MAE, MFE, and the P&L you actually booked
Every trade has a worst moment, a best moment, and an exit. Most journals only keep the third.
Maximum adverse excursion is the worst the trade went against you while it was open. Maximum favourable excursion is the best it went for you. The booked P&L is a third number entirely.
When the three are stored together, a specific and useful conversation becomes possible.
Compare MAE with your planned stop
This is the single highest-value pair in a journal. If the plan said risk ₹3,000 and the worst point of the trade was ₹5,500 against you, then either the stop was skipped or the fill slipped badly. Both are findings you can act on.
Trades whose worst point went past ₹5,000 almost never recovered in this sample. Illustrative journal data, not a live book and not a performance claim.
Be honest about precision on options
Real MAE needs a price path, not two fills. If you are approximating from the day’s high and low, label it as an approximation. A blank field is better than a confident wrong number.
Give-back is a review topic, not a scolding
A trade with a large MFE and a scratch exit is worth reading. "I should have taken 60% of the best move" is hindsight, though — if it becomes a rule, write it on tomorrow’s morning card and measure forward.
- Planned risk in rupees, from the morning card
- MAE and MFE, marked approximate when the path is estimated
- A short note on why the exit happened when it did
Key takeaways
- Store MAE and MFE only when the path is real or clearly labelled as approximate.
- Compare MAE against the planned stop, trade by trade.
- Never rewrite old exits to fit a new rule.
Not advice, not a call. NiyataBook is a personal trading journal, not a SEBI-registered investment adviser or research analyst. Everything above looks backwards at trades that already closed. What happened in a book does not promise what happens next, and F&O can take a year’s savings in a week.