Full journal with equity curve, drawdown, and expectancy tracking

During an evaluation — and for as long as you trade — you need to answer one question quickly and honestly: is this going as expected? A losing week feels like a crisis whether it's normal variance or a real problem. The only way to tell the difference is a tracking system that shows your equity curve, drawdown, and expectancy against a benchmark. This lesson builds that system.

What you'll learn

• The daily log and the fields that matter
• Tracking the equity curve in money and in R
• Running drawdown from peak
• Rolling expectancy — and how to read it against your benchmark
• A one-page weekly dashboard

1. The daily log

Alongside your per-trade behavioural journal (see Behavioral journaling), keep a simple daily row:

This row takes a minute to complete and gives you every number the rest of this lesson needs.

2. The equity curve — in money and in R

• Money curve: your account equity over time. Shows the real-world result, including costs and position-size changes.
• R curve: cumulative R-multiples over time. Shows strategy and execution performance, independent of size changes from your drawdown plan.

If the money curve falls but the R curve is flat, the problem may be sizing (for example, bigger size on losing trades). If both fall together, look at the strategy and execution.

3. Running drawdown

Update daily:

• Running peak = the highest end-of-day equity so far
• Drawdown % = (running peak − current equity) ÷ running peak

Compare with your thresholds (see Drawdown control and equity curve management) and with the maximum drawdown in your forward test. A drawdown inside the tested range is expected; one well beyond it is a signal.

4. Rolling expectancy

Your overall expectancy hides changes. Rolling expectancy — the average R of the last 20 trades — shows whether performance is drifting.

Worked example

(Illustrative. Forward-test benchmark expectancy: +0.25R per trade.)

At trade 40, the trader checked: adherence had dropped to 78% (three moved-stop tags). The strategy wasn't broken — execution was. Fixing the behaviour restored results without changing a single rule.

5. The weekly dashboard

One page, same format every week:

The TradingProgress My Progress dashboard calculates win rate, expectancy, average win and loss, and a results calendar automatically from an uploaded MT5 report — useful for cross-checking your own numbers.

6. Normal variance vs a real problem

Common beginner mistakes

• Tracking only account balance.
• No benchmark, so every dip feels like failure.
• Reacting to the last five trades instead of rolling and overall statistics.
• Ignoring adherence when results drop.
• Changing the tracking format every week, so nothing is comparable.

Key terms

Practice

1. Build the daily log in a spreadsheet and fill it in from your recent trading.
2. Plot your money curve and R curve side by side. Do they tell the same story?
3. Calculate rolling 20-trade expectancy and plot it against your benchmark.
4. Produce your first weekly dashboard and write the decision line.

Quick recap

• Keep a daily log — it feeds every other metric.
• Track the equity curve in money and in R.
• Update running drawdown daily and compare it with tested levels.
• Use rolling expectancy against a benchmark to spot drift early.
• A one-page weekly dashboard ends with a clear decision.