Questions? We've got answers.

Trader Diary is designed for serious retail traders who are actively working to improve their performance. This includes active day traders and short-term swing traders trading stocks, options, futures, or crypto. Whether you're a beginner-to-intermediate trader moving past the 'random YOLO' phase, or an advanced trader looking to systematize your journaling and reviews, Trader Diary helps you track, analyze, and improve your trading process. It's not designed for pure long-term investors or those who aren't serious about tracking and improving their trading.

Getting started is simple: sign up for an account, and you can immediately begin logging trades. You can import trades via CSV from your broker, manually enter trades through our fast, keyboard-friendly interface, or use our real-time market data integration to quickly capture entry/exit prices. Once you have trades logged, your dashboard automatically populates with performance metrics, equity curves, and insights. We recommend starting with just a few trades to familiarize yourself with the tagging and journaling features—the real value comes from consistent use over time.

Yes, we offer a free trial period so you can explore all features and see how Trader Diary fits into your trading workflow. During the trial, you have full access to all features, including unlimited trades, performance analytics, journaling, and reports. No credit card required to start your trial.

Trader Diary tracks comprehensive quantitative metrics including: win rate, R-multiple distribution, expectancy, profit factor, maximum drawdown, consecutive wins/losses, and equity curve progression. Beyond these basics, you get breakdowns by ticker, setup type, time of day, direction (long/short), and market conditions. We also track consistency metrics, streaks, and rule adherence over time. All metrics update in real-time as you log trades.

You can import trades via CSV export from most major brokers. Simply export your trade history (typically includes entry/exit prices, timestamps, size, P&L, and instrument), upload the CSV file, and Trader Diary will parse and import your trades automatically. We support common formats from brokers like Interactive Brokers, TD Ameritrade, E*TRADE, and others. If your broker's format isn't automatically recognized, you can map columns manually or contact support for assistance. Manual entry is also fast and keyboard-friendly for real-time logging.

Setup tagging lets you categorize each trade by the specific trading setup or strategy you used (e.g., 'breakout', 'pullback', 'momentum', 'mean reversion'). This allows you to analyze which setups are actually profitable for you—not just in theory, but in your real execution. You can see win rates, expectancy, and R-multiple by setup, identify your best-performing setups, and spot setups that consistently lose money. This data-driven approach helps you focus on what works and eliminate what doesn't.

Every trade can include structured journaling with prompts like 'Did I follow my plan?', 'What was my emotional state?', 'What mistake did I make?', and free-form notes. You can tag trades by emotion (fear, greed, FOMO, discipline), mistake type (overtrading, revenge trading, not following rules), and setup. Over time, you'll see patterns: which emotions correlate with losses, which mistakes are most costly, and how your discipline improves. Weekly review summaries help you reflect on patterns and set goals.

The equity curve visualizes your cumulative P&L over time, showing the progression of your account value. It helps you see drawdown periods, recovery patterns, and overall trend. A smooth, upward-sloping curve indicates consistent performance; sharp drops or choppy patterns reveal periods of poor discipline or ineffective strategies. Combined with other metrics, the equity curve helps you understand not just whether you're profitable, but whether you're improving systematically.

Yes, Trader Diary integrates with real-time market data providers to help you quickly log trades with accurate entry/exit prices. When you're entering a trade manually, you can pull live prices for stocks, options, futures, forex, and crypto, reducing errors and saving time. This integration is designed to make logging frictionless—you focus on trading, we handle the data capture.

Trader Diary generates several types of reports: performance summaries (daily, weekly, monthly), breakdowns by setup, ticker, time of day, and market conditions, equity curve analysis, and consistency reports. The insights engine surfaces actionable patterns: 'Your best setup is X with Y% win rate', 'You lose most money during the first 5 minutes', 'Size down after 3 consecutive losses', or 'You overtrade on Fridays'. These aren't just observations—they're suggestions for rules you can implement and track adherence to over time.

Absolutely. We take data security seriously. All data is encrypted in transit (TLS/SSL) and at rest. We use industry-standard security practices including secure authentication, regular security audits, and compliance with data protection regulations. Your trading data is private and never shared with third parties. We don't use your data for advertising or sell it to anyone. Your journal is yours alone.

No, you don't need to connect your broker account. Trader Diary works independently—you import trades via CSV or enter them manually. This approach gives you full control over your data and doesn't require API access to your broker, which many traders prefer for security and privacy reasons. If we add optional broker integrations in the future, they'll be opt-in only and use read-only access.

Yes, you can export all your trade data, journal entries, and reports at any time in standard formats (CSV, JSON). Your data belongs to you, and we believe you should have full control over it. There are no restrictions on exports, and you can download everything with a single click.

If you cancel, your account and data remain accessible for a grace period (typically 30 days) so you can export everything. After that, your data is permanently deleted from our servers. We'll send reminders before deletion so you don't lose anything. You can also delete your account and data immediately if you prefer.

We collect only the information necessary to provide the service: your email for account management, and the trading data you choose to log. We never sell your data, use it for advertising, or share it with third parties except as required by law. For full details, see our Privacy Policy. We're transparent about what we collect and why.

We offer flexible pricing to fit different trading volumes and needs. Plans are based on the number of trades you log per month, with options for casual traders, active traders, and high-volume traders. All plans include full access to all features: performance analytics, journaling, reports, setup tagging, and insights. Higher-tier plans support more trades per month. Check our Pricing page for current rates and plan details.

Yes, you can cancel your subscription at any time with no penalties or fees. Your account remains active until the end of your current billing period, and you can continue using all features during that time. After cancellation, you'll have a grace period to export your data before it's deleted.

We offer a satisfaction guarantee. If you're not happy with Trader Diary within the first 30 days of your paid subscription, contact us for a full refund—no questions asked. We're confident in the value we provide, but we want you to be satisfied with your investment.

Yes, you can upgrade or downgrade your plan at any time. Upgrades take effect immediately; downgrades take effect at the start of your next billing cycle. If you upgrade mid-cycle, you'll be prorated for the difference. If you downgrade, you'll retain access to your current plan's features until the cycle ends.

Trader Diary supports CSV imports from most major brokers, including Interactive Brokers, TD Ameritrade, E*TRADE, Charles Schwab, Fidelity, Tastyworks, TradeStation, and many others. If your broker exports trade history as CSV (which most do), you can import it. We automatically detect common formats, and if your broker uses a unique format, you can manually map columns or contact support for assistance. We're constantly adding support for new broker formats based on user requests.

Trader Diary supports all major asset classes: stocks, options, futures, forex, and cryptocurrencies. You can log trades in any instrument, and all performance metrics work across asset classes. You can also filter and analyze by asset class to see which markets you perform best in.

Trader Diary is currently web-based and works great on mobile browsers with a responsive design optimized for phones and tablets. You can log trades, view your dashboard, and access all features from your mobile device. A dedicated mobile app is on our roadmap based on user feedback.

Trader Diary works best on modern browsers: Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge (latest versions). We recommend Chrome or Firefox for the best experience. The app requires JavaScript enabled and works best with a stable internet connection for real-time features.

Trader Diary is a web application that requires an internet connection for most features. However, you can prepare trade entries offline and they'll sync when you reconnect. For full functionality including real-time market data, performance calculations, and data sync, an internet connection is required.

API access is available for enterprise customers and power users who want to integrate Trader Diary with their own tools or automate trade imports. Contact us if you're interested in API access, and we can discuss your use case and provide documentation.

You absolutely can use Excel or Sheets for basic trade tracking, and many traders do. Trader Diary goes beyond spreadsheets by combining quantitative analysis with structured journaling, setup tagging, and actionable insights—all in one place. We handle the calculations, visualizations, and pattern detection automatically, so you spend less time building formulas and more time understanding your trading. The journaling features, emotion tracking, and rule adherence monitoring aren't easily replicated in a spreadsheet. If you're serious about improving, the structured approach and insights save significant time and reveal patterns you might miss in manual analysis.

Notion is great for general note-taking, but it's not designed for trading analysis. Trader Diary provides specialized features like automatic performance calculations, equity curve visualization, setup-based analysis, and structured journaling prompts that guide you toward actionable insights. While you could build something similar in Notion with enough effort, Trader Diary is purpose-built for traders and saves you the time of building and maintaining custom templates. Plus, our insights engine surfaces patterns automatically—something that's difficult to replicate in a generic note-taking app.

Not at all. Trader Diary is actually perfect for beginners who are serious about learning. The structured approach helps you build good habits from the start, and the insights help you understand what's working and what isn't. You don't need to be a data analyst—we handle the calculations and present insights in clear language. Many beginners find that journaling their trades helps them learn faster and avoid repeating mistakes. Start simple: log your trades, tag them, and review the weekly summaries. As you progress, you'll naturally use more advanced features.

Absolutely. Trader Diary is valuable whether you trade daily, weekly, or even monthly. The key is consistency in logging and reviewing, not frequency of trading. Many part-time traders find Trader Diary especially valuable because it helps them maintain a clear picture of their performance despite irregular trading schedules. Weekly or monthly reviews are just as insightful as daily ones, and the patterns you'll discover (like which setups work, which days are best, etc.) are valuable regardless of trading frequency.

Even profitable traders benefit from systematic journaling and analysis. Trader Diary helps you understand why you're profitable—which setups, conditions, and behaviors drive your edge. This knowledge helps you scale, avoid complacency, and maintain consistency. Many profitable traders use journals to identify their best setups and eliminate weaker ones, optimize position sizing, and track rule adherence. Being profitable is great; understanding and systematizing your edge is how you stay profitable and grow.

With Trader Diary, journaling is designed to be fast and frictionless. If you import trades via CSV, logging takes seconds. Manual entry with real-time price integration takes about 30-60 seconds per trade. Adding tags and brief journal notes adds another 30 seconds. So for a typical day with 5-10 trades, you're looking at 5-10 minutes of logging. Weekly reviews take 10-15 minutes. The time investment is minimal compared to the insights you gain, and many traders find that the discipline of journaling actually improves their trading decisions.

Trader Diary is strategy-agnostic. Whether you're a scalper, swing trader, options trader, futures trader, or algo trader, the core features work the same: track trades, analyze performance, journal insights, and identify patterns. The setup tagging system is flexible—you define your own setups and strategies. The metrics (win rate, R-multiple, expectancy) are universal. The journaling prompts are designed to be relevant regardless of strategy. If you have a specific use case, we're happy to discuss how Trader Diary can fit your workflow.