How to Import IG Markets Trades into PipJournal

Switching from scattered IG Markets statements to a structured journal is one of the fastest ways to start seeing patterns in your trading. This guide walks you through exporting your IG Markets trade history and getting it cleanly into PipJournal so your data is ready for analysis — not just archived.

This guide is written for beginner to intermediate traders who have an active IG Markets account and want to start journaling their forex trades with real historical data rather than starting from scratch.

Step 1: Export Your Trade History from IG Markets

Log into your IG Markets account at ig.com and navigate to My IG in the top navigation. From there, go to History and select Transaction History.

Set your date range — IG allows exports of up to 2 years per file. For your first import, start with the last 3-6 months so the data volume is manageable and recent enough to be relevant. Click Download and select CSV format.

The exported file will be named something like transaction-history-DDMMYYYY.csv. Save it somewhere you can find it easily — you’ll upload it in Step 3.

If you trade across multiple IG accounts (e.g., a live account and a demo account), export each separately. Import them as separate journals in PipJournal to keep performance data clean.

Step 2: Prepare the CSV for Import

Open the CSV in a spreadsheet application before importing. IG Markets includes several row types in the export beyond executed trades — look for rows labelled Financing, Dividend, or Transfer and delete them. Leaving these rows in will create phantom entries in your journal that distort P&L calculations.

Check that the columns include: Date, Type, Reference, Market, Period, Profit/Loss, Size, and Currency. These are the fields PipJournal maps during import. If any columns are missing or renamed, note it — you’ll handle that in the next step.

Also confirm the date range covers the trades you want. IG sometimes omits partial-day exports at the boundary — if your last trade on the final day is missing, extend the export range by one day.

Step 3: Import the CSV into PipJournal

In PipJournal, go to Settings → Import Trades → CSV Import. Select IG Markets from the broker dropdown — this loads a pre-configured column mapping that matches IG’s default export format.

Upload your prepared CSV file. PipJournal will display a preview of the first 10 rows with columns mapped automatically. Verify:

• Date column maps to the trade open date
• Market maps to the instrument (e.g., EUR/USD, GBP/USD)
• Profit/Loss maps to the P&L field in your account currency
• Size maps to the lot/unit size field

If IG updated their export format and columns are misaligned, use the manual mapping dropdowns to correct them. Click Confirm Import once the preview looks accurate. A batch of 500 trades typically imports in under 10 seconds.

Step 4: Tag and Categorize Your Trades

Imported trades arrive without strategy labels or session tags — add these now while the import is fresh. In PipJournal, use the Bulk Tag feature to apply labels to groups of trades filtered by date range or instrument.

Useful tags to apply immediately:

• Session: London, New York, Asia — filter by time of day to assign these
• Strategy: your primary setups (e.g., breakout, pullback, range)
• Account type: live or demo, if you imported both

Consistent tagging from the start means your weekly trade reviews will have filterable, comparable data rather than one undifferentiated pool.

Step 5: Verify P&L and Review Your Data

Before running any analytics, cross-check the imported totals against your IG account statement. In PipJournal, go to Analytics → Summary and note the total P&L for the imported period. Compare this number to the net profit/loss shown on your IG statement for the same date range.

A difference of more than 1-2% usually indicates non-trade rows (financing, dividends) made it into the import. If that happens, go to Trades → Filter by Type, identify the anomalous entries, and delete them manually.

Once totals match, your data is ready. Navigate to how to analyze losing trades or run the how to measure your trading edge workflow to start extracting insight from your IG history.

Pro Tips

• Export quarterly rather than annually — smaller files import faster and are easier to audit for anomalies.
• If you trade indices or commodities alongside forex on IG, import everything but use PipJournal’s instrument filter to isolate forex pairs when reviewing session performance.
• IG’s “Market” column uses its own naming convention (e.g., “EUR/USD” vs “EURUSD”) — PipJournal normalizes these automatically, but verify that pair counts match your expectations after import.
• For prop firm traders running IG as a personal account alongside a funded account, keep separate PipJournal journals and compare edge metrics across both to identify if your funded account performance diverges from your personal baseline.
• Schedule a monthly import routine — export the previous month on the first of each new month so your journal never falls more than 30 days behind.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

1. Importing financing rows alongside trades. Financing charges appear as P&L entries and inflate your loss count. Delete rows with Type = “Financing” from the CSV before importing.

2. Exporting too large a date range at once. A 2-year export containing 3,000+ rows is harder to audit. Import in 3-month batches — it takes an extra few minutes but makes verification far more reliable.

3. Skipping column mapping verification. Accepting the auto-mapped preview without checking it takes 30 seconds and can save hours of cleanup if IG changes their export format. Always scroll through the preview.

4. Not tagging trades immediately after import. The longer you wait, the harder it is to remember which trades belonged to which setup. Tag within 24 hours of importing while the trades are still fresh in memory.

5. Treating the imported data as ground truth without reconciling. IG statements are the source of record. If PipJournal’s imported P&L doesn’t match your statement to within 1%, investigate before drawing any conclusions from the analytics.

How PipJournal Helps

PipJournal includes a pre-built IG Markets column mapping that handles IG’s date format (DD/MM/YYYY) and instrument naming conventions automatically — no manual CSV editing required for standard exports. After import, the analytics dashboard breaks down your IG trade history by pair, session, and strategy using the tags you apply, giving you a clear picture of where your edge actually lives. The P&L tracking view lets you cross-reference imported totals against your broker statement in seconds. For traders moving from IG’s basic history view to structured journaling for the first time, tracking your trades in PipJournal turns a static CSV into an actionable performance record.