Record keeping when the trade count hits the thousands

[Fairman]

Record keeping when the trade count hits the thousands

A scalper doing fifty trades a day generates over ten thousand trades a year. Tax authorities, accountants, and brokers' statements all handle that volume differently.

Statements often show each trade with its own profit, but rounding at the trade level may differ from the rounding at the account level. The sum of individual trades might differ from the balance change by a few cents or dollars.

Some jurisdictions require trade-by-trade records. Others accept daily summaries. Knowing which applies avoids surprises.

Practical habits include exporting the full history regularly, storing it in an unchanged format, and keeping the raw files separate from any spreadsheets used for analysis. Platforms sometimes limit how far back the history can be downloaded.

Brokers also change statement formats and sometimes delete older data. A personal archive solves both problems.

This is dull work, and it is the kind that causes real stress when a question arrives two years later.

Are the full trade histories saved outside the platform, and in a format that will still open in five years?