I'm looking for recommendations on ways to keep track of my trades.

There are several features that I would find lovely: support for multiple brokerage accounts, cash held in different currencies, server backend for multiple users (say you have 1-5 people doing accounting, including or excluding yourself), tax allocations (allocate PnL to variably-timed cash flows from accounts with different underlying tax attributes, for tax reporting e.g. Schedule K-1, Form 1065), basic double-entry accounting to keep track of capital contributions and redemptions, organization assets and liabilities.

I'll like to know everyone's responses, although especially those of you who manage funds. What do you use, e.g. Ninjatrader only, Excel spreadsheet, GnuCash Quickbooks Premier, SAP, Advent, sage etc.?

Edit P.S.: I just got back from Tokyo! Any Boston-area NexusFi (formerly BMT) members here? (:

www.tradervue.com journaling and trade analytics Tradervue is a cloud based journaling site with a slew of analytics and broker/platform imports including Ninja/Sierra. I had been keeping an excel journal and found it cumbersome to update and share with others. Tradevue's cloud implementation …

MSA - Market System Analyzer (www.adaptrade.com) I want to use a software system called Market System Analyzer Money management software :: Market System Analyzer ( but it costs about $300. Does anyone know of a free version or perhaps a lower cost version from another vendor? This would replace …

Trading Metrics for journals/record keeping I'm on a mission to improve my Excel trade journal. I'd like to hear input on what metrics you guys measure in your journal. For instance: Sharpe ratio Expectancy Win/Loss Dollar Ratio Win Percentage Dollar gain per trade put …

Mike

I don't use them, but you can also look at Trading Journal, Trade Journal, Risk Management Software and StockTickr - A Trading Journal That Makes Traders More Profitable.

For tax filling purposes TaxACT supports NinjaTrader.

I want to use this existing thread to ask my question, because my question is similar. To watch and control some automatic strategies which are spread at different VM's and brokers i need to build my own control tool to visualize whats going on. I've seen some screenshots from HFT related tools (i think artemiso has posted some) which are showing the current state of the strategy and the last results.

I want to show the results, the state of some internal strategy variables and some statistics for a bunch of system entities. My question is if anybody knows tools with an excellent user interface which is targeting any of my points. I want to get ideas to build my own one and looking for examples.

Thanks, Koepisch

I keep a simple trading journal in an Excel file.

For each trade I save:

a screen-shot of the charts I based my decision on, with my own comments and marks in it describing why I think this would be a good trade.

start time, end time, open amount, close amount, fees, net result.

In case of a loss, I also write a comment about what I think the reason for that failure was.

Koepisch 

I want to use this existing thread to ask my question, because my question is similar. To watch and control some automatic strategies which are spread at different VM's and brokers i need to build my own control tool to visualize whats going on. I've seen some screenshots from HFT related tools (i think artemiso has posted some) which are showing the current state of the strategy and the last results. I want to show the results, the state of some internal strategy variables and some statistics for a bunch of system entities. My question is if anybody knows tools with an excellent user interface which is targeting any of my points. I want to get ideas to build my own one and looking for examples. Thanks, Koepisch

First thing that comes to my mind is something like this:

• All remote VMs email their latest stats to processor@somemachine (this address/machine only accepts email/SMTP connections from these VMs/VM networks).
• An SMTP parser script verifies the email is kosher and parses the data into combined or individual csv files.
• This processing machine has R and RStudio web interface installed (see my Quick Start Guide Wiki).
• R scripts are ran every n minutes or days, imports the csv files, and creates info files and png graphs that are accessible via RStudio or a web-based interface from a browser or smart phone.
• You could also have a script automatically email these results to you for more of a "push" notification system.

SMTP is a really easy way to implement a "store and forward to processing" messaging system. All this could be as secure as you wanted it to be. I could help you set this up if you desire.

MrYou 

First thing that comes to my mind is something like this: All remote VMs email their latest stats to processor@somemachine (this address/machine only accepts email/SMTP connections from these VMs/VM networks). An SMTP parser script verifies the email is kosher and parses the data into combined or individual csv files. This processing machine has R and RStudio web interface installed (see my Quick Start Guide Wiki). R scripts are ran every n minutes or days, imports the csv files, and creates info files and png graphs that are accessible via RStudio or a web-based interface from a browser or smart phone. You could also have a script automatically email these results to you for more of a "push" notification system. SMTP is a really easy way to implement a "store and forward to processing" messaging system. All this could be as secure as you wanted it to be. I could help you set this up if you desire.

Thanks MrYou, but the data transmission isn't the question here. There will be a direct SSL secured TCP connection from every hosting system to the central application. I forget to mention that this should be also a bidirectional connection, to change the system at runtime. My question belongs to the GUI part only. I don't want use R for these purposes.

If you are recording trades as a learning tool, not just as an accounting function, I suggest keeping track of the trades you don't take as well (assuming that you use some degree of discretion in your trading).

I keep a 'passes sheet' along with my trade cards so I can assess the universe of all the trades I considered, not just those I took. Just tracking trades you take opens you up to survivourship bias. It can be very illuminating to compare the live vs passed trades - although you do have to make certain assumptions regarding outcomes of those trades you passed on.