Online brokerage firm Zerodha has rolled out a new feature on its platform which allows investors to tag their trade “or take a note for taking a trade and track profitability.” The tagging feature has been added to the retail reporting platform of Zerodha, Console.

The brokerage firm launched Console 2.0 earlier this year, a complete rewrite of their entire backoffice and reporting system from scratch. “We… are now excited to announce a new Nudge on Console — portfolio and trade tagging, which can be used as a trading journal and for tracking your investment goals,” the company said in a recent statement.

“Tag the exact reason for taking a trade in the P&L statement or on the holdings/positions page, which can act as your trading journal that will also display your performance,” said Zerodha in a related article published on its website on June 1.

Zerodha co-founder and CEO Nithin Kamath tweeted, “We @zerodhaonline are stoked about the new tagging feature on Console. Tagging your trades and maintaining a trading journal can help you become a better trader and also help you track your investment goals.”

New features on the Console:

Trading journal using tags:

Now investors can manage trading journal using tags. They can make a note of the reasons for taking a particular trade or investment. It could be based on any factor – gut-based, indicator-based, advisor-based, PE-based etc.

One can review these notes every once in a while to figure which ones are generating profits & which losses. You can now do this easily with the “Tags” feature on Console. Tag the exact reason for taking a trade in the P&L statement or on the holdings/positions page, acting as your trading journal that will also display your performance.

• To tag, go to the P&L report on Console.
• Click on the context menu next to any security on the P&L and select view breakdown/tags.
• In the P&L breakdown window, click on create and apply a tag to all trades.
• Enter the tag’s name and add a description of the tag you want to create, and hit save

The tag name has a 15 character restriction as different reports and platforms will use the tags for display purposes in multiple places. You can elaborate on the tag in the description box. You can apply this tag to all the trades for this instrument in the breakdown (different trades that led to the P&L) or separate tags for each breakdown by clicking on edit tags.

As per Zerodha, applied tags can take a few minutes to be applied. Once tagged, you can use the filter by tags in the P&L to view the profitability of your tags. You can also track your best and worst-performing tags on the Tag manager. Note that your tags are tagged to trades. If you search for a P&L period outside the tagged trade dates, you will not see any result.

Goals using tags:

While tags can be used as a trading journal, you can also use them to track investment goals. Like how you can tag P&L, you can do the same with your stock & MF holdings. You can tag your holding to goals like – Retirement, Kids education, Vacation, and more. You can then track these on the holdings page.

To create Goals, visit the holdings page on Console. Click on the context menu next to the desired stock and select view breakdown/tags.

Tagging stock holdings:

Similar to tags in P&L, you can tag either the entire quantity of a particular security to a specific tag or tag the breakdown (buy trades that led to the holding). Once tagged, you can start filtering your portfolio by tags on the holding page to track your goals.

You can tag the entire quantity or tag the breakdown when tagging from your holdings page, which led to your total holdings. You can’t create your own breakdown of the holding and tag them differently, and the actual trade history is always tagged. If you exit your holdings, remember to tag your exit trades from the P&L breakdown as shown earlier. The P&L based on tags will only work where both the entry and exit trades are tagged.

Tag analytics:

This page gives you an overview of your best & worst performing tags and a list of all the tags you’ve created. You can see this screen by clicking on “Tags” under “Portfolio” in the top bar on Console.

Why is maintaining a trading journal important?

Zerodha explained in its blog that while trading markets seems easy, it isn’t. It is actually the toughest way to make easy money. So unless you analyse your weakness and mistakes and try getting better every day, you could potentially lose unlimited amounts of money to the markets. Using tags to start a trading journal can significantly help in your trading and investing journey.