📘 Strategy Analysis / Trade Journal

P&L for a Brent Sep-25 69/77 Call Spread trade from 2025-06-26 to 2025-07-17

📝 Description

The Trade Journal enables post-trade analytics and performance auditing for individual trades. Once a strategy is flagged as "traded", this module becomes the home for monitoring:

• Profitability evolution
• Drawdown events
• Risk driver attribution by Greeks

It is especially useful for reviewing trade decision quality, validating execution timing, and informing strategy iteration.

Key Use Cases:

• Post-mortem analysis: Understand what worked, what didn’t.
• Attribution audit: See which Greeks (Delta, Theta, Vega, etc.) drove outcomes.
• Drawdown tracking: Observe timing and depth of adverse moves.
• Behavioural reinforcement: Build confidence in process or uncover bias patterns.

🎛️ Interactive Controls

To add a trade to the trade journal a checkbox next to the position date input needs to be checked above the pricer. By default today's date will be used as a position date, but user can click on it and change it to any one in the past. 

• Attribution Type Selector: Available attribution categories

  • Greek - Attribution calculated by delta
  • Legs -  Attribution calculated by leg

   

📌 Chart Components

• Timeline & Mini-map (Top):

• Zoom Control - Drag to isolate specific time windows
• Mini Map - Full range of P&L and Drawdown for entire life of the trade

P&L and Drawdowns Over Time (Top Chart)

• Green Line: Realised Profit & Loss ($k) of the selected trade.
• Dashed Blue Line: High watermark of the selected trade's P&L
• Red Bars (Background): Drawdown zones from most recent equity peaks.
• Y-axis Left: Trade Profit & Loss.
• Y-axis Right: Trade Drawdown in $k.

Attribution Breakdown (Bottom Chart)

• Coloured Bars - P&L Contribution in $k to the P&L depending on attribution type
  • Greek - Attribution per Greek (delta, gamma, theta, vega)
  • Leg - Attribution per all used legs. 

📚 Data Sources

• Marked Trade Date: Manually entered by the user.
• P&L Tracking: Calculated from the daily settlement of traded instruments.
• Greek Sensitivities: Aggregated and estimated from option models applied to trade legs.
• Drawdowns: Computed continuously from realised P&L progression.

🧩 Interpretation Tips

• Isolate drivers: Look for days when a specific Greek dominates the attribution — this can signal structural exposure or unexpected behavior.
• Positive streaks vs drawdowns: Match large drawdowns with attribution to see if Vega spikes or Delta trends were the cause.
• Trade efficiency: Compare time decay (Theta) vs Gamma to assess how well a trade aged.
• Execution review: Was P&L skewed early or late in the trade’s life? This can help refine entry/exit timing rules.
• Learning archive: Use a library of past trades to build playbooks, documenting what setups produce consistent outcomes.