A generic journal treats a EURUSD scalp and a gold swing as the same row. A forex journal has to know about lot sizes, pip values, overnight swap and the commission your broker charges, because all four decide whether the trade was actually profitable.
A trade that looks green on the chart can be red once financing and commission are counted. Both are imported from your statement and included in every P&L figure, so profit factor and expectancy reflect what reached your balance.
Filter your history by symbol to find the pairs that pay for themselves, and by time of day to see whether your edge belongs to London, New York or neither. Traders routinely discover a single pair or a single hour is carrying — or sinking — the whole account.
When your position size changes, currency P&L stops being comparable between trades. Recording risk in R makes a 0.2-lot loss and a 2-lot loss directly comparable, which is what makes an expectancy number mean anything.
Maximum drawdown and the equity curve are computed from the imported fills. Seeing the shape of a losing run after the fact is how you recognise the same shape while you are inside the next one.
Upload one MT5 statement and find out which pairs and sessions are actually paying you.
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