I believe this is true. I have lots of room for improvement, but there are two things I would particularly like to improve: keeping a journal for EVERY trade, and follow up on my own trading notes.
Lately, I’ve been rushing and instead of creating a journal, I just use my checklist to make sure the trade suits my strategy, then I open a trade. I don’t complete the journal, and I have to play catch-up later. It’s unorganized and makes it difficult to keep track of my trades.
Also, I takes notes for upcoming trades. I even hi-lighted it yellow! And I STILL missed the trade!
Small steps, great distances.
For one week, I want to improve these two simple aspects of my daily routine: keep a journal for every trade, and follow up on my own notes.
One week is just the first step.
Does anyone else have some habits or trading aspects they want to work on? Feel free to share.
Consider this your accountability partner. If you succeed, say so. If you fail, explain why.
Take it one day at a time. Starting Monday April 19, and ending Friday April 23.
Of course not. But, I would have to come to that conclusion first.
And if I did, then I have to add that to my notes. And if for 5 days I find no trades. Then, I have to update my notes for each pair. And I would have to follow up the next day.
Even if there’s nothing available at the moment, I can look for coming set-ups. Those are things I should definitely note down. Trades that could be coming in 2-3 weeks are worth keeping an eye on.
I may not even have the liquidity for the trades I want. I may hold some liquidity to add on to current trades. I still should be scanning charts and taking notes.
It doesn’t mean that I’ll find anything or even open any trades.
First off you definitely need to make routine an important part of your day and week. I underestimated this for too long and had literally the anti routine habit. I paid dearly for it.
However, I would also say don’t go beating yourself up for not sticking to it.
The fact you are not sticking to it can be taken as a signal that maybe the routine is not the right one for you.
Who says you need to journal each day anyway?
Actually don’t answer that, I know everyone does.
But what is most important for trading is having a mental state that is poised and calm - not forcing yourself to do things on some level of consciousness you don’t want to do.
Maybe you can do your journaling at the weekend?
Maybe you can live record the market with some software and review it when you feel you have time?
And what is wrong with a checklist anyway? For me its all about simplifying trading routines not getting to granular about every market nuance.
Maybe your system is too complex which is why you are missing stuff?
Maybe too many pairs or timeframes which is interfering with the journaling?
Don’t take it as gospel that you have to journal to be a good trader. My journaling has always been pretty bad, I think whats important is you have structure in your life - not that you journal.
Almost all kinds of work on all kinds of discipline is positive. If its directly concerned with improving your trading so much the better but honestly, something like a daily exercise regime could be beneficial.
But as far as trading is concerned, you need a plan in order to know what you will do, and you need a journal in order to know what you did. If you don’t know what you did nor why you did it, how can you do it the same way again next time or, better, improve it?
I definitely need to journal each trade. It helps me keep track of everything.
Could there be a faster/better way to journal? Sure. My template is constantly evolving. But, I still need to do it. My journal template has tools in it to make me think the trade thru before opening positions.
It slows down my impulses enough for good judgement to catch up a bit.
Journaling on the weekend is a good idea. But the journal should be started at least, and I should know WHY I entered the trade.
I agree. I’ve had a problem with that. And it has cost me dearly.
I’m actually re-considering my long-term trading strategy. I have a usd/dkk position that I wanted to hold for 1 year. But, I’m watching the drawdown and it doesn’t make sense. I could have closed it, secured those profits, then re-open another position when I see the next trading signal.
In this case, I have to abandon an idea that I had because it’s not making money sense. Why sacrifice a 50% for a principle?
This is a classic case of overestimating your emotional control - a large drawdown likely didn’t seem an issue originally because it was a long term trade - but when it happens you struggle with it.
As far as the usd/dkk long term trade, yes. I still see it. Bullish for the rest of the year. I was just thinking it’s more profitable to close and open a new position.
Assuming you’re long, looks like price is sitting at a support area on the daily chart that it couldn’t break through in March. I don’t want to see you lose any more money, but I would wait and see what it decides to do from here.
I agree. Actually, that support line is a bit old. It’s been holding that support for a while. On the M1 you can see the s/r zones. I’ll try to remember to post a screenshot later.
I’d say the journaling EVERY trade depends on the frequency or the size of your trades AND what you are actually putting in the journal reference them.
If it’s just basic info then myfxbook can do the whole thing for you, infact it’s worth using ASWELL as your journal as you can pull extra data you wouldn’t thing to write down.
If you were doing scalping and closing out tens or hundreds of trades a week it would be pointless taking every little trade, but rather journaling the agregate.
I believe you are not trading many trades per week, so I think you should make a point of writing them down, and unless you have only one set of criteria to get in, you need to write the reasons, the emotions and the expected outcome. Also you need to give yourself a firm positive and negative exit that you will stick to.
This morning, I woke up late and didn’t have as much time as I would have liked.
But, I still accomplished my goal. The first thing I did was check up on my notes. I seperate my notes onto three seperate spreadsheet pages:
Open trades
Watchlist
All pairs (what’s going on with them, anything worth trading)
As far as the morning routine, my first task is to check on my open positions page. I check if I need to adjust any SLs, and I take notes on how the trades are doing. I completed this task.
Second is to follow up on my watchlist. I only had time to check on one trade: EUR/AUD.
I was just about to open a market order, but I checked my checklist. One of the criteria pointed out something that I didn’t initially see.
So, instead I set a straddle order, and time was running short. However, I created a journal entry—screenshot of the chart and order are included. I didn’t have time to fill out every section: price, SL, lot size, etc. But the most important parts were filled out, and I can fill in the rest with the info from my screenshots.