Swing Trading Journal: 8 Journals Compared for Multi-Day Trades

A swing trade is a story that runs for days or weeks: a scan finds the setup, you buy the breakout, sell part into strength and trail the rest until the chart says you are done. Most trading journals are built for day traders who open and close in minutes, so that story gets chopped into pieces. This guide covers what a swing trading journal has to track and which journals actually do it, starting with the one we make.

Key Takeaways

• A swing trading journal has to keep one position together across scale-ins, partial exits and weeks of holding, and measure it in R multiples against your initial stop.
• The reports that matter most for swing traders are MAE/MFE, results by hold time, results by setup, and a link back to the scan that found the trade.
• We make the Financial Tech Wiz Trading Journal: the free account covers manual entry, file imports and journal analytics, and the paid plan adds Broker Auto Sync (25+ brokers), the AI Trading Coach, today’s scan results and the Official systems with backtests.

What a Swing Trader Needs From a Journal

I swing trade the way William O’Neil taught a lot of us: find leading stocks in a sound base, buy the breakout with a defined stop, take some profit into strength and let the rest run while the trend holds. A day trading journal measures that badly. It cares about time of day and tick replay; a swing trader cares about what happened over the next ten sessions. Here is the checklist I use to judge any journal for swing trading.

1. Multi-day holds as one position

A position you hold for three weeks should be one trade in the journal, not a buy on one day and an orphan sell on another. The journal needs to pair fills into positions across sessions, show open positions with their current value, and report results by holding period so you can see whether your three-day trades or your three-week trades pay the bills.

2. Scale-ins and partial exits

Most swing traders add on a pullback or sell a third into a big up day. If the journal can only record one entry and one exit, every scaled trade turns into a fake average and the lesson disappears. Look for a journal that keeps every execution on the trade and still computes the result correctly while part of the position is open.

3. R multiples from your initial stop

Dollar P&L hides how well you managed risk. An R multiple divides the result by the money you risked between entry and your initial stop, so a $600 gain on $300 of risk is 2R whether you traded 100 shares or 1,000. Swing traders sizing off a stop below the breakout candle need this number on every trade. Our risk reward calculator helps you plan it before the entry.

4. MAE and MFE

Maximum adverse excursion (MAE) is how far a trade went against you before you exited; maximum favorable excursion (MFE) is how far it went in your favor. For a swing trader these answer the two questions that matter: are my stops too tight, and am I giving back too much before I sell? Over a multi-day hold, daily bars are the natural yardstick, so a journal that computes excursions from daily highs and lows fits the style.

5. Setup tags and playbooks

Breakouts, pullbacks to the 21-day line, earnings gaps and dip buys behave differently. Tag every trade with its setup, or file it under a playbook, and the journal can tell you which one earns your money and which one you should stop taking. Mistake tags (chased entry, moved stop, sold too early) do the same job for behavior.

6. A link from the scan to the trade

Swing traders get their ideas from scans. If the journal knows nothing about the scan that found the stock, you cannot answer the most useful question of all: do the trades from my VCP scan beat the trades I found on social media? A journal that sits next to your scanner, or at least lets you tag the scan source, closes that loop.

7. Broker sync you can trust

Swing trades span weekends, dividends and sometimes splits, and typing every fill by hand is how journals die. Live broker sync keeps the record complete, but it should build positions from the executions your broker reports, not guess them from your holdings. File imports are a good backup when your broker is not supported.

8. A daily-close review rhythm

Swing decisions happen at the close: did the breakout hold, did the stock close below the stop, is it time to trail? The journal should make a quick evening review easy, with open positions, stop risk and today’s notes in one view, and a weekly review that compares your results against the market.

Swing Trading Journals Compared

I checked every plan and price below on each journal’s own site on November 9 and 10, 2026. Full disclosure: we make the Financial Tech Wiz Trading Journal, ranked first, and the TraderSync and Tradervue buttons further down are affiliate links. For the wider field, including day trading picks, see our best trading journals comparison.

Journal	Free way in	Paid from	Live broker sync	Trade management stats	Swing extras
Financial Tech Wiz Trading Journal	Free account, unlimited trades	$19/mo or $119/yr	Paid, 25+ brokers	R multiples, MAE/MFE, win rate by hold time (free)	Prebuilt scanners, Official systems with backtests
TradeZella	None	$35/mo or $315/yr	500+ integrations claimed	R-multiple, running P&L, trade drawdown	Zella AI, trade replay
TraderSync	7-day trial	$29.95/mo	700+ brokers and platforms claimed	MFE/MAE, exit efficiency	Cypher AI, Market Replay, mobile app
Tradervue	Free, 30 trades a month	$29.95/mo	Silver and Gold	MFE/MAE on Silver, exit analysis on Gold	Weekly to 1-minute charts, community sharing
Edgewonk	None (14-day refund)	$35/mo or $197/yr	Automated imports	MAE/MFE, best exit, holding time	Edge Finder, Tiltmeter
TradesViz	Free, stocks only, 3,000 executions a month	$19.99/mo or $14.99/mo yearly	70+ auto-sync connections	Stop loss tracking on Pro, exit analysis on Platinum	AI Coach, MCP, simulators
StonkJournal	Free, unlimited manual trades	$10/mo	None (file import on Pro)	Hold time, risk-rule compliance	Risk rules, offline web app
Kinfo	Free plan	$24.90/mo (Pro)	Required, broker-verified	Verified P&L and win rate	Public profiles, follow verified traders

The Best Swing Trading Journals

1. Financial Tech Wiz Trading Journal: built for swing traders who use scanners

We make this one, so weigh my opinion with that in mind. I built the Financial Tech Wiz Trading Journal because the journals I tried were made for day traders and knew nothing about the scans I trade from. It starts with a free account: email signup, no card, unlimited trades, manual entry and file imports, plus the full set of journal analytics.

On the swing checklist, here is what it does today:

• Multi-day positions and partial exits. Each trade keeps all of its executions, so scale-ins and partial exits stay on one position. The Analytics tab shows win rate and P&L by trade duration, day of week and time of day.
• R multiples. Record an initial stop and every trade shows its result in R, where 1R is the money risked from entry to that stop. A trade with a partial exit shows its open R until the rest is sold.
• MAE/MFE and trade replay, free. Excursions are computed from stored daily bars for your own stock and ETF trades, and the trade chart can replay a position bar by bar on daily bars, revealing each fill on the day it happened.
• Setups and mistakes. Playbooks, tags, mistakes, ratings and notes on every trade. The Position breakdown groups open and closed positions and their P&L by tag, so you can compare setups side by side.
• Scan to trade. The membership includes prebuilt swing trading scanners for US stocks and ETFs, such as the Daily Pivot breakout scanner, the VCP scanner and the CAN SLIM stock screener. Free accounts see final results five exchange sessions delayed on those pages; paid members get today’s lists and full scan history.
• Tested systems. The paid plan includes the Official systems (Official Breakout, Official Dip and Official Combo) with their stored backtests, and Official system stops on your trades. Free accounts see the systems’ equity curves and headline stats. Backtest results are hypothetical and do not guarantee future returns.
• Daily-close review. Open trades show stop exposure, performance charts compare against SPY, QQQ, IWM and GLD, and Broker Auto Sync refreshes every morning before the market opens.

The paid plan is one price, $19 a month or $119 a year. It adds Broker Auto Sync across 25+ brokers, which builds trades from the executions your broker reports; the AI Trading Coach, which answers questions using your own journal data; today’s live and preliminary scan results; and the full Official system backtests. On the free account you can still import broker files, including the Interactive Brokers trading journal import through IBKR Flex. Free accounts can also connect their own journal to Claude or ChatGPT; our trading journal MCP guide shows how, and TradesViz offers an MCP too.

Where it falls short: no tick-level market replay or Level II tools, no risk-rule compliance score, and futures go in by manual entry or file import, never through Broker Auto Sync. The scanners cover US stocks and ETFs only.

2. TradeZella: polished analytics and AI for active traders

TradeZella is the best-looking journal in this list and ranks for this search with its own swing trading guide. Its reports include R-multiple, running P&L and trade drawdown, Strategies (its playbooks) carry rules and per-strategy stats, and Zella AI now runs on every plan, with AI agents that auto-tag trades and review sessions on Pro and Ultra. It claims 500+ broker and prop firm integrations.

The catch for a swing trader is price and focus. Pricing changed on July 14, 2026: Essential is $35 a month or $315 a year, Pro $59 and Ultra $99, with no free plan and no free trial. Essential is limited to one account, and tick-by-tick replay matters less when your trade lasts three weeks. There are no scanners or tested systems. Our TradeZella review goes deeper, and if you are choosing between the two big names, our TradeZella vs Tradervue comparison lays out where each one wins.

3. TraderSync: the deepest exit analytics

TraderSync has the most exit-focused analytics here: MFE/MAE, exit efficiency, optimal exit analysis, target and stop execution tracking and a risk exposure report. For a swing trader who keeps selling winners too early, those reports are genuinely useful. It claims 700+ brokers and platforms with autosync, adds the Cypher AI assistant on every plan and has a mobile app.

Pro is $29.95 a month with a 7-day trial and no free plan; Premium is $49.95 and Elite $79.95, and first-year annual promotions renew at the list price. Much of the headline value, like Market Replay and Level II tools, is aimed at day traders and scalpers. Read our TraderSync review for the plan-by-plan detail.

4. Tradervue: simple logging and multi-timeframe charts

Tradervue is one of the oldest journals and still one of the simplest. Every trade gets automatic price charts from weekly down to 1-minute with your buys and sells marked, which suits swing traders who review on the daily and weekly charts. Silver ($29.95 a month) adds broker sync, more than 100 reports and MFE/MAE statistics; Gold ($49.95) adds exit analysis, max potential P&L and risk reporting. Community trade sharing and mentoring are strengths nobody else here matches.

The free Basic plan stops at 30 trades a month, which is enough for many swing traders but leaves out sync and MFE/MAE. I found no AI features on its pricing or home pages. Our Tradervue review covers the plans in full.

5. Edgewonk: psychology and exit testing

Edgewonk has been around for more than ten years and is built around finding the habits behind your losses. Swing traders will use its holding time, MAE/MFE and best exit reports, and its trade management optimizer answers “what if I had trailed instead of selling at the target?” The Edge Finder scans your journal every Sunday for performance leaks, the Tiltmeter tracks how often you break your rules, and you get 20 custom tag categories for setups and mistakes.

One feature set costs $35 a month or $197 a year, with no free plan and no free trial, only a 14-day money-back guarantee. Cancelling ends access to the journal. I found no AI chat, scanners or tested systems. See our Edgewonk alternatives if the price is the sticking point.

6. TradesViz: the most features per dollar

TradesViz has more statistics than anyone else here, 600+ by its own count, plus an AI Coach that ranks findings by dollar impact, a REST API and hosted MCP on paid plans, and 70+ auto-sync connections. Pro ($19.99 a month, or $14.99 a month billed yearly) adds stop loss tracking, unrealized P&L and all asset types; Platinum ($29.99, or $22.49 yearly) adds exit analysis, running P&L analysis, trade replay, simulators and a real-time stock screener you configure yourself.

The free Basic plan allows 3,000 executions a month for stocks only, on one account, with no AI or API. The depth is real, but so is the learning curve, and the most useful swing tools sit on Platinum.

7. StonkJournal: free manual logging with risk rules

StonkJournal’s free plan has no trade caps: unlimited trades and accounts across stocks, options, futures, forex and crypto, 30+ metrics including hold time and max drawdown, a calendar heatmap and 10 risk rule types (minimum reward to risk among them) that score every trade for compliance. For a disciplined swing trader who does not mind typing trades, that is a lot for nothing.

Free is manual entry only. Pro ($10 a month) adds Smart Import for broker export files, an AI Coach and AI chat, but there is no live broker sync on any plan; its integrations page lists it as on the roadmap. Our StonkJournal review covers where it beats our own journal.

8. Kinfo: verified performance and a public track record

Kinfo is less a review tool and more a verified scoreboard. You sign up free with no card, link your broker, and your trades import automatically and are marked verified, so the profit and win rate on your profile cannot be edited. Profiles can be private or public, you can follow verified traders to learn from them, and there are iOS and Android apps. Its broker list includes Robinhood, Charles Schwab, Fidelity, E*TRADE, Interactive Brokers, tastytrade and TradeStation. Paid plans start with Pro at $24.90 a month for full history and advanced reports; Pro+ ($44.90 a month) adds Edge Protection, which hides your trades from other users.

For swing traders who want accountability or want to share a real record, it is a good companion. For setup tags, R multiples and excursion analysis, pair it with a full journal.

How to Journal a Swing Trade, Step by Step

Here is the life of one swing trade the way I record it. The numbers are a simple example, not a real trade.

1. The scan. A stock shows up on a breakout scan after the close. Before buying, write two lines in the trade note: why it qualifies (base length, volume, relative strength) and what would prove you wrong.
2. The entry. You buy 100 shares at $50 the next day with an initial stop at $47, just under the breakout candle’s low. That is $300 of risk, so 1R is $300. Record the stop on the trade, tag it “breakout” and file it under your breakout playbook.
3. The partial exit. Eight sessions later the stock reaches $56 and you sell 50 shares. That half made $300, or 1R on the full position. The trade stays open with 50 shares and shows its open R.
4. The trail. You raise the stop on the remaining shares to $53 as the stock keeps climbing. Add a short note each time you move the stop and why.
5. The exit. Three weeks after entry the stock closes below $53 and you sell the last 50 shares at $53, another $150. The whole trade made $450 on $300 of risk: 1.5R.
6. The review. Now the journal earns its keep. MAE shows how close the trade came to your stop before it worked; MFE shows how much of the peak gain you gave back on the trailed half. Add a rating and any mistake tags, and the trade joins the stats for its setup and its hold time.

If you are new to the Financial Tech Wiz Trading Journal, our guide on how to log trades in the Financial Tech Wiz Trading Journal walks through manual entry and file imports.

A Weekly Review Routine for Swing Traders

Swing trading gives you fewer trades than day trading, so each review has to squeeze more out of a small sample. Thirty minutes on the weekend is enough:

• Open positions first. For each one, check the stop, the R so far and whether the original reason still holds. Write one line per position.
• Closed trades by setup. Compare win rate, average R and P&L for each setup tag. One bad week does not kill a setup; three months of negative R might.
• Hold time. Check results by trade duration. Many swing traders find their best trades are the ones they held longest, and their worst are quick exits on fear.
• Excursions. If winners routinely went 1R against you before working, your stops may be too tight. If MFE is far above your exits, your selling rules need work.
• The market. Compare your month against SPY or QQQ. A great month in a strong market is not the same as a great month in a choppy one.
• Next week’s list. Run your scans and write the watchlist down, so next week’s trades start from a plan rather than a hunch. Our guide to the best stock screener for swing trading compares the tools for building that list.

Swing Journaling Mistakes That Ruin the Data

• No initial stop recorded. Without it there is no R multiple, and a stop you remember later is never the one you actually had.
• Averaging scaled trades into one fill. You lose the evidence of whether adding or trimming helped.
• Writing the reason after the exit. A thesis written after you know the outcome is a story, not a record. Write it before you buy.
• Tagging inconsistently. “Breakout”, “BO” and “pivot buy” become three setups with tiny samples. Keep a short fixed tag list.
• Judging a setup on five trades. Wait for a meaningful sample before you drop or double down on anything.
• Overlapping manual and synced records. If your broker syncs, do not also type the same fills by hand.

Which Swing Trading Journal Should You Choose?

• You trade O’Neil or Minervini style setups from scans: the Financial Tech Wiz Trading Journal, because the scanners, tested systems and journal sit together. I make it, so try the free account and judge for yourself.
• You keep selling winners too early: TraderSync for its exit efficiency reports, or Edgewonk for its trade management optimizer.
• You want polish and AI-written reviews and do not mind the price: TradeZella.
• You place a few trades a month and want simple charts: Tradervue’s free plan.
• You want every statistic and will learn the menus: TradesViz Platinum.
• You want free manual logging with risk rules: StonkJournal.
• You want a verified public record: Kinfo, next to a full journal.

Want to see every trading journal side by side? Compare trading journals on one page, with prices checked November 2026.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best trading journal for swing traders?

It depends on how you find trades and what you review. If your ideas come from scans, the Financial Tech Wiz Trading Journal (which we make) puts prebuilt scanners and tested systems next to the journal. TraderSync and Edgewonk have the deepest exit analysis, TradeZella the most polish, and StonkJournal and Tradervue the strongest free plans for light manual logging.

What should a swing trading journal track?

At minimum: every execution including scale-ins and partial exits, the initial stop, the setup tag, the reason for the trade written before entry, and the exit reason. From those, a good journal computes R multiples, MAE/MFE, hold time and results by setup.

Is a free journal enough for swing trading?

For many swing traders, yes, because they place fewer trades. Our free account has unlimited trades, file imports, R multiples, MAE/MFE and trade replay. StonkJournal Free has unlimited manual trades, Tradervue Basic allows 30 trades a month, and TradesViz Basic covers stocks only. You pay when you want live broker sync, AI or, with ours, today’s scan lists.

Should I use Excel or a journal app for swing trading?

A spreadsheet works if you are disciplined, and it is how many traders start. Where it struggles is the work a journal app does for you: pairing scaled fills into positions, computing MAE/MFE from price bars, grouping results by setup and hold time, and importing from your broker without retyping.

How often should swing traders review their journal?

Check open positions and stops after each close, and do a full review once a week. Once a month, look at results by setup and hold time, because swing trading samples grow slowly and weekly numbers are noisy.

Ready to start? Create a free account, log your open swing trades with their stops, and let the journal show you which setups pay.