Guide
What a Futures Trading Journal Needs
A stock or forex log is not enough for futures. Every contract has its own tick size and dollar value, fees are charged per contract and per side, and prop-firm accounts add daily-loss and drawdown limits. This guide lists what a futures journal has to capture, with worked examples, so you can check any journal against it, including ours.
1. Contract-specific P&L: tick size and tick value
A futures price moves in ticks, and every contract assigns its own dollar value to a tick. One tick is $12.50 in ES, $1.25 in MES, $5.00 in NQ, $0.50 in MNQ, $10.00 in CL and $10.00 in GC. The same 10-tick move is worth $125 in ES, $12.50 in MES, $50 in NQ and $100 in CL. A journal that does not know the contract multiplies by the wrong number, and every P&L, R-multiple and risk figure after that is wrong.
| Contract | One tick | 10 ticks |
|---|---|---|
| ES | $12.50 | $125.00 |
| MES | $1.25 | $12.50 |
| NQ | $5.00 | $50.00 |
| MNQ | $0.50 | $5.00 |
| CL | $10.00 | $100.00 |
| GC | $10.00 | $100.00 |
Tick sizes and values for each contract are listed in the contract specifications hub.
2. Fees per side and per contract, so P&L is net
Futures commissions and exchange fees are charged per contract, per side. A round turn on 4 contracts at an illustrative $0.62 per side costs 4 × 2 × $0.62 = $4.96 before exchange and clearing fees. Those fees decide whether a scalper's small winners are winners at all, so a journal needs fees stored on every trade and a net P&L beside the gross. Example figures are illustrative, not quotes.
3. Risk in dollars and R-multiples
Risk per trade is stop distance in ticks × tick value × contracts. A 12-tick stop on 2 NQ contracts risks 12 × $5.00 × 2 = $120; if the trade makes $240, that is +2R. Without the contract's tick value a journal can state neither number, and you cannot tell whether a loss stayed inside your plan.
4. Account limits: daily loss and drawdown
Prop-firm accounts add rules that end the account if breached: a daily loss limit, a trailing or end-of-day drawdown and sometimes a consistency rule. A useful journal measures the room left against those limits from the trades it has, not only the P&L so far. Fillbook shows that room from logged trades and warns before a limit; it cannot see your broker's balance or block orders. See how prop-firm drawdown rules work.
5. Trades that arrive intact: fills, scaling and sessions
Futures trades are often scaled in and out and run through the evening session, which belongs to the next trading day. A journal has to merge partial fills into one position, keep contract months straight, and assign each trade to the right trading day rather than the calendar day. See how futures session dates work.
6. Behavior you can see in the data
Overtrading, revenge trades after a loss and trades outside your plan show up in timestamps, sizes and results. A journal should surface those patterns from your own history as flags to review, not as predictions. Read more about overtrading.
A five-question check for any futures journal
- Does it use the right tick value for each contract, including micros?
- Does it store fees on each trade and show net P&L?
- Does it compute risk in dollars and R-multiples from your stop?
- Does it measure daily-loss and drawdown room for your account type?
- Does it import or sync your platform without retyping trades?
See it on sample trades
Open the sample dashboard to see tick-accurate P&L, fees and drawdown room on a made-up account. No signup.
Open the sample dashboardCommon questions
It can, if you keep a tick-value table for every contract you trade, enter fees on every trade and keep your limit and drawdown formulas correct. Most traders find that tick values and net-of-fee P&L are where hand-built sheets drift.
A journal must treat each micro as its own contract: a MES tick is $1.25, not the $12.50 of ES. Mixing them is a common reason P&L looks wrong.
No. This guide describes what a journal measures from your own logged trades. It does not predict results or recommend trades.
Educational content, not financial, investment or tax advice. Examples use illustrative figures, not quotes. Futures trading involves substantial risk of loss. Full disclosures.