Trading Journal for Prop Firm Evaluations: What to Log
A trade list cannot show how close a day came to a limit. The rows an evaluation journal needs, with one made-up week worked through.
3 Nov 2026 · 6 min read
On this page
Log the room you have left, not only the trades you took. An evaluation is judged on limits counted in money, such as a daily loss, an overall loss and sometimes a share of profit from one day. A list of trades cannot show how close you came to those limits, so the journal for an evaluation needs a few rows a trade list lacks. This page says which, and works one made-up week. It does not say how to pass anything: each firm sets its own rules, and this is about recording them.
Write down the rules before the first trade
Rules differ between firms, and they change. Before anything else, record these once at the top of the log, with the date you read them and the page you read them on:
- Each limit and how it is measured. The amount, the level it is counted from, and whether it watches closed results or equity. Daily loss and trailing drawdown, explained works through the readings.
- When a day starts. The reset time and its timezone. Your platform's server clock may not match it.
- Any rule on a share of profit. If one day's profit is compared with your total, you need each day's figure. The consistency rule, explained shows how that is measured.
Each firm's own numbers sit in its rulebook. The prop-firm rules directory links to each firm's own site, and covers copying, account totals and platforms rather than loss limits today.
What to log for each trade
- The risk before entry, in money. The amount lost if the stop is hit, costs included. Write it before the trade, not after.
- That risk as a share of the room left that day. A trade risking 300 when 1,500 of daily room remains is a fifth of it. The ratio shows how much of the day one stop uses.
- The result, and whether it followed your plan. One line is enough. Planned and actual are different columns.
What to log for each day
| Row | Why it is there | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Opening balance and equity | The reference point for a daily limit. | Your platform, at the reset time. |
| Lowest equity of the day | What an equity-based limit watches. It can sit far below the close. | Your platform or the firm's dashboard, where either shows it; otherwise note it yourself. A closed-trade list does not hold it. |
| Highest equity of the day | Raises a trailing floor in rules that count equity peaks. | The same place. |
| Closed result and closing balance | The day's result and the next day's reference. | Your trades and the platform. |
| Room left at the worst point | The daily limit minus how far the day fell at its lowest. | Computed from the rows above. |
| Biggest single day so far | Some rules compare it with total profit. | The closed results column. |
A worked week, made-up inputs
An account starting at 50,000 (made-up, in account currency), a daily limit of 1,500 counted from the opening balance on equity, and an overall floor 3,000 below the start, at 47,000. These amounts are illustrative, not any firm's. Only the closed result and the lowest equity are typed in; every other column is worked out from them.
| Day | Opening balance | Closed result | Closing balance | Lowest equity | Daily room at the low | Overall room at the close |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mon | 50,000 | +400 | 50,400 | 49,650 | 1,150 | 3,400 |
| Tue | 50,400 | −300 | 50,100 | 49,200 | 300 | 3,100 |
| Wed | 50,100 | +900 | 51,000 | 50,050 | 1,450 | 4,000 |
| Thu | 51,000 | −1,350 | 49,650 | 49,600 | 100 | 2,650 |
| Fri | 49,650 | +250 | 49,900 | 49,500 | 1,350 | 2,900 |
- Tuesday looks quiet and was not. It closed −300, but equity fell to 49,200, so 1,200 of the 1,500 daily limit had been used at the worst point and 300 was left. A trade list for the day shows only the −300.
- Thursday came close. A closed result of −1,350 and a low 1,400 under the open left 100 of daily room. Each day's room is counted afresh from its own opening balance, so Friday started with the full 1,500 again.
- Overall room is read at the close here. On a rule that counts equity it would use the lowest equity instead, so log both and read the column your rulebook uses.
This is arithmetic on made-up inputs, not advice and not any firm's rule. If your daily limit counts closed results only, or counts from a different level, the room column changes; the other columns do not.
Check your figure against the firm's
Many firms' dashboards show their own daily figure. Log yours beside it each day. A gap between the two is information: a reset time in a different timezone, floating profit counted on one side and not the other, or costs included in one figure only. A gap you can explain is a rule understood; one you cannot is worth a read of the rulebook before the next session.
One log across several accounts
If you repeat a trade onto several evaluation accounts, the decision is one row but the room is per account: each account has its own balance and its own limits, and a size that is a fifth of the room on one can be a third on another. Keep the trade row once and the daily rows per account. How sizes work out across accounts of different balances is in position sizing when copying trades, and running several side by side in running multiple prop firm evaluations.
What Trepeat's journal holds today
We're working on a free journal and a backtester, with no date yet. Today Trepeat is a trade copier for MT4, MT5 and cTrader, currently on demo accounts, and you can add notes, a grade and screenshots to any copied trade once it closes, with a calendar of your results.
The journal keeps one entry for the trade you took, however many accounts it was repeated onto, and exports to Excel (.xlsx). It does not read your firm's rules or work out room left, and it does not hold equity lows, so the daily rows above live in a spreadsheet beside it; the rules tracker template is one. See the journal documentation for what an entry holds. For how a routine fits together, see how to keep a trading journal.
Written by the Trepeat team.