SpotTradeJournal now has a dedicated Equity Curve page. It shows you the full shape of your trading — not just your win rate or total P&L, but the actual path your account took to get there. Where it peaked, how far it fell, which months were profitable, and how the curve looks when you filter to only your winning or losing trades.
Here's what it shows and how to read it.
Why the Equity Curve Matters
Two traders can have identical total P&L and completely different equity curves. One might have grown steadily from day one. The other might have doubled their account, given most of it back, and ended up at the same number. The total is the same. The experience — and the risk taken to get there — is entirely different.
Your win rate doesn't show this. Your total P&L doesn't show this. The equity curve does.
It's also one of the most honest views you can have of your own trading. A curve that looks like a mountain range — lots of sharp peaks and deep valleys — tells a different story than one that climbs steadily with shallow pullbacks. Both can be profitable. Only one is sustainable.
What's on the Page
Stats Strip
Four cards at the top give you the headline numbers before you look at a single chart:
- Net P&L — your total cumulative profit or loss across all closed trades
- Peak Equity — the highest point your running P&L ever reached
- Max Drawdown — the largest peak-to-trough decline, expressed as a percentage. Colour-coded: green below 10%, yellow between 10–20%, red above 20%
- Win Rate — percentage of closed trades that were profitable, with raw win and loss counts
Cumulative P&L Chart
The main chart plots your running P&L after every trading day. Each point on the line represents your account balance at the close of that day — all trades for the day summed and added to the running total.
Green dots mark days where your net result was positive. Red dots mark days where you lost. The dot size scales with the number of trades: a day with five trades gets a larger dot than a day with one, so you can spot your busiest trading sessions at a glance.
Hovering any point shows a tooltip with the date, trade count, day P&L, running total, and current drawdown for that moment in time.
A dashed zero line sits at +$0 so you can immediately see when you crossed into profitable territory — and when you fell back below it.
Drawdown from Peak
The second chart shows your drawdown at every point in time — how far your running equity was below its previous peak, expressed as a percentage.
When the line is at 0%, you're at an all-time high. When it dips, you're in a drawdown. The deeper the red area, the further you were from your peak at that moment.
This chart is often more useful than the equity curve for understanding risk. A trader who grew from $0 to $200, fell back to $60, and recovered to $200 had a 70% drawdown along the way — even though the equity curve ends at the same place. The drawdown chart makes that visible in a way the main curve doesn't.
Monthly P&L
A bar chart showing your net profit or loss grouped by calendar month. Green bars are profitable months, red bars are losing months. A zero reference line sits across the middle.
This view answers questions that trade-by-trade data obscures: Was February consistently good? Did March underperform because of a bad streak or because the whole month was weak? Are there seasonal patterns in your results?
Trade Breakdown Table
Below the charts, every closed trade is listed in chronological order with five columns: date, asset, trade P&L, running total at that point, and drawdown at that point. The drawdown column is colour-coded — grey when shallow, yellow when moderate, red when significant.
This lets you trace any point on the equity curve back to the specific trade that caused it.
Filters
Three filter buttons sit above the charts: All, Wins Only, and Losses Only. Switching to Wins Only rebuilds the entire equity curve using only your winning trades — recalculating running totals and drawdowns from scratch for that subset. Same for Losses Only.
This is a useful diagnostic tool. If your wins-only curve looks healthy but your full curve has deep drawdowns, your losses are concentrated and outsized. If your wins-only curve is also choppy, your winning trades themselves are inconsistent in size.
A date range picker lets you zoom into any period — a specific month, a quarter, or a rough patch you want to examine more closely. The reset button returns everything to the full date range.
How to Read Your Equity Curve
A few patterns worth knowing:
Steady upward slope with shallow drawdowns — the ideal. Consistent gains, controlled losses, no single event that puts a large dent in the account.
Sharp peaks followed by deep valleys — often means position sizing is inconsistent. Big wins followed by big losses that give most of it back. The total P&L can still be positive, but the ride is rough and the drawdowns are taking a real psychological toll.
Long flat periods followed by sharp moves — common in traders who are selective but inactive. Not necessarily a problem, but worth asking whether the flat periods are patient waiting or avoidance.
Drawdown that never fully recovers — a sustained decline after a period of good performance. Often signals a change in market conditions that the trader hasn't adapted to yet, or a shift in discipline after early success.
None of these patterns are verdicts. They're questions. The equity curve gives you the shape; the journal gives you the explanation.
Available Now
The Equity Curve is live for all SpotTradeJournal users. You'll find it in the sidebar under Analysis → Equity Curve. It builds automatically from your existing closed trades — there's nothing to configure.
If you have a large trade history, the chart may take a moment to load on first open. Everything is calculated server-side so the chart data is ready as soon as the page renders.
As always, if you have feedback — things you'd like to see added, or something that doesn't look right — let us know. The equity curve will continue to evolve.