: 4.5 points of slippage, 18 ticks on a stop of 80. If your stop-outs keep landing beyond −1R, size for it.
2. Which contract pays? The Summary doesn't split by symbol. Type =AVERAGEIF(Trades!B:B,"MNQ",Trades!L:L) into a spare cell for one contract's average R, and =COUNTIF(Trades!B:B,"MNQ") for how many trades it rests on.
3. Which tag costs the most R? Total each mistake tag's R with =SUMIF(Trades!P:P,"Early exit",Trades!L:L). The costliest tag becomes next week's one rule.

The trading expectancy calculator checks the Summary's expectancy from your win rate and average R. Read the numbers as a description of what you did, not a forecast: three rows, or thirty, are a small sample.

How do I journal a prop firm futures evaluation?

Keep the trade journal and the account's limits side by side. The journal counts R per trade; a futures evaluation counts dollars per day and a floor on the account. Two calculators do the dollars:

• The daily loss limit calculator works out the room left today from your baseline, the rule and the day's P&L.
• The trailing drawdown calculator puts a static floor and a trailing one side by side, and how far your equity sits above each.

Then translate the limit into R: divide it by your planned risk per trade. A $1,000 daily limit is 2R at the ES row's $500 risk, and plan on stop-outs costing more than 1R, as MNQ's did. Our prop firm tracker spreadsheet keeps one row per account and one per day, with the daily loss floor and the static, end-of-day or intraday drawdown floor worked out. For how the floors move, read EOD vs intraday trailing drawdown and static vs trailing drawdown; for one firm's rules in full, Topstep's daily loss limit and Topstep's trailing drawdown. If your firm has a consistency rule, the consistency calculator checks your best day's share of the profit.

What is the best trading journal for futures?

The one you'll keep filling in, with the point value, the round-turn fees and R worked out. A spreadsheet does that for free; a journal app earns its fee when typing the trades in is what stops you. What the subscription journals' own pages said, as our competitor files record them:

Of these files, only TradeZella's names both NinjaTrader and Tradovate; Edgewonk's older, undated read lists NinjaTrader among its imports. We didn't test any of these imports with a futures file, and a broker list is not a promise about your account, so check the journal's page for your platform before you pay. Side-by-side comparisons, every row sourced, are in our trading journal comparison.

Ours, TradeLens, is built around MetaTrader. It imports MT4 HTML statements and MT5 history, and takes a broker CSV through its column-mapping wizard, with starter templates for MT4, MT5, cTrader, TradingView and a generic file. There is no NinjaTrader or TopstepX template, and we haven't documented either export going through the wizard, so for futures, start with this sheet. TradeLens runs on your own computer (Python, a browser UI and one SQLite file), and its AI coach, on a free local model or your own Claude, OpenAI or Gemini key, explains figures computed in code. It's $47 at launch, $79 regular; TradeLens Cloud is $29 a month.

What the futures journal doesn't do

• It doesn't read your account. It's arithmetic on what you type or paste; nothing syncs.
• Its point values are ours, dated. They come from our tick table as of 22 and 25 October 2026. Contract specifications can change; check your broker's.
• It doesn't track contract months. One row is one trade in whatever month you traded; the futures rollover calendar is for the roll.
• It counts in US dollars. Every contract on the Specs sheet has a point value in dollars, so Risk and Result are in dollars too.
• It doesn't split the Summary by contract. Use the AVERAGEIF and SUMIF lines above.
• It doesn't tell you whether you have an edge. It describes the rows you enter. Not financial advice.