A trade log entry is a contract with the future. It records what was known at entry, what was decided, and why — in enough detail that the trade can be reviewed honestly months later, when the outcome is known and hindsight is tempting. This article is the template.

The entry header

Every entry opens with the facts, recorded at fill time:

• Date and time of entry (and the market session: open, midday, close)
• Underlying (SPX, XSP, QQQ, IWM)
• Structure (bull put spread, iron condor, long call vertical, etc.)
• Strikes and expiration (the exact legs)
• Fill price (the actual fill, not the mid — slippage is measured against the mid)
• Contracts and the resulting risk as % of NLV
• Max profit / max loss per the structure
• IV rank at entry and the VIX level
• Directional bias from the current forecast

The reasoning section

The reasoning section is the entry's core. It answers three questions:

1. Why this structure? Which structure-selection rule fired — the directional bias, the IV regime, or both? If the trade is an exception to the usual mapping (a short-premium structure at IV rank 30, say), the exception and its justification go here.

2. Why these strikes? The strike-selection logic: distance from spot in standard deviations, the skew read, the probability-of-profit target. Enough that a reader can reconstruct the choice.

3. What would invalidate it? The boundary conditions: the price level or IV change that would trigger an adjustment or an early exit. Written before the trade, not after.

The lifecycle section

The entry is a living document until the position closes:

• Adjustments: every roll, hedge, and partial close, each with a timestamp, the fill, and the reason. The reason references the SOP rule or the documented discretionary call.
• Marks: periodic marks against the exit rules (approaching target, approaching stop, time decay on schedule).
• Exit: date, time, fill, realized P&L, and which exit rule fired — target, stop, expiration, or early (with the documented reason).

The review section

After the exit, the entry gets its review:

• Expected vs. realized: the entry-time expected value against the realized outcome.
• Rule compliance: were the SOP's rules followed? Any exceptions, and were they documented at the time?
• Lesson: one sentence. What this trade teaches that the playbook doesn't already say — or confirmation that the playbook was right.

What "complete" means

An entry is complete when a stranger could reconstruct the decision, the management, and the outcome without asking the trader a single question. Incomplete entries are flagged in the daily review and completed before the close. An entry that's still incomplete at the weekly review is a journal-discipline violation, logged as such.

About this article

Editor: Dependability Research Desk. The desk has tracked options, index-derivative structure, and daily U.S. equity markets since 2017, with a working book in SPX/XSP index options and a public trade log that records every entry, adjustment, and close.

Editorial process: Each forecast distils overnight data and primary sources (Cboe option chains, Federal Reserve releases, Treasury auctions, FRED historicals) into the worked-example frame: what the tape is saying, the mechanism behind the move, what to do this week. Forecasts are reviewed against the live close on the next publication; the track record is self-auditing on the forecasts page.

Corrections policy: When an article gets a fact wrong (wrong strike, wrong P&L, wrong expected-move calculation), we correct it inline and append a dated correction note at the top of the affected page.

Disclosure

The desk may hold the positions, options, or underlyings mentioned in a trade-log entry at the time of publication; positions are disclosed in the trade-log entry itself. Nothing on this site is investment advice.

Disclaimer. This content is published for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing here is investment advice. Trading options involves substantial risk of loss and is not appropriate for every investor. Past performance, including the journal entries on this site, does not guarantee future results. You are solely responsible for your trading decisions.