Options trading log spreadsheet

5 Things You Absolutely Must Do After Placing an Option Trade.

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If you really want to be a successful options trader, you need to have good systems in place. Part of that system is what you do AFTER placing a trade. Any village idiot can place a trade, it’s what you do next that’s important. Here’s 5 tips to get you headed in the right direction:

1) Check earnings and other important data releases.

Of course this is something you should do BEFORE placing a trade, but if you didn’t, you should do so straight after placing the trade. You can always close the trade straight away if there is an important announcement during the life of your trade. Announcements like GDP or jobs report can be major market moving events so you need to be aware of what’s coming up over the course of your trade.

2) Review your plan.

For each trade you place you absolutely must have a plan for when you will take profits, cut losses or adjust your trade. Review your plans for the trade you just placed and WRITE THEM DOWN or at least mark them on a chart.

3) Check your margin requirements.

Margin calls are horrible, so don’t put yourself in a position where you might get one. After placing your trade, double check that you have enough in your account to cover your current margin requirements. Depending on your trading strategy, you may want to add a 20% buffer to the margin amount to help prevent a margin call.

4) Update your trade log.

I hope you have a trade log, because if not you are already behind the 8-ball. After placing your trade you should enter the trade in your trade log so that you will be able to review it at a later date. Below is an extract from my trade log, if you want a copy of this spreadsheet template, just hit the button below.

5) Turn off your charts.

Something I was guilty of when I first started out was tick watching. After placing a trade I would sit there watching the chart like a hawk and stressing over each 0.01% move. Life is just too short for that sort of thing, after placing your trade and double checking everything, close out of your brokerage account for at least the next 30 minutes and just relax. Nothing drastic is going to happen in 30 minutes.

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33 Comments.

Please send me a copy of the trade log spreadsheet template.

May I hAve a copy of your trade log spreadsheet–very helpful. Thanks!

Thanks for all of the sharing. Could you send me a copy of your trading spreadsheet?

some really sobering info here. Look forward to working with you. Would be most grateful for copy of your trading spreadsheet template.

Hi, great website and enjoying it immensely. Another thing I do is to place a “conditional order”, let’s say on a Bull Put Spread, to close the sold leg IF the underlying price of the equity falls 50 cents below the strike UNLESS the trade was placed to own the stock and then unwind using Covered calls (my primary strategy).

Thanks Djohnsonhot, yes conditional orders are a good idea as well.

Please send me a copy of your trade log template. Thank you!

Thanks for sharing all this very useful tools and advice. Could you send me a copy of your trading spreadsheet ?

Hi Colonel, just ed you a link where you can download it.

Thanks for this article, is there something like MM Calc:

Yeah I’ve seen a few versions around the place, but can’t remember where. Wouldn’t be too difficult to create something in excel.

I like your trade log idea, very clean interface. At Interactive Brokers they do this for you through their TraderWorkstation platform.

I had my own log for awhile but did a time/cost/benefit analysis and found the one that IB does for me automatically to be a much better usage of my time.

However, for options traders just getting started, this is a VERY SMART way to get a feel for your trading and plan execution.

Would you please me you trade log? Thanks, Danos.

Please send me a copy of your trade log template. Thank you!

Any chance you could send me that spreadsheet?

Could you please send me your spreadsheet template? New to options and would love a great place to start recording.

Great article. Can you please send me the spreadsheet.

I could use a copy of the template please.

Hi, May I have your options template for creating a spreadsheet. much appreciated, Nina.

could u please send a copy of your spreadsheet. Thank you.

Please send me a copy of the trade log spreadsheet template. Thank You!

Hello, enjoyed your informative article. Thank you for that.

I would like to have your journal.

Hi, Cool article and good advice.

I’d like a copy of your trading log template.

Tracking your trades is important and a helpful tool to learn from.

Please me a copy of your trade log spreadsheet template.

Please send me the log spreadsheet. Thanks.

Please send me a copy of the trade log spreadsheet template.

Please send me a copy of the excel trade log template. Really appreciated.

Hi Please can you also drop me a copy of the spreadsheet – Thx.

I have been looking for a spreadsheet to track my options trades and really like the layout of yours. Would it be possible to send me exel file so that I could incorporate that into my trading plan?

Please send me a copy of your trade log. Thanks!

Just sent it to you Fran.

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Trade Log.

The trade log allows me to track the overall success of my system by measuring key numbers like total gain/loss, number of successful vs unsuccessful trades. To manage any successful trading system, it is important to continuously monitor success rate, win/loss amounts, and another statistic called expectancy.

The above example is an early version of a trade log that I set up in Exel. It tracks the essential items I mentioned. Notice one of the columns is a gain/loss per contract. The one thing that any analysis tool like this needs is a point of reference. Ideally I am risking the same amount (by percentage) each time. I could measure a gain/loss per contract or I could measure a %gain/%loss amount. For my purposes, I chose to standardize around gain/loss per contract.

Now, consider the following calculations related to the above entries.

Using some fairly basic formulas, I can measure total successful trades vs total failed trades. I can measure average gain (per contract) vs average loss (per contract). From these numbers, I can then calculate win loss ratio, reward/risk ratio and expectancy.

Let's break these down further.

Win/Loss Ratio.

Win/Loss is should actually be called the win rate based on the calculation I use. The win ratio is calculated by taking the total number of successful trades and dividing by the total. In the above case, the win rate is 75%. By inference then the loss rate is 25%. What that tells me is that for the trades I measured in my trade log, 75% of them are successful. This number could also be considered the probability of having a winning trade.

In my initial trade log, I chose to use a success/fail indicator to allow me to flag a trade as successful or failed independent of whether it made or lost money. My initial thought was that I could have a successful trade that lost money if I felt I successfully followed my trading rules. I've since eliminated this column and have gone with a simple measure of success. My trade is successful when it makes money and a failed trade when it loses money.

Reward/Risk Ratio.

For reward/risk ratio, this is actually more of a ratio expressed as a percentage. It is simply the average $ gain amount divided by the average $ loss amount. What this tells me is for each trade, what my gain amount is as a percentage of the total risk. This total risk amount should be roughly equivalent to the percentage amount I was willing to risk (i. e. 1-2% of my portfolio) for each trade. So, another way to think about this number is my return on risk as a percentage.

A lower number doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing. This ratio doesn't factor in the win/loss rate. So, even if I have a lower reward/risk ratio, if my win rate is fairly high, I may still have a viable options trading system system.

Expectancy.

Expectancy is an indication of how much (on average) can be expected to be made for every $1 risked. This calculation factors in both the return on risk (reward/risk) and the win rate (probability of a winning trade). Ideally the expectancy will be positive for my option trading system. A casino will typically have a negative expectancy. If my expectancy is negative or very low over a reasonably large number of trades, it's time to come up with another system.

Expectancy can be calculated using a somewhat complex formula I'll share in a moment. The nice thing about using a spreadsheet is that once the formula has been set up, I rarely have to re-visit it.

Expectancy = (% winning trades x win amount %) - (% losing trades x loss amount %)

One final point. expectancy becomes more valid with a larger number of trades. I wouldn't consider expectancy calculated over 5-10 trades to be indicative of the success or failure of a trading system. However, expectancy calculated over 100 trades will be more meaningful. That's why my trade log includes a way to track my trades over a longer period of time.

Setting up a trade log.

A trade log is simply a place to record individual trades and measure overall success. You could do this on a piece of paper, in a ledger or other manual process. However, spreadsheets are very well suited for this sort of thing.

What to capture.

There are a lot of interesting things that could be captured with regard to a trade. For this trade log, I prefer to track only information that is useful in giving me a longer term perspective and that can support the various calculations I outlined above.

I will capture some information that doesn't directly support the calculations like the date entered & closed as well as a description of the trade. I also capture a short comment where I can note anything special about the trade.

Some of the required information I capture includes the number of contracts traded, the debit/credit on entry as well as the debit/credit on exit. I also capture the entry & exit commission since this should figure into my overall profit or loss.

From the numbers captured, I can calculate values like net credit/debit and total gain/loss.

How to do formulas.

For each trade, I can calculate the net debit/credit of the trade entry as (# contracts x 100 x credit/debit per contract) - commission for entry.

For the overall gain/loss, I calculate this as the net debit/credit on entry - (# contracts x 100 x credit/debit on exit) - commission for exit.

Because I use an Excel spreadsheet, all this can be done very simply with a set of formulas.

First, I calculate total successful trades and total failed trades. To do this, I use a simple Excel formula that essentially counts the number of rows that have a positive value.

Total Successful Trades = COUNTIF(L2:L68,">0")

Total Failed Trades = COUNTIF(L2:L68,"<0")

Note: The cell L73 would hold my total successful trades.

The cell L74 holds my total failed trades.

Win Ratio = Total Successful Trades/All trades (Sum of successful + unsuccessful trades)

Note: This presumes that I typically take the max loss when I have a losing trade. Alternatively, I can create a column for each trade that represents the total risk in the trade.

Notice this differs somewhat from the formula I listed above for expectancy. I've made several assumptions based on the way my risk is calculated. As a rule, I expect my average failed amount to remain fairly constant and should be roughly equal to my risk in each trade I take. I mentioned for reward/risk ratio that I could also easily use another column to capture max risk in the trade and then I could calculate % loss amount relative to this value. Instead, what I assume is that my average failed loss amount always represents 100% of my risk. So the formula may look like this:

L77 = my win ratio (or win %)

L78 = my reward/risk ratio.

Since the total of my win % + loss % has to equal 100%, I can calculate my loss % as 1 - win %.

The cell locations may be different for your spreadsheet based on the number of rows & columns and where you chose to do your calculations for your trade log.

Using multiple worksheets in Excel.

While it is possible to enter all trades on one page of a spreadsheet, it starts becoming impractical when the number trades tracked gets too large. When I first set up my trade log, I tracked my trades by quarter. I did this because I typically only made about 50 trades per quarter, which is fairly manageable on a spreadsheet. As my trading volume increases, I moved to tracking trades per month.

Excel supports the ability to have multiple worksheets accessed by tabs at the bottom of the spreadsheet. What I did then was create a worksheet for each month. I labeled each worksheet by the name of the month it tracked. In order to keep a running total of all my important statistics, I now have a separate worksheet that collects that information. My formulas get slightly more complicated because not only do I need to specify the cell but also the worksheet. So, for example, here is how I do some of my yearly calculations.

Total successful trades = SUM(January! L80,February! L68,March! L73, etc)

Notice that to reference the cell of a worksheet, the format is.

Once I have calculated my yearly totals for total successful trades, total failed trades, average successful gain and average failed loss, I can directly calculate my ratios and expectancy from these numbers without having to reference all the worksheets of the spreadsheet.

Maximizing the benefit of the trade log.

To be useful, I've found it is important to be diligent to capture my trades as I enter and exit them. I need to make sure all my trades are captured, including my failures. I've been tempted in the past to not enter trades I regret making. or trades that I wish I'd have exited differently.

This trade log must be an accurate reflection of my trading against my trading plan. What can it tell me?

It can help me determine the effectiveness of my option trading system It can help me determine how consistently I'm following my trading plan It can help me review my trading rules for entry & exit Longer term, it can help me determine how consistent my gains and losses are To be effective, I've found I need to review the trade log periodically. I've made this part of my monthly routine. At the end of the options cycle for a given month, I make sure I have all my trades entered in the trade log for a the options month just expired. I also make sure I have all my trade journals together for each trade I entered.

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