How to Journal a Trade With Multiple Entries and Exits

A lot of journals assume a trade has one entry and one exit. A lot of trades do not. You buy two contracts, add one more when it confirms, sell two into the first push, and leave one for a runner. Log that as a single "entered 3 at 5400, exited 3 at 5410" and you have written down something that never happened.

That matters for two reasons. The P&L is wrong, and the behavior is invisible. Whether you scale well or badly is one of the most informative things a journal can tell you, and a one-line log hides it.

The vocabulary

• Fill: one execution, with a side (in or out), a size, and a price.
• Average entry: the size-weighted price of all your "in" fills.
• Average exit: the size-weighted price of all your "out" fills.
• Open size: total in minus total out. The trade is closed when this reaches zero.

The one rule that keeps the P&L correct

Realized P&L is the difference between average entry and average exit, multiplied by the size you actually exited. Not the size you entered. If you bought 4 and sold 3, three contracts are realized and one is still open. Counting all four as closed overstates both sides of the trade.

A worked example, long 1 contract of MES:

• In 1 at 5400.00, in 1 at 5405.00: average entry 5402.50
• Out 1 at 5410.00, out 1 at 5415.00: average exit 5412.50
• Difference: 10.00 points. At $5.00 per point on MES, times 2 contracts: $100.00

You can check that by hand fill by fill, and it will agree: the first contract made 10 points, the second made 10 points.

What to look at once you have the fills

1. Do your adds help? Compare trades where you added to a winner with trades where you added to a loser. Adding to a losing position is averaging down, and it is a different behavior with a different outcome distribution.
2. Do your partial exits help? Taking half off feels responsible. Your data will say whether the runner pays for it or whether you would have made more by holding it all.
3. What does your average entry cost you? If your first fill is consistently best and your add is consistently worse, you are chasing your own trade.

Recording one in ohYaaa

In the trade form, the Entry/Exit tab is a list of fills, with an ENTRY row and an EXIT row ready. When you scale, add a row for each extra execution with its size, price, and time. The form shows average entry, average exit, and live P&L as you go, using the real tick value for futures contracts.

The classic single-entry fields are still filled in on save (total size, average entry, average exit, last exit date), so lists, previews, shared days and reports all keep showing sensible numbers. Calculations that need P&L go through the same fill-aware path.

The bottom line

Record executions, not intentions. Once your fills are in the journal, "I'm good at scaling" becomes a testable statement. Take a month of scaled trades, split them by whether you added to winners or losers, and see which side of that line your account actually lives on.