Let`s discuss one of the most important topics: journalling trades. Everyone knows that it is very useful for the trader to have a journal and write down all trades to be able to analyse them and find out mistakes. But who actually has a journal and makes records on a regular basis?
What particular information do you write down?
Do you use special tools or just an Excel sheet?
How do you analyse your records?
Please, share your experience related to trading journals
From the my point of view, most of the traders start logging their traders but then suspend it doing it because it takes a lot of time. So, it is important to find an optimal approach to making records
Very important really , I use a spreadsheet and apart from the norm , Trade date Time Market P&L I ask some questions ie did I follow my plan , what was the risk , what was my mood , what was the angle of price compared to a 50MA etc . and finally any notes.
I use these to see if there is any patterns in my personality that may have effect the trade ie was I angry and tried to revenge trade
I log the strategy title (this tells me the TA set-up, entry rules, position size, planned holding period etc.), direction of the trade, win/lose, amount, reason for exit - and thatâs about it.
What I want is to build a statistical picture of the performance of a certain strategy. So full details on the individual trade are not needed - entry price, stop distance, exit price etc. - you seriously cut down your workload if you start planning the questions you want to find answers to before you start planning what information you could collect.
I havent journaled for a few years now. But for the first 3 years I did a lot. You need:
The pair, entry price, lot size, risk, direction, SL %, TP%, risk:reward, exit price, why I took the trade, why I exited, win or loss, setup name.
Then I would analyse the trades at the end of the week in particular what worked, % profitability, risk to reward, drawdown.
Then I would tweak something and analyse that on all the trades eg if my TP was at 1:1, 1:2, 1:3 how would the trades turn out. This way, you can try out multiple strategies at the same time and watch the charts and get an understanding of how the market moves.
I had multiple trade journals on excel for years, my weekends/ evenings were busy with just looking at charts and going over trades. I remember even on holidays abroad just sitting inside going over charts! No one else can understand, you have to persevere with it yourself.
Having a trade journal at the beginning is a must so you can analyse whether what you are doing is profitable. Now I dont journal anything. I know its working because Iâm withdrawing money to pay my bills. I still go over my trades and look over them again over the weekend but I do it informally and dont write anything down.
i am like you, opted in and out of recording my progress. sometimes its betetr just to go with the flow unless you have specific harsh goals but i find with forex having set goals is not always healthy. doesn thelp keep my emotions in check always
Generally I would agree with you. But with me it worked the opposite. I aim for only 1% a week and that is my hard target week in week out. Because of that, i have no urgency to trade on a monday. I am looking for one good trade a week to make my %. It takes the pressure off. Having a target helped me control my emotions and I dont over trade or revenge trade because of that. However Iâm sure people will say different methods will work for different people.
This is a very interesting way to approach it. I think that the âmajorityâ may believe the more info the better this seems to be a better way, almost a âshorthandâ of sorts, to minimize recording and maximize the insight.
I must will myself to begin this type of record keeping.
Thanks for the appreciation. Its a philosophy I took from research tasks for project planning rather than trading.
An approach is to draft a Powerpoint presentation for the conclusions from your journal data. Draft this presentation before you start collecting data - 10 slides max, 3 bullet points max per slide, with 3 conclusions max on the last slide. Conclusions must be soundly based on the data, and you might find halfway through you are disproving one of your draft conclusions - so be it - knowing what doesnât work is also valuable.
Writing a load of waffle into a journal isnât going to come in very useful a few weeks down the line.
But a spreadsheet, where you can fit things into categories that you can view with a glance, can indeed be a useful toolâŚit will take you a bit of time deciding what a useful category is, and isnât.
Also taking time to properly document and log your trades, will force you to more closely analyse what you did.
When you get more âfluentâ with your trade setups, you could probably streamline your logging of trades right down to a screenshot and a few comments.
I think this is sound advice! Itâs like learning to drive; you have to do everything right when learning but once you have the experience you donât keep both hands on the wheel or check your mirrors every 5 seconds!!
Keep updating on trading journal takes a lot of time. I started well but couldnât continue due to the lot of points in details to be writing down on my journal which slow me down.
Tho Iâm working on myself back to and be consistent in updating my trading journal.
I was not good about journaling and I was at 50%. I started journaling again by videoing or screenshotting my trade executions as much as possible and I speech to text for my written entry for every trade I execute. Since I have been doing proper journaling, I have now reached 72%. Ready to try live trading now.
Well, I donât really post it. It is for me to review some of my trades each week so I can see if and what I need to revise or eliminate. Well, I use myfxbook. Does that count as posting? I also started a live account today and am kind of nervous and excited. I will kick the jitters to the curb by morning.
regards Greg