Are these affiliate reviews?
No. The guides explain session days, fees, and trailing floors. Competitor prices live on the compare pages, and they are dated.
Guides
Notes from the bookkeeping.
A futures journal goes wrong in a few repeatable ways. The trade date is not midnight. The export has prices and no commission. A trailing floor follows a peak the journal never saw, because the open profit was on the firm’s screen and not in the file. These guides stay on those mechanics. They are not a blog of market calls, and they are not a ranking of other journals. Read the session guide if a fill landed on the wrong day. Read the statement guide if the net is close but not exact. Read the drawdown guide before you treat a calculator result as a pass or a fail. The how-to is the path from an export to a tied day: preview, fees, confirm, then the statement. If you want a sheet before any of that, the CSV template lists the columns a statement actually cares about, and it says when to leave the sheet for the import. Last reviewed October 2026, alongside the firm pages. When a firm changes a distance, the firm page moves first and the guide keeps the shape of the rule: peak, trail, lock, and the fact that a later loss does not pull the floor back down.
Start with the day
The session and the statement are the two pages that explain a number that will not match. The drawdown pages explain a floor. The journal page is what you open after the idea is clear.
Why a futures journal misses the statement
Fees, time zones, and the 5:00 PM Chicago session are the usual reasons a journal and a statement disagree.
The CME session day for a futures journal
A futures trade date is not a calendar date. It rolls at 5:00 PM Chicago.
Trailing drawdown explained
Trailing drawdown explained as peak minus trail, with a lock. Firm distances link to each firm’s current rules.
How to journal futures trades
How to journal futures trades from a platform CSV: export, fees, the Chicago session, then a statement tie-out. No broker password.
Check a statement file
A CSV stays in the browser. Use it before you decide an import is worth confirming.
The futures trading journal
What the hosted book adds once the guides have named the session, the fee, and the gap.
FAQ
Why does the calendar disagree with the statement?
The session rolls at 5:00 PM Chicago. A fill at 5:10 PM belongs to the next session, including Friday evening into Monday.
Do the guides change a prop-firm rule?
No. Distances are quoted from the firm’s article. The firm’s dashboard is the balance that counts.
Where do I practice the tie-out?
Load the October sample inside the app, or run Statement Check on a file you already have. The sample includes a day that does not tie.
Start the 7-day trial. No card.
The guides are the bookkeeping. The journal is where a session gets tied.