It is necessary to analyze your performance regularly - on a weekly and a monthly basis, calculate the number of successful and unsuccessful trades, find out which instrument was the most profitable, what time frames and expiration dates give the best results.īy adding as much information as you can you’ll be able to prepare the significant base for trading analysis module for an in-depth analysis of your past activities and a road map for the upcoming successful trading. You should keep all your remarks of current market conditions, if it goes up or down or resides in indefinite conditions. When you add a new entry to your trading journal it is extremely important to add as much information as you can to identify what was the cause of this mistake if your trade was unprofitable. You always need to have a plan for your upcoming trading activities, both entry and exit rules, your actions in case your trade goes the right way or not, set up an exact number of trades per day or per months, level of reasonable risk you can afford and indicators in use. This will enable you to see whether you're most profitable when you trade on the long or short side, when trade stocks, or futures, etc. When you plan your trading or observe what’s happened during and after the trade, you should attach your own labels, for example verify the source of the trade idea or specify exit method you used, which strategy you used etc. It is vital to track your physical conditions before, during and after the trade, you must notice if you were agitated or calm, anxious or tranquil, find the objectives led to successful and failed past trades and as a result, you will get a detailed picture of your trading process. But if they are written down, you will know for sure what you can learn from that trade and know what to improve next time. When you close your trade and you haven't looked at it for a while, your live emotions of being right or wrong about your trade will no longer exist in case they are not written down. You should check your trader’s diary and recall any time you’re uncertain why did you make these moves and why you stopped at some point of your trading.
When you identify your mistake, it is necessary to write a short review and add screenshots and links to it because it will teach you how to avoid this mistake in the future. In the capital markets, mistakes are always part of the game. If you really have a plan to succeed in the financial market, you must constantly record your achievements and misfortunes and trader’s diary is your first helper and it should become the obligatory instrument for all your actions. It would be useful to start learning how to trade with the help of MaxProfit strategy tester as any intuition comes along with the solid experience and it is preferable to have enough expertise before you put your money at risk. You should start keeping your trader’s diary from the very first days of your trading experiments even before you’ve opened your first account. The retrospective look gives you a clear picture of your past mistakes and understanding what you could have done better - did you follow your trading plan did you have a chance to make a better exit? It is important to remember that you keep trader’s diary for yourself. When you record your every move in the diary you will not only remember your emotions and conditions as time passes but also will you see your progress.
Any professional trader can confirm that. Why does a trader need a diary? If you continue to lose money in the market, you undoubtedly need to take care of keeping a trader’s diary.