I think the majority of people trading stocks and such will just leave the journal making to the brokerage. I know most brokerages nowadays do a respectful job of keeping a detailed transaction history and tax lot information for your trades on their websites. This post is certainly not about how to trade options and how to profit off them.

They are incredibly complex and super risky financial instruments. This post is not to provide any sort of financial advice but rather sole to provide a spreadsheet that tracks your trades. Options are much more complex than just trading traditional stocks. They are derivative after all which derive their value from the change in value of another asset. There is very complex mathematical formulas and market forces that contribute to the price of an option.

Here are some of the things I like to keep track of:. Options are inherently just way riskier than buying standard stocks or bonds.

If you option wheel a meme style growth stock, you are bound to get destroyed when the markets crash. Make sure to understand the risks of options trading before engaging in it! Otherwise, an alternative you can consider is buying I Bonds Inflation bonds which are paying a risk free 9. I think a lot of old school traders keep a detailed journal for trading.

However, I have been using a few strategies to generate consistent income while I was working and after I retired early. For the majority, I largely use this spreadsheet to track my options wheel strategy. To summarize, the options wheel strategy is simply to sell cash covered puts and collect the premiums until you get assigned. After you get assigned with shares, start selling covered calls until you are once against assigned. Rinse and repeat. This is perhaps the most boring options strategy of all time, but it is of the least risky and least complicated to understand.

Here is a great and simple diagram explaining the process:. Because I run the options wheel strategy consistently, I end up trading A LOT of options every week. I trade about 10 different companies to diversify my risk and mostly sell options one or two weeks out meaning I rinse and repeat constantly. This is why the spreadsheet is great. Of course, if you are doing straddles, iron condors, or something more complex, you can easily use this spreadsheet and customize it to your own methods.

The spreadsheet is simple, yet effective. Just make sure you update it on a regular basis. I would recommend spending minutes updating the spreadsheet once a month with your figures. Keep in mind that this spreadsheet is also what I use to track my own expenses. I will be making updates live and will add additional features to this spreadsheet as time goes on so make sure to check in for updates!

Download Options Trading Spreadsheet. The spreadsheet is in Google Sheets because if I update it in the future, it will be easy to access from anywhere with an internet connection.

I prefer this to Microsoft Excel. I will explain everything necessary for those wanting to get the full use out of the spreadsheet. For the most part, anyone with any excel experience should just follow my spreadsheet and populate accordingly. Do not touch cells with formulas because everything is intricately linked. All cells that you should update have been color coded with gray cells.

Some of the spreadsheet is created with Google Finance. All shaded cells on this spreadsheet are formulas. They are not mandatory but I find them helpful for my own trading purposes. You may or may not depending on your style. The spreadsheet is not super fancy unfortunately. If you are adding a new trade, simply copy and paste the previous row and update the ticker and option information accordingly.

When buying or selling options, I rarely wait until the option expires, even if I am in the money. Populate the Closing Date and Closing price columns accordingly when you are selling your options early to keep track of your net profit.

It is one of the primary methods I use to generate a little extra income during retirement. In section 3, you will find out the greeks of the option strategy calculator Excel. With this information, we can now apply different techniques to enter or exit strategies, such as stopping a trade when it reaches a certain delta. You will also learn the total greek of the strategy in the option strategy builder Excel.

We have added a graph in our options calculator excel, in which we will be able to see the behavior of the greeks in front of the underlying price. You can choose which greek to monitor in the Options profit calculator Excel. As you can see, we can pick between delta , theta, gamma , vega , or display them all simultaneously. We have excluded rho in the graph because it is not as important as the other greeks.

Section 4: Using the Pointers in the option calculator Excel In many situations, we might want to take any action attending to the behavior of the underlying price.

This particular section is dedicated to that purpose. Here, the idea is to use the pointer to establish a stop loss or a target price based on the underlying price. For example, suppose we want to add a stop loss and a profit target to the credit spread strategy we have opened as an example. Let us take at section 4 of our option profit calculator in excel. With the pointer, we will be able to calculate gains and losses on options for those key underlying prices we have selected, both at the current date and expiration.

This will be useful to have a future projection of the behavior and define our strategy better. One of the most important features of our Advanced Calculator is the ability to display the most important spots on the option strategy.

To help us visualize everything every key value and level, we have included both pointers and the critical values in the graph. We have included three pointers that we can add to the graph. These are pointers to the entry underlying price, the stop-loss price, and the profit underlying price. Section 5: Breakdown of the premium of legs of the strategy If we want to take a look at how every single leg behaves when the underlying price change in section 5, we will be able to do so. Just under section 3 of the strategy payoff calculator, we will find section 5.

This one will show us the values of the premium for both the expiration and the current date, and it is displayed for each leg.

In the tables, we will see various columns in which we can find the option premium for each of the legs and its corresponding value for the indicated underlying and the total sum of the branches. Also, you will be able to see the performance of all the greeks of the strategy depending on the current value of the underlying too.

This will be particularly useful to those situation in which we want to be ahead of what it may happen in the market. The graph of section 2 is created from the data in this section, but here, you can check every data with much more detail. Also, the greek graph from section 3 has been created from the greeks obtained in this section. The journal feature of the calculator is destined to transfer the most important data from the trade and the strategy in another Excel sheet where we can easily see the number of legs, the number of contracts, and the most valuable data of the strategy.

In this sheet, we can easily follow every single trade we have opened and closed, learning how much premium we have earned or lost, the date, and the commissions. Once we have set the ID, the strategy, the Ticker and the month, we are ready to go. Immediately after clicking on the button, the Calculator will start operating and the Transaction Log of the Option Trading Journal will open.

This is the Transaction Log of the Advanced Option Profit Calculator Excel. In the Log, the calculator will assign a row for every leg of the strategy so we can easily see the characteristics of every single contract. As options are much more complex than trading with any other financial instrument, we have tried to make the Transaction Log as flexible as possible.

For that reason, we must assign an ID for every single ticker so we can easily sort the trades just like in the following images:. That will help us to keep the strategies ordered and to follow up any new leg or adjustment we add, at the same time we keep track of other trades. Our option calculator Excel can be purchased through this link to our Gumroad page or by clicking on the following image:.

How much does the Advanced Option Calculator Excel cost? Once you have acquired it, it will be yours forever , and you will have access to any future update for free! We do not know if ours is the best options calculator Excel or not. Still, we can assure you that it is absolutely fast, easy to use, and reliable when we need to calculate any option strategy that exists or not in the market. In any case, if you are looking to trade on any option market, and you want to deal with stock options, futures options, and even options on indices, it is vital to have the right tools to control our risk and calculate our profits.

With our advanced option calculator, you will have every option trade covered , no matter what option strategy you use. You will be able to know the strengths and weaknesses of the strategy, check the gains, losses, and neutral points, as well as how to elaborate plans and tactics using stop-loss and profit points once the trade is defined. With our Advanced Option Calculator Excel, you will gain all the control you need to dominate every option trade!

If you are still unsure if options are for you, we highly recommend you to take a look at this article in which we discussed why selling options is the key to win more trades and how to read the probability on options with delta. Here at Warsoption, we use and sometimes eat cookies to ensure that we give you the best possible experience.

By staying with us, we assume you like them too! Aceptar Más información. Whether you are an expert options trader or dream of being one, this interests you Take control of your trades, your money and time and increase your trading profits Know in detail the key points of your strategy, analyze the effect of time and valatility, modify and record your trades and take full control with this Advanced Options Calculator Excel. In this video, you will learn how to use the Advanced Calculator in detail.

Also, you get these three bonuses! We will give top priority to your suggestions for future updates. Access the Advanced Options Calculator Excel and improve your trading. Is this product a one-time payment? Can I see more examples of how to use the Calculator?

How long will it take me to learn how to use the Calculator? Do I need any special software to use the Calculator? Do I need Internet access to use the Calculator? No, at this time it is not necessary. What happens if I modify the Calculator code by mistake? What if I buy the Calculator and then realize that it is not for me?

This journal has been specifically created for option traders rather than stock, futures or day traders. Feel free to tweak it a little bit to include things that are important to you or remove things that you feel are unimportant. In addition to having an excel summary, I also like to have a detailed trade log for important trades.

I compile these trade logs as Google docs and take screenshots of the underlying stock or index chart, the greeks at trade initiation and the payoff diagram. I also like Option Net Explorer 10 GBP Trial for 10 days available , which also has the added advantage of being able to do vigorous backtesting.

The sooner you can start an option trading journal, the quicker you will start to see progress with your trading. A track record helps you understand which strategies are working for you and which ones you need to improve on. Keeping detailed records allows for thoughtful analysis and helps you become a more complete trader.

While it may take some extra time to complete your trading journal, we think it will be well worth it in the long run. Yes, there is some software available such as TraderVue and Edgewonk, but I prefer good old Excel. Once you have some trade history in there, review it religiously and try to spot any problem patterns or areas for improvement.

While keeping a trading journal may not seem that exciting or important, it really is and I guarantee if you do it properly, it will make a big difference to your trading. Disclaimer: The information above is for educational purposes only and should not be treated as investment advice. The strategy presented would not be suitable for investors who are not familiar with exchange traded options. Any readers interested in this strategy should do their own research and seek advice from a licensed financial adviser.

Thank you for this. this really helped me make sense of option trading and keep track of what i do. it just sits there. Thanks for letting me know. I will email you the spreadsheet in the mean time.

Dear Sir, As a prior comment already posted, nothing happens when I click on the button to get your copy of the trading journal. Thank you and any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks Gavin! I greatly appreciate you sharing! Your email address will not be published. blog The Best Option Trading Journal Spreadsheet.

Here is a link to a great stocks and options tracking spreadsheet template on Google documents that can be used for tracking your trades. This spreadsheet allows you to keep track of each of your trades and manage them in one place. Created at www. The orange cells can be manually edited, the green cells are calculated automatically.

Stock price DOC: Underlying stock price at the time you opened the contract. Current stock price: The stock price of the underlier today. Break even price: The price the underlier has to reach for the option play to break even. Put Cash Reserve: The amount of money needed in the account to sell the option. Put Margin Reserve: The amount of money needed in the account to open a naked put option sold in an account using margin.

Fees: All transaction costs for each trade including commissions. Close Date: The day you either exited your option play or it expired. Dark green for profit and red for a loss. Annualized ROR for Options: Calculates the annualized rate of return on the option play. Margin Annualized ROR: Calculates the annualized rate of return based on the smaller margin cash reserve.

Status: Whether a current option play is open, closed, or exercised. Account: The account the option trade is executed in if you have multiple accounts like one for options, one for stocks, IRA, or Roth IRA and trade option plays in each.

This is a great options trading spreadsheet tracker for option traders to manage and have good visibility for each of their trades in real time. Options trading can be complicated and this helps make the option plays more visible.

I have created the Options eCourse for a shortcut to learning how to trade options. Skip to content. options Options Play Trading Journal. By Steve Burns Jul 29, Broken Wing Butterfly Options Play. By Steve Burns. Related Post. options Stocks. May 13, Steve Burns. Options Play Options strategy Options trading. Apr 15, Steve Burns. Option Greek options Options Greeks. Apr 14, Steve Burns. Further Reading. Cathie Wood. Aug 18, Steve Burns. George Soros. Aug 17, Steve Burns.

Warren Buffett. Aug 16, Steve Burns. Michael Burry. Aug 15, Steve Burns.

I should just say ARKK is a CC but just labeled it as a wheel. Our option calculator Excel can be purchased through this link to our Gumroad page or by clicking on the following image:. Of course, if you are doing straddles, iron condors, or something more complex, you can easily use this spreadsheet and customize it to your own methods. To learn more about the option wheel strategy, make sure to read my option wheel strategy post! We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. Futures and forex trading contains substantial risk and is not for every investor.

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