Forex trades can look wrong when the journal mixes local time, broker time, exchange time, and UTC. Good review starts by making the time basis clear.
The sessions
Asia, London, and New York often behave differently. Record the session you traded, not only the clock time.
Local time vs UTC
UTC is useful for storage and backend systems. Local time is useful for humans. A professional journal can store UTC while showing the trader's selected timezone in the interface.
Broker time
Some platforms export timestamps in broker time. If the import does not know that timezone, entry and exit review can appear off by hours.
Journal fields
- Pair
- Session
- Local timezone
- Broker timezone if known
- News filter
- Stop distance and pip value
When timezone is clear, screenshots, replay, and performance by session become much easier to trust.