A slippage log that takes thirty seconds per trade

[Shadow Trader]

A slippage log does not need a database. A spreadsheet with a few columns is enough, as long as the same fields get filled in every time:

- Requested price at the moment of the click, taken from the chart or the order ticket, not from memory.
- Filled price from the deal history.
- Direction, so slippage can be signed. Negative is against the trade, positive is in its favor.
- Order type: market, limit or stop. They behave differently and mixing them hides patterns.
- Spread at entry, and the time to the second.
- Context tag: news, session open, quiet range, fast candle.

Convert everything to pips or points in the sheet so pairs are comparable. After thirty or forty trades, a couple of things usually show up: average slippage by order type, and average slippage by context. The tag column is where the interesting part lives, because slippage tends to cluster around a handful of moments instead of spreading evenly.

Positive slippage matters as well. Some brokers pass it back and some do not, and a log that records only negative events gives a skewed picture.

The log should also record stop fills separately from entries. A stop that fills three pips beyond its level behaves like a bigger loss than planned, and that never shows up in a plain win-loss count.

Which tags or columns has anyone added to a slippage log that turned out to be more revealing than expected?