Download the free swing trading journal as an Excel workbook (.xlsx) or a CSV for Google Sheets. It's our free trading journal template for trades held for days: the same 18 columns and Summary, plus Exit date, Days held, Held over a weekend? and Gapped past the stop? (Y/N), for 22 in all. Days held and Held over a weekend? are formulas. The Summary adds the average days held, the average R of trades held over a weekend against those closed within the week, the number of trades that gapped past the stop, and the R those gaps cost beyond −1R. No email, no account.
Three example rows, marked EXAMPLE, show it working: a stock trade that hit its target, a stock trade that gapped through its stop, and a gold short closed early. They're made up, with illustrative prices. Delete them before you log your own.
A stop is an order, not a guarantee. Over a weekend, the journal is where you find out what that costs.What should a swing trading journal include?
The trade, as in any journal, and the time it was exposed. The template's 18 columns record the trade: why each is there is in the free template post. The four new ones:
| Column | You type | Or the sheet works it out |
|---|---|---|
| Exit date | The day you closed, as a date | |
| Days held | =IF(OR($A2="",S2=""),"",S2-$A2): exit date minus entry date, in calendar days | |
| Held over a weekend? | =IF(T2="","",IF(OR(T2>=7,WEEKDAY(S2,2)<WEEKDAY($A2,2)),"Y","N")): Y when the trade was open across a Saturday and Sunday | |
| Gapped past the stop? (Y/N) | Y when the market opened beyond your stop, N otherwise |
Three of the template's columns read differently here:
- Date: as the workbook's Read me puts it, the Date column is the entry date. Days held counts from it.
- Size (shares or lots) is the edition's own header: swing traders often trade stocks, so type shares, lots or contracts. Risk and Result are in money, so R works the same in any market. For stocks, Risk is the stop distance times the shares; the stock position size calculator works out the shares from your entry, stop and risk.
- Result (account currency) is net of everything the hold cost: fees, swap and dividends, as the workbook's Read me says. On forex and gold, the forex swap calculator prices the nights you hold.
What does a swing trading journal look like?
The workbook's three example rows, cut down to the columns this edition adds and the ones you'd read beside them. Each risks $200 at its stop:
| Date | Symbol | Setup / reason | Size (shares or lots) | Exit date | Days held | Held over a weekend? | Gapped past the stop? (Y/N) | R multiple | Followed plan? (Y/N) | Mistake tag |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-10-05 | MSFT | Pullback - 20-day average | 20 | 2026-10-14 | 9 | Y | N | +2.99R | Y | |
| 2026-10-08 | AMD | Breakout retest | 25 | 2026-10-12 | 4 | Y | Y | −1.385R | Y | |
| 2026-10-07 | XAUUSD | Range fade - weekly high | 0.10 | 2026-10-09 | 2 | N | N | +0.709R | N | Early exit |
MSFT is the plain one: long 20 shares at 500 on Monday 5 October with the stop at 490, $10 a share and $200 of risk; out at the 530 target on Wednesday 14 October, nine days later. $30 a share on 20 shares is $600, less $2 of fees: +$598, +2.99R. It was open across one weekend, so Held over a weekend? reads Y.
The gap: AMD stopped at 149, not 152
AMD was bought on Thursday 8 October: 25 shares at 160 from a Breakout retest, the stop at 152, the target at 184. $8 a share on 25 shares is $200 of risk; the target was 3R away.
The trade was still open at Friday's close. On Monday 12 October the stock opened below the stop, and the stop order filled at 149: $3 a share past the stop. The arithmetic:
| Per share | On 25 shares | |
|---|---|---|
| Planned loss, entry 160 to stop 152 | $8 | −$200, −1R |
| The gap, stop 152 to fill 149 | $3 | −$75 |
| Fees | −$2 | |
| Result | −$277, −1.385R |
That's the line in the workbook's Read me: "A stop is an order, not a guarantee: a gap fills at the next price." Of the 0.385R beyond the planned −1R, 0.375R is the gap and 0.01R the fees.
Note what the row doesn't say. Followed plan? (Y/N) is Y: the stop was where the plan put it, and holding over the weekend broke no rule. A gap isn't a rule break; it's a cost of holding, like slippage on a busy open. So it gets its own column, Gapped past the stop? (Y/N), and its own lines on the Summary, instead of a mistake tag.
The early exit: XAUUSD closed on Friday
XAUUSD was a short from the weekly high on Wednesday 7 October: 0.10 lots at 3360, the stop at 3380, the target at 3300. On a 100-ounce lot, $20 an ounce on 0.10 lots is $200 of risk, and the target was 3R away.
On Friday 9 October it was closed at 3345, short of the target and against the plan: Followed plan? (Y/N) N, Mistake tag Early exit. $15 an ounce on 0.10 lots is $150; after $0.70 of fees and $7.50 of swap, the Result is +$141.80, +0.709R. Days held: 2. Held over a weekend?: N.
It made money, and it's still an N. That is what the flag is for: the Summary's "Expectancy when plan broken (R)" reads +0.709R, so this one rule break paid. One trade says nothing about whether closing gold before the weekend helps or hurts you. If it's what you want to do, write it into the plan; the same trade then reads Y, and the journal can measure the rule instead of the impulse.
What does the Summary show?
The template's own Summary, then a block for this edition. On the three example rows:
| Summary line | Value | Rows behind it |
|---|---|---|
| Average days held | 5 | 3: 9, 4 and 2 days |
| Average R, held over a weekend | +0.80R | 2: MSFT +2.99R, AMD −1.385R |
| Average R, closed within the week | +0.709R | 1: XAUUSD |
| Trades that gapped past the stop | 1 | AMD |
| R lost beyond -1R on gaps | −0.385R | AMD: −1.385R, less the planned −1R |
The template's block reads 3 trades, a 66.7% win rate, an expectancy of +0.77R per trade, a total of +2.314R, a profit factor of 2.67 and a largest loss of −1.385R. The two trades marked Y averaged +0.80R; the one marked N made +0.709R.
Three rows prove nothing. Look at which rows sit behind which line: the two weekend trades are also the two plan-followed trades, and the only gap is a weekend gap. With three rows, every split cuts the same three trades the same way, so the sheet can't say whether weekends, gaps or rule breaks explain anything. Over a few months of trades held across many weekends, the weekend line and the gap lines start to mean something; how many trades to test a strategy explains why the number depends on how spread out your results are.
How do I journal swing trades?
Write the entry the day you enter, and the exit the day you close. A swing trade spans days, so one row gets filled twice:
- At entry: Date, Symbol, Direction (Long/Short), Setup / reason, Entry, Stop, Target, Size (shares or lots), and Risk (account currency): what you lose at the stop. Leave Exit, Exit date and Result blank. The Summary counts a row only once Result has a number, so an open trade doesn't distort it.
- While it's open: nothing, unless you change the plan. If you move the stop, keep the original in the Stop column and say what you did in Notes; Risk stays the risk you planned at entry.
- At exit: Exit, Exit date, Result (account currency) net of fees, swap and dividends, Fees, Followed plan? (Y/N), one Mistake tag if the answer is N, and Gapped past the stop? (Y/N).
For filled-in entries with notes, see six trading journal examples. For trades opened and closed the same day, the day trading journal adds the clock instead of the calendar, and the trading psychology journal adds your state of mind before and after each trade.
What should I review each week?
A swing trader's week often closes few trades, so the review reads the open ones too:
- The trades closed this week: R, the plan flag and any tag. Was any loss below −1R, and was it a gap (Y in Gapped past the stop?) or something you did?
- The trades still open: what each loses at its stop. Add them up before the weekend: the open position risk calculator sums the planned losses at the stops across open positions. A gap can take more than that, as AMD did.
- Average R, held over a weekend, against Average R, closed within the week. Only worth reading once both have many rows.
- Trades that gapped past the stop, and R lost beyond -1R on gaps. What holding through the weekend and the news has cost beyond your planned risk.
- Average days held against the holding period your plan expects, and the rows tagged Early exit, with what they made or lost.
Then one rule for next week, in the Notes of your next row, and a check on Sunday that you kept it. The printable trading journal has a weekly review page if you'd rather do this on paper, and the expectancy calculator recomputes the Summary's expectancy from a win rate and average R.
How do I fill it from my broker, MT5 or TradingView?
From a stock broker: its trade history or statement has the entry date and price, the exit date and price, the shares and the commission, and any dividends paid or charged while you held. Menus differ by broker, so we don't list them. Risk and the stop you planned aren't in any statement: type them.
From MT5 (gold, forex, CFDs): export the history report from Toolbox → History, then copy each closed position from its Positions table. It has two Time columns: the first is the open, your Date; the second is the close, your Exit date. Result is the report's Profit plus Commission plus Swap, as the free template post maps it. Both times are on your broker's server clock; a trade closed near midnight can land on a different date on yours (MT5 server time shows how to convert). Importing MT5 trades into a journal covers the import routes and the checks that keep the data honest.
From TradingView: the Trading Panel's account history lists "your closed positions, with their entry and close prices, realized PnL", in TradingView's words as our TradingView trading journal guide quotes them (read on 29 October 2026), and Download data saves it as a CSV. Its exact column headers weren't on any page we read, so open your export first.
Can I use it in Excel or Google Sheets?
In Excel, open the .xlsx. In Google Sheets, upload the .xlsx with File → Import → Upload to keep the formulas, the Summary and the dropdowns.
The CSV carries the 22 column headers and the three example rows with their worked-out values but no formulas, so rows you add won't calculate, and it has no Summary. Starting from it, paste the Days held and Held over a weekend? formulas above into T2 and U2, and the template's R multiple and Win/Loss formulas into L2 and M2, then fill down:
=IF(OR(J2="",K2=""),"",IFERROR(K2/ABS(J2),""))
=IF(K2="","",IF(K2>0,"Win",IF(K2<0,"Loss","Breakeven")))
Type the dates as dates, not text, or Days held can't subtract them. We recalculated the workbook in LibreOffice and checked its computed cells against our own arithmetic; we didn't test every Sheets locale. After uploading, check that the Summary reads 3 trades and 5 average days held before you delete the examples.
The deep version, as a PDF
The Trading Journal Playbook
What to write on every trade and why, filled-in entries across markets, the pre-trade checklist, the weekly and monthly review with the arithmetic shown, and the same columns on paper, in a spreadsheet or an app.
- What to write on every trade, and why each of the template's eighteen columns exists, in the order you fill them
- 13 filled-in entries across forex, gold, an index CFD, a partial close, a prop-firm evaluation day, a skipped trade and a backtest, every Risk, Result and R worked from the prices
- The pre-trade checklist, and how a month of mistake tags turns into checks of your own
Opens soon · USD 19, one payment. See what's inside →
Where TradeLens fits
We sell TradeLens, a journal that runs on your own computer: Python, a browser page and one SQLite file. It imports MT4 HTML statements, MT5 history and broker CSVs, the CSVs through a column-mapping wizard with starter templates for MT4, MT5, cTrader, TradingView and a generic file, so a stock broker's CSV can come in if you map its columns once. The figures are computed in code; the AI coach, on a free local model or your own Claude, OpenAI or Gemini key, explains them. It's $47 at launch ($79 regular), and TradeLens Cloud, the hosted edition, is $29 a month.
No import knows why you held over the weekend or whether the gap was part of the plan: those columns are yours either way. The workbook is free and stays free, and nothing here is financial advice.
Frequently asked questions
What should a swing trading journal include?
Everything a day trade's row has (entry, stop, exit, size, the risk you planned, the net result, R, a plan flag and a mistake tag), plus the exit date, the days held, whether the trade was held over a weekend, and whether the market gapped past your stop. Those last two are risks a day trader doesn't carry.
Is there a free swing trading journal template for Excel?
Yes. Ours is a free .xlsx with 22 columns: the 18 of our general template plus Exit date, Days held, Held over a weekend? and Gapped past the stop?. Days held, the weekend flag, R and Win/Loss are formulas. No email, no account, and a CSV version for Google Sheets.
How do I journal swing trades?
Type the entry columns the day you enter, including the stop and the money you'd lose at it. Leave the exit columns blank until you close; the Summary only counts a row once it has a Result. Then add the exit date and price, the result net of fees, swap and dividends, the plan flag, a mistake tag if you broke the plan, and Y if the market opened beyond your stop.
What happens to my stop if the market gaps?
A stop is an order, not a guarantee: if the market opens beyond it, it fills at the next price. In our example, AMD's stop sat at 152 and Monday's open filled it at 149, $3 a share past it. A planned loss of $200 became $277, or −1.385R.
Can I use the swing trading journal in Google Sheets?
Yes. Upload the .xlsx with File → Import → Upload to keep the formulas, the Summary and the dropdowns. The CSV holds the three example rows with their worked-out values but no formulas, so rows you add won't calculate until you paste in the Days held, weekend, R multiple and Win/Loss formulas yourself.
What should I review weekly as a swing trader?
The trades you closed and the ones still open: what each open trade loses at its stop, the average days held, R for trades held over a weekend against those closed within the week, how many trades gapped past the stop and what that cost beyond −1R, and the rows marked N. Three rows, as in our example, can't tell you which of those matters.
