Trading journal and simulation

EN source master • P04 — Trading Foundations • needs_review.

Educational boundary: mechanisms and evidence only. No BUY/SELL/HOLD signal, trade recommendation, personalized investment advice, guaranteed setup, price target, expected profit, guaranteed win rate or guaranteed risk/reward outcome. All examples are ILLUSTRATIVE / FICTIONAL; no real money or live trade is required.

A journal preserves what was known, assumed and done before the outcome. Without that record, later explanations can silently borrow future information or replace the original plan. A good simulation is a reproducible process exercise. It does not establish the ability to earn money or predict a future market.

Use paper or an offline spreadsheet. No account, wallet, order submission, API call or real money is required. Tickets are preassigned for mechanism comparison, not recommended trades. Treat each case as an independent reset. Record cash, filled quantity, remaining order quantity, exposure and fees after each event.

Before revealing the event stream, write the supplied ticket, eligible prices, matching/trigger rules, costs, invalidation assumptions and uncertainties in a dated local journal entry. Record which sections have already been seen. Because this lesson includes its own correction, covering later sections is a learning convention, not enforced blinding. A learner who has seen the result must label the attempt “reconstruction,” not claim an unseen prospective test.

A simulation engine needs a fill rule. Here resting opposing orders are consumed in price order immediately with no queue ahead, hidden liquidity, latency or competing orders. That assumption makes grading deterministic. It does not establish realistic execution. A tick reaching a price is not enough to fill an order if size and priority are not also specified.

Use actual stipulated fills for cash accounting. Entry outlay includes entry fees; exit proceeds subtract exit fees. Do not charge fees on an unfilled remainder. Keep marked value separate from executed proceeds. An open quantity's hypothetical mark is not a realized fill. Our terminal instructions include complete executable books so final cash can be calculated without inventing exits.

A journal should retain original assumptions, event observations, derived calculations, errors and post-outcome reflection. Corrections are appended with their reason; do not overwrite a prior estimate to make the record look prescient. A calculation error discovered after an outcome is a learning finding, not evidence that the original process was correct.

Hypothetical results do not reproduce financial pressure, real latency, routing or market response to an order. One or two fixed cases are not a backtest of a strategy, an estimate of a win rate or validation of a model. The primary hypothetical-results source supports those limitations; this lesson makes no performance claim.

Source-to-claim scope

• Snapshot bid/ask prices and sizes [S04-BOOK].
• Market and limit definitions [S04-ORDERS].
• Gap and stop execution-price limitations [S04-STOPS].
• Hypothetical versus actual risk and hindsight limitations [S04-SIMULATION].

The fixture's arithmetic, bucket alignment, strict swing rule, matching/trigger assumptions, journal convention and rubric are explicitly supplied teaching conventions where applicable; these references do not authenticate fictional values or endorse a venue. US securities and futures sources support bounded vocabulary and limitations, not a claim that their rules apply universally to crypto.

• Pre-outcome record: assumptions written before the outcome is inspected, with exposure to data disclosed.
• Event stream: ordered trigger, book and execution states.
• Residual: unfilled order quantity or remaining holding, separately tracked.
• Cash reconciliation: entry outflows and exit inflows including fees.
• Hindsight leakage: later data used as if available earlier.
• Process score: evidence-quality assessment independent of net outcome.

Data status: ILLUSTRATIVE / FICTIONAL. CU/FU are training units only. Cases A and B each start with 1000CU, zero FU, integer sizes, fee 0.1% of each executed notional. Fees are exact to 0.001CU where needed; no borrowing, leverage or interest. Each case resets the book. Synthetic T markers are not market dates.

Stage 1 — inputs visible before outcomes. Journal these preassigned instructions:

• A: purchase-direction limit ticket 4FU, ceiling 101; cancel any remainder atT1; liquidate only the filled holding atT2 at supplied eligible bids.
• B: purchase-direction market ticket 4FU; attach disposal-direction stop-market for exactly the filled quantity, trigger 98 by last trade at-or-below; terminal liquidation is that triggered execution.
• Both: T0 asks 2FU at 101 and 3FU at 102. Immediate matching, zero queue ahead and no simultaneous changes. Fees charged only on executed quantities.
• Unknown at Stage 1: later bids and reference prints. An earlier last reference 100 is supplied for B. These are assigned operations in a fictional worksheet, not choices to apply to a current market.

Stage 2 — reveal only after saving Stage 1.

• A:T1 has no new eligible asks; cancel confirmation arrives before any later execution. T2 bid 99 has 2FU available; the terminal 2FU holding is fully liquidated against it.
• B:T1 next last trade 95 crosses below 98. Trigger activates immediately. Bids are 2FU at 95 and 2FU at 94; no other orders or changes precede this disposal. All 4FU execute. No remaining holding.
• Neither stream provides an intervening 98 print. All records needed for these fixed cases are included; no events beyondT2 are supplied.

Tasks: create an event table; calculate entry and exit notionals, fees, averages, residuals and final cash; reconcile both accounts; classify assumptions and unknowns; identify a possible hindsight edit; append a post-outcome error/reflection entry. Compare processes without ranking the cases by return.

Journal template: attempt type and dataset version; pre-outcome knowledge cutoff; assigned ticket and trigger basis; fill assumptions; fee units; expected state transitions; event observations with locators; calculations and residuals; four-state evidence report; error and correction log; reflection on model limits.

Five dimensions, each 0–4 points, maximum 20. Financial outcome, return and profit contribute exactly 0 points. Apply the same rubric to both cases.

Use 1 or 3 only when evidence falls clearly between the stated anchors and explain the judgment. Full correction with a truthful pre-outcome record or labeled reconstruction can earn 20/20 in either losing case. A net-positive number obtained by omitting fees or inventing a fill earns no financial bonus and loses relevant process credit. Unfounded financial recommendations cannot earn assumption-quality credit.

The journal can prove its own documented calculations under the fixture, not unseen discipline, real execution quality or future returns. The outcome stream is small, selected and visible in the lesson. Report those limitations. A score is not a certificate, profit assessment or validation of a live strategy.

Do not merge the reset accounts, charge unfilled quantity, assume a98 exit, substitute a mark for a fill or rewrite Stage 1 after seeing Stage 2. Check ticket states, quantities, fee bases, cash, evidence cutoff and error log. Confirm scoring awards no outcome points.

A useful journal makes assumptions and errors inspectable. An offline simulation can teach order accounting and hindsight control while remaining a limited model. Accurate losing-case reconstruction deserves process credit; simulated profit never determines this lesson's score.

P04-L08-V01 — transaction timeline

Educational question: Can a losing simulation receive full process credit?

Dataset: FIX-P04-08; ILLUSTRATIVE; observedAt=null. Mechanism sources: S04-BOOK, S04-ORDERS, S04-STOPS, S04-SIMULATION. Create separate A/B chronological lanes with plan lockT−1, entryT0, cancellation or triggerT1 and terminal accountingT2. Show quantities and fees alongside event states. Add a five-dimension20-point rubric with explicit zero outcome points and no profit-ranking color scale.

Caption: The offline score measures documentation and reasoning; net outcome contributes zero points.

Alt text: CaseA ends 995.600CU and caseB971.216CU; both can earn 20/20 for correct documented process.

Layout: 390px stacked labels and accessible equivalent text table; 768px/tablet and desktop verification pending. RTL: RTL layout and native labels for later Arabic adaptation; isolate IDs LTR; preserve chronological direction and numerical price axes. No translation authored. Style: Dark navy with cyan, electric blue and violet; readable contrast and labels independent of color; official ZECOIN branding only. Deterministic chart/SVG/HTML; no fabricated market screenshot.

Status: SPECIFICATION_ONLY; version 1; needs_review. No rendered asset or runtime integration is claimed.

P04-L08-V02 — evidence panel

Educational question: Which conclusions follow from these inputs, and which remain unsupported?

Dataset: FIX-P04-08; ILLUSTRATIVE; observedAt=null. Mechanism sources: S04-BOOK, S04-ORDERS, S04-STOPS, S04-SIMULATION. Bind four labelled rows OBSERVED / INFERRED / UNKNOWN / INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE to this lesson's evidence table and record locators. Include one calculation or classification and its assumptions. Display missing data and execution limits explicitly; no financial call or forecast badges.

Caption: Illustrative evidence states under the stated data and execution assumptions.

Alt text: A four-state table distinguishes supplied fictional records, conditional calculations, missing information and unsupported claims.

Layout: 390px stacked labels and accessible equivalent text table; 768px/tablet and desktop verification pending. RTL: RTL layout and native labels for later Arabic adaptation; isolate IDs LTR; preserve chronological direction and numerical price axes. No translation authored. Style: Dark navy with cyan, electric blue and violet; readable contrast and labels independent of color; official ZECOIN branding only. Deterministic chart/SVG/HTML; no fabricated market screenshot.

Status: SPECIFICATION_ONLY; version 1; needs_review. No rendered asset or runtime integration is claimed.

NONE. Use the embedded fixture, paper or an offline worksheet. No paid access, live market feed, real funds, wallet connection, account creation, signatures or trades are needed. No production tool capability is added or asserted.

• S04-BOOK — Coinbase product book: https://docs.cdp.coinbase.com/api-reference/exchange-api/rest-api/products/get-product-book Supports: Bids, asks, prices and sizes in a book snapshot; fixture matching rules are original. Checked 2026-09-30; primary page inspected.
• S04-ORDERS — SEC Investor.gov Types of Orders: https://www.investor.gov/introduction-investing/investing-basics/how-stock-markets-work/types-orders Supports: Market versus limit mechanics; US securities education used for vocabulary, not universal crypto rules. Checked 2026-09-30; primary page inspected.
• S04-STOPS — FINRA Regulatory Notice 16-19: https://www.finra.org/rules-guidance/notices/16-19 Supports: Stop-market price uncertainty and stop-limit non-execution risk; US securities context. Checked 2026-09-30; primary page inspected.
• S04-SIMULATION — NFA Rule 2-29: https://www.nfa.futures.org/rulebooksql/rules.aspx?RuleID=RULE+2-29&Section=4 Supports: Hypothetical outcomes omit actual financial risk and can contain hindsight limitations; no claim this rule legally governs Academy. Checked 2026-09-30; primary page inspected.

These references support mechanism definitions only. All fixture values, paths, tickets, capital, fills and calculations are original ILLUSTRATIVE / FICTIONAL teaching material, not source-observed prices, a historical performance series or a recommendation for a current market. Documentation examples and official venue names do not endorse a platform. Dataset FIX-P04-08 is bounded to the embedded records and assumptions; observedAt=null because no real-world observation was collected. Future source review and editorial acceptance remain pending: reviewStatus=needs_review, lastReviewedAt=null.

End of P04. Review the completed journal and correction before choosing the next program from the Academy dashboard.