How do you record your trades? Here is my Journal

Hey all,

So i am not new to forex exactly, known what it is for years and always known that its gonna be the making of me… Finally I am blessed with the time to pursue it. I have my system in place and have been studying hard. I just thought that I would share my method of how I am recording my trades to see if anyone had any thoughts/suggestions on how to improve it.

I record emotions and technical details from start to finish and once the trade is closed I print of what I have written and charts that I have copied and assemble them in a large A3 pad.


So nothing to exciting to say at this stage but as I say I would welcome any ideas. And also it would be handy to know exactly what technical details people are recording about their trades. i.e risk/reward, pip targets etc

Cheers

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That’s a great way to learn as it provides a visual source of your trades, however a picture is worth a thousand words, and variations of what you may consider “the same set-up” do vary more than you may think.

The next step from this laborious method is to try and quantify your trades, and all the variables which you use to establish these set-ups. Once you have done this (which is not easy if i’m honest) you can start an excel database. This will make analysis much easier and you can start to see numerically which edges you want to exploit and which negative trade variables you want to reduce or drop all together.

For example…


Having a journal is very important in forex trading. It is a very necessary aspect that majority of traders fail to keep. About the methods, you can do it in any form you want, either make and excel sheet (probably the most widely used on) or you can have a physical track record of your trades.

I go with forexcrisp, an excel sheet would let you add screenshots of your trades and save you drawing them, but good journal

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[QUOTE=“eddieb;696071”]I go with forexcrisp, an excel sheet would let you add screenshots of your trades and save you drawing them, but good journal[/QUOTE]

I agree, an excel spreadsheet with a column that hyperlinks to a screen shot of your trade is my preferred option. Then you can quickly sort your data & determine what pairs you have the most success with, what days are your poorest, you’re average win whether pips or money - it all depends on what columns you have on your spreadsheet. You’ve always got the option of printing that too if you like having a physical copy.

A very well done on actually bothering to keep a journal though.

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Thank you all for your comments and suggestions. I am not exactly a newbie to excel but i would really struggle to produce something as advanced as what Jezzode has there!

Baz1982 the hyperlink method seems great! I must admit that this method that I am using takes a serious amount of time. Are there any decent pre formatted journals out there? I have signed up for myFX book too as I thought that it couldnt hurt. Here is the link to mt acc if anyone is interested:

https://www.myfxbook.com/portfolio/thisisit/1222321

Its early days as I only started with this account on Monday, as I said In another thread somewhere I have previously not been worrying about lot sizes etc. I had just been focusing on developing my trading strategy without paying too much interest to the numbers, just trying to perfect 2:1 winning trades.

Thanks again people.

Hey man,

I cannot enlarge this pic to see exactly what technical info it is that you are recording? Would you mind sharing that information with me? Completely understand if you dont wish to as it looks like you have put many hours into developing that beautiful journal!

Wow! That looks really great! Thank for sharing, I want to make my own trading journal now.

I use Podio.com for my trading journal. You have to set up your database yourself, BUT it is FREE too. You can record any info you want and even upload screenshots to it.

Things I record:
Date of Entry
Entry Quantity
Broker
Did I go through my Pre-Trading Checklist this morning?
Trade Category (Scalping, Swing, Day, position trade)?
Long or Short
Currency pair
Entry price
Stop loss
Target price
Used Margin
Entry strategy
Exit date
Exit QTY
Exit price
Time held
Rollover (credit or debit)
Risk amount (in $$)
Risk / Reward ratio
Total # of Pips
Gross P&L
Win / Loss/ Scratch
Source of trade (meaning, did I come up with it or did I get this from some signal service or hear about this trade elsewhere)
Time Frame (Chart: Daily, 4H, 1H, 30M, etc.)
Trade indicator (Trend, Contrarian, etc)
Exit strategy
Errors made in trade
Trade Grade
Why did I enter?
Play by Play
Why did I exit?
What did I learn?
Account equity at end of trade

And maybe a few other things I record. I also upload a screen shot of everything. Even multiple screen shots.

Karma

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Having a trading journal will improve your trading results dramatically. When you go through your journal during weekends, you can pick your weaknesses and remove them from your trading one by one.