Keep a Trading Journal

You can’t expect to get it all right from the start, so keeping a trading journal and reviewing it regularly is important to help you improve. It’s a good idea not to critique your trades too quickly, as you may still have the cloud of emotion, but you shouldn’t wait too long before review if you are to make regular progress.

The following are the items that you should include in your journal –

• What you bought and sold
• What time you did a trade, as some people are better at certain times
• Why you did the trade, what was the thought process?
• How strongly you felt about the trade – were you sure of it?
• What was your profit goal?
• What was your stop loss level?
• How much you made or lost
• How long the trade lasted

Armed with all this information, you can narrow down what types of trades work best for you, whether you are hanging on too long to a losing position, and all sorts of relevant facts which will allow you to get better at trading. Learn to trade is a process, and while you never stop learning keeping a journal will allow you to make continual improvements to your effort.

This entry is filed under course. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.