The options journal that adds up what expiring cost you
Strike, expiry, call or put, and premium are fields, not notes. Risk is measured per contract at the multiplier, so your R-multiples mean something.
Why generic journals fail options traders
Most journals were built for shares and had options bolted on. You end up typing "AAPL 190C 3/21" into a symbol field, entering a price that could be the premium or the underlying, and getting a P/L that is out by a factor of a hundred.
Here the instrument type changes the form. Choose Option and you get strike, expiry, and call-or-put as real fields. The multiplier is applied where it belongs, so one contract at a $2.50 premium is $250 of exposure, not $2.50.
Risk per contract, honestly
The hardest question in an options journal is what 1R actually was. For a long call bought outright, the honest answer is usually the full premium — the trade can go to zero. For a spread it is the width less the credit. For anything you intended to cut at a price, it is the distance to that exit.
The journal takes planned risk as its own field rather than guessing, because the number you intended to lose is a decision you made, not something derivable from a fill.
The number no other journal shows you
Letting a contract expire is a decision. It never feels like one, because there is no exit to remember and no ticket in the history — so it is the one loss traders reliably forget. Ask most options traders what expiring worthless cost them last quarter and they genuinely do not know.
Held To Expiry adds it up: how many contracts ran to zero, what they cost, the worst offenders, and what share of your total losses they account for. On a real account it is usually a bigger number than anyone expects.
Unlike most journal findings, the fix is mechanical. There is no habit to unlearn and no psychology to work through. You close them.
What the breakdowns reveal
- By hold time — options decay. Traders often discover their two-day holds pay and their two-week holds do not.
- By real R — a long option can lose its whole premium, so the premium is the risk. That makes R a fact on an options trade rather than an estimate, and every other breakdown inherits it.
- By hour of day — opening-bell premium is expensive, and it shows.
- By setup — which of your patterns justify paying for time.
- By mistake — "held through earnings", "bought too far out of the money", "averaged down on a call". Tag them and the pattern appears within a month.
Attach the chart
An options trade is a view on the underlying, so the chart that matters is the underlying's. Paste or drop a screenshot onto the entry and exit of any trade, and the review page shows the two side by side with your notes.
Questions
Can I log spreads and multi-leg positions?
Log the position as one entry using the net premium paid or received, and set the planned risk to the maximum loss of the structure. Per-leg logging is not supported yet, and for review purposes the net position is usually what you want to judge anyway.
How is the profit calculated for options?
At the contract multiplier, which is 100 for standard US equity options. A move from a $2.50 to a $3.10 premium on one contract is $60, not $0.60.
What should I use as 1R on a long call?
Usually the full premium, because that is what the trade can lose. If you always cut at a set premium instead of letting it expire, use the distance to that exit - but be honest, and use the same rule every time or your R-multiples stop being comparable.
Does it track implied volatility or greeks?
No. This is a decision journal, not an analytics terminal. It records what you did and what it cost, so you can see which of your own patterns work.
Start with your last twenty trades
Import them, tag the setups and the mistakes, and look at the hour-of-day breakdown. Ten minutes, no card.