Chart Reporter

How should a journal count partial closes in MT5?

By Chart Reporter Reviewed 2 min read

The short answer

A partial exit is an event within a position's history, not automatically a separate completed trade for every journal statistic. In Chart Reporter, review the final recorded trade alongside its execution events. Do not add partial-close proceeds to an already aggregated final result a second time.

Decide what one observation represents

Imagine a position opened at one size, reduced twice, and finally closed. It has several execution events, but a review organised around the complete trade can still have one observation. A deal-based export and a position-based journal may therefore show different row counts without either count being inherently wrong.

Before comparing win rate or expectancy, identify the unit of observation. If one system counts closing deals and another counts complete positions, their denominators differ. Make that difference explicit rather than treating each partial exit as an independent decision with unrelated risk.

Avoid counting the same money twice

Inspect the trade's final recorded result and the timeline of attached events together. If the trade total already reflects the position's realised outcome, adding money shown in the event history again will inflate your calculation. A timeline explains how an outcome developed; it is not necessarily a second ledger to sum.

For example, writing down two partial-exit results and then adding the final trade total can duplicate those earlier exits. Reconcile against the broker's position and deal identifiers and the journal's aggregation rule. Do not infer the rule from the number of rows visible in an expanded panel.

Respect the final-close boundary

A position can have realised partial proceeds while remaining open. Some completed-trade performance measures exclude it until final closure. That is different from saying that the partial execution never happened. The operational event view and the completed-outcome view answer different questions.

When reporting a mismatch, include the ticket, event times, remaining volume and whether the position is finally closed. Compare the same account and timezone. Preserve the execution sequence in your notes so later analysis can distinguish position management from a data error. A consistent definition across all reviewed trades is more useful than a higher-looking trade count.

Sources and further reading

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