SOAP2 Trade Reports as a Trade Journal — How-To Guide

Related:

• Categories, Tags and Capital Pools: how the three ways of organising trades differ
• Capital Pools: Starter Guide: one routine from start to finish
• Strategy Series: reading the rounds of one strategy together
• Trade Reporting & Saved Reports (the single-trade report and its snapshots)
• The Trade Log (TLog)
• Trade Rules (categories, tags and pool alerts)
• Accounts (the fee schedule behind commissions)
• Keyboard shortcuts
• SOAP2 Help Guide

Requires: Trade Reports has no edition restriction. Trade Rules features mentioned here (category override, pool alerts) need the Regular edition or above.

New and lightly tested: every part of this page was built recently and has not yet been through a long live session. Tell us if a number looks wrong.

What It Does

Trades > Trade Reports (new) (Alt+Z) lists your trades, groups them any way you like, and shows realised and unrealised P&L down to each leg and each fill. Used as a journal it also records, per trade, what you would otherwise write by hand after closing a trade: a category, tags, a free-text note, and the figures traders track: days in trade (DIT), days to expiration at entry (DTE), the risk the trade carried and P&L as a percentage of that risk. Nothing is requested from IB: it reads your executions and the prices SOAP2 already holds, and anything unknown shows n/a, never 0.

Reading the screenshot. The left panel filters the list (open, closed, expired, archived, tag, category, dates) and ticks the trades to report. The grid groups them by account and trade and shows quantity, average cost, realised, unrealised, commissions, total and return on cost; the Data column says whether the marks are live. The toolbar holds the Levels, Commissions, Risk basis and journal controls, and the bottom strip is for the trade's note, planned capital and capital pool.

When to Use It

• After closing a trade, to read its final net P&L (after the commissions you choose to count) and write down why you did what you did.
• To compare your own categories of trade, for example "IV low" against "earnings", instead of encoding them in account names.
• To see, for a period, which kinds of trade made or lost money, and how much risk each one carried.

The toolbar

• Group by chooses how trades are grouped; Levels opens the report to a depth: Collapse all, 1 level, 2 levels, 3 levels (down to the legs) or All (with the executions under each leg). You can still open or close single rows.
• Commissions is one list: Opening + closing, Opening only, Closing only, None, or Opening + closing + anticipated close (see below).
• Risk basis chooses what the Risk and P&L % columns are measured against (see "The Risk basis" below). It starts from General Settings > Usage > Reports: default risk basis (Planned capital unless you changed it); picking another one in the toolbar changes this window only, so you can keep your default and still look at another basis for a moment. Alt+Z opens this window from anywhere.

Which number is which (read this first)

Several columns look alike. Each answers one question:

Important: Risk, P&L %, Capital used and Basis are journal columns, and they are hidden until you press the Journal columns button (or choose the Journal grouping). If you cannot find a return on risk, that button is the reason. Return on cost is always visible.

Quick check, with made-up numbers: a trade has made +300. It cost 1,000 (return on cost 30.0%), carried a largest margin of 4,200 and has a planned capital of 10,000. With the Planned capital basis its P&L % is 3.0% (300 on 10,000); with Max margin it is 7.1% (300 on 4,200). The money did not change; only the yardstick did.

The Risk basis

The Risk basis list chooses the yardstick. Pick the one you think in; the Basis column then shows, trade by trade, what was really used.

Mixed books are normal: some trades have a planned capital and some do not. With the default basis each trade uses its own figure, and the Basis column says which, for example "Planned capital", "Max margin (no plan)" or "Max loss (no plan)". Nothing is ever filled in with zero.

A quick look at another basis, without changing anything: hover a trade's P&L % cell. The tooltip gives the percentage on every basis, the chosen one in [brackets]. Hover the Risk cell to see which source was used and why.

What margin means here

"Margin" in Reports is SOAP2's own estimate, the same figure the Options Analysis window, Portfolio and the Trade Report use: the worst total P&L at expiry of the legs you hold, priced at your entry prices, plus what you have already realised. It is not the margin requirement your broker charges and can differ from it. Unlike Max absolute risk it gives a number for a naked short option.

The largest value is recorded while SOAP2 runs (about every 10 seconds it looks at trades whose executions are loaded and notes a new peak after an adjustment) and a later close never lowers it. A trade with no record is worked out from its executions when the report opens, so you get the same figure either way. If you correct a fill's price or fees, the figure is recomputed. Recording has not yet been checked on a live adjusted trade.

The Journal view

Pick Journal: trades by close date in the Group by list. You get one row per trade, newest close first (open trades last), with the journal columns on. The Journal columns button shows or hides the same columns in any other grouping. Click a column header to sort across all trades: Category, Opened, Closed, DIT, DTE, Risk, P&L %, Capital used.

• DIT counts calendar days from the first execution to the close, or to now while the trade is open.
• DTE counts calendar days from the first execution to the nearest expiry among the trade's options.
• Risk, P&L %, Capital used and Basis follow the Risk basis list on the toolbar; see "The Risk basis" above. P&L % is the trade's total P&L divided by the Risk amount.
• Capital used is what the row has in use. On a trade it equals Risk. On a capital pool row it is what the pool's open trades use now, beside the pool amount in the Risk column. On a strategy series row it is the peak capital at work, beside the series' planned amount when it has one.

Category, hybrid trades and tags

• Category is the one SOAP2 uses everywhere (recognised from the legs, or your override in Trade Rules). An archived trade keeps the category it had when last open.
• Hybrid: double-click the Category cell of a trade and type further categories after the primary, separated by +, for example Iron condor + Calendar. Short names work when they are unambiguous (Calendar finds "Calendar / diagonal"). The hybrid set is descriptive only: Trade Rules and templates use the primary category. Group by Category counts a trade once, under its primary. The Composition grouping lists a hybrid trade under each of its categories, so its group totals overlap; the total row still counts each trade once.
• Tags: double-click the Tags cell and type your own labels separated by commas (up to 12 per trade, 40 characters each). A trade has one list of tags, shared with the Trade Rules editor and the rules dashboard filter: a tag typed in either place shows in the other. Group by Tag lists a trade under each of its tags ("(no tag)" for none); the Tag filter narrows the list to one tag. As with Composition, tag groups overlap and do not add up. To tag, or remove a tag from, many trades at once, see "Bulk assign" below.
• The Category filter keeps trades whose primary category or hybrid set contains the category you choose.

Notes

Select a trade (or one of its legs): the box under the grid shows its note. Type, then click elsewhere to save; Esc undoes the edit since the last save. You can also double-click the Notes cell of a trade row. Notes, tags and categories are saved with the trade (they survive archiving) and are searched by the Find box and included in Save CSV, Save Excel and Copy.

Planned capital

Next to the notes box: type the capital you planned for the trade. It is the same value as the Planned Capital box of the Options Analysis window and the one Trade Rules use: change it in either place and the other shows it (Reports keeps no copy of its own). A trade that has none of its own uses the default of its category (and with the Planned capital basis, a trade with neither falls back to its largest margin, then its largest possible loss; the Basis column says so): type an amount and press Use as default for this category (clear the box and press it again to remove the default). A trade's own value is never changed by a default. The default lives with Trade Rules: the Options Analysis Planned Capital box shows it (greyed tooltip "default for ...") for a trade with no value of its own, the rules use it, and the rules editor hints it in its empty box.

Capital pools

A capital pool is a named pot of money, with an optional amount, that several trades draw on while you roll them. It is the way to watch the capital of a whole program (for instance a monthly Rhino entry) instead of trade by trade. You can use pools alone, trade by trade, or both.

• Put a trade in a pool with the Capital pool box next to the Planned capital box (a new name creates the pool), and type the pool's amount in the box below it.
• Group by Capital pool > Trade: the pool row shows its P&L, the P&L % measured on the pool amount (Risk column), what its open trades use (Capital used column) and, on hover, what is left. Its Basis cell reads "Pool amount". A closed trade releases its capital immediately but its P&L stays in the pool.
• Membership is only what you set: a pool never collects trades by itself.
• When a pool has no amount and the trade you just put in it is its only trade, SOAP2 offers to use that trade's own planned capital as the pool amount. You can say no, and both values stay editable.
• A pool with an amount is also watched by starter Trade Rules alerts (Regular edition and above); Pool rules opens them.

The full story, with a worked example, is in two companion guides: SOAP2 Capital Pools Starter Guide (a monthly Rhino program from start to finish) and SOAP2 Categories Tags and Capital Pools (the complete reference, including what the Free edition includes).

Bulk assign

To put many trades in a pool, or add or remove a tag on many, in one step: highlight the rows (Ctrl- or Shift-click; a group row stands for every trade below it), right-click, and choose Put selected trades in a capital pool..., Take selected trades out of their pool, Add a tag to selected trades... or Remove a tag from selected trades.... Only the highlighted rows are touched, and the status line reports the result.

Commissions

One list on the toolbar chooses which fees count: Opening + closing, Opening only, Closing only, None, or Opening + closing + anticipated close. It starts from General Settings > Usage; your choice applies to this window. The anticipated close also deducts an estimate of what closing every open leg now would cost, from the account's fee schedule (Accounts panel). It is marked ~, kept apart from fees paid, and a leg whose rate is unknown makes the figure partial (*).

Selecting rows to total them

Ctrl- or Shift-click rows in the report: the status bar shows their total. A row inside a selected row (a leg of a selected trade) is not added twice, and amounts in different currencies are never added together.

Coming from Option Net Explorer

ONE has no categories, so its users often keep one account per strategy and sort by account. In SOAP2 use Category, Tags and the Group by list instead: the real account stays the account. Many accounts still work, and Account and Account > Tag groupings are there if you want them.

How It Fits Your Workflow

1. Close a trade. Open Trade Reports and choose the Journal view.
2. Check the net P&L and the P&L % (the Basis column tells you what it is measured on), add a note, a tag or a hybrid category.
3. Once in a while, group by Tag or Composition to see which kinds of trade pay, remembering that overlapping groups do not add up.

Correcting a fill's price

Expand a leg to see its fills, then double-click the price of a fill (the Avg cost column), type the price you really got and press Enter. The fill row then shows the original in its Notes cell. Only the price changes (not the strike, quantity or contract). SOAP2 keeps the original in the execution's notes ([price was 5 until 2026-10-27]; a second correction keeps the first original), re-works the trade's P&L and updates an open Options Analysis window and Trade Log. You can make the same correction in the Trade Log's Price cell instead: whichever you save last prevails and the other follows. A leg that has a final settlement price cannot be corrected, and a Trade Log that holds unsaved edits of the trade is not overwritten (save or discard them there). To undo, double-click the price again and type the original, which the fill's note shows. (Back and Forward only simulate earlier states on the Trade Log ticks; they do not put an old price back in the trade file.)

If you see n/a, or something looks wrong