If you’ve watched this channel before and especially if you are one of the Duomonians
on our full online course then you will know for a fact that I am a massive fan of trading
journals.
Some of you are just going to be blankly staring at me after that comment because I know it
sounds kind of boring it’s like I’ve just told you that I collect stamps or something.
Fact is that you can take your trading to whole new levels of kick-ass, awesome success
just by using a trading journal properly.
“Awesome, Wow!”
And you can’t say the same about a stamp collection can you?
So for this video I’m going to assume that you’ve already got a trading journal because
if you haven’t you’d better get the **** awesome!
Also I’ve heard rumours that if you don’t use a trading journal as a trader then Clippy
the little Microsoft Office assistant will climb through your trading charts, through
your screen and he’s going to kill you.
You’ve been warned.
But all jokes aside if you haven’t already started a trading journal make sure that you
go to the link in the description box and sign up for our free Inner Circle mailing
list.
Then spend some time reading the free e-Book ‘How to Trade like a TraderPreneur’ so
you can find out about how and why I use Evernote for my trading journal.
It’s truly magical.
Right let’s get back on track fellow trading journal enthusiasts.
I want you to take a quick look at your journal.
What sort of information is it that you are currently storing in there?
“This…- what did he say?- Is a tiny piece of paper, tiny little thing containing all
of the information” Yeah, that’s right you lazy arses- I am
onto you, because most traders that I speak to are completely underusing their trading
journal they can’t be bothered, they prefer to live by the phrase “less is more”.
“It’s a tiny piece of paper” Well traders let me tell you, less is more
has no place in this area of your trading.
You can save that one as an excuse for your poor bedroom performance instead.
When it comes to your trading journal you need to be meticulous and thorough no excuses
ladies and gents.
Now although there are many possibilities of what you can be recording in your trading
journal I just want to share with you a couple of tips, a few suggestions for you to start
off with and for you to really build upon from there, Okay?
So let’s start off with…
The Mistake that a lot of Traders make Dramatic enough for you?
A lot of traders make the mistake of only using their trading journal to track information
about their entries and exits.
Things like their entry and exit price, the amount of profit and oss they made, the position
size all of that kind of thing.
Now by all means, you should include that sort of information it’s not going to do
any harm and it might be quite helpful in the future but let’s not forget that all
of that information that I just said is already available in your trade history within your
trading terminal.
So basically it is quite pointless admin and yet most of you will find that’s all that
you have been tracking in your trade journal so far.
Instead I want you to start tracking detailed scenarios and for me a scenario is not just
the data of the trade it’s telling me the whole story of the trade as well.
Yes it may take a while but if you just set aside half an hour at the end of your trading
session to record this information and maybe as well set aside a half an hour or an hour
every day or every week to revise and go through the different notes that you have collected
so that you really get inside that information and understand the scenarios.
Now there are three types of scenarios that I want you to start tracking from today as
I said there is many more of them, but if you could just do these three you’re going
to see a massive difference in your performance.
So number one: Opportunities that you have executed as trades.
Number Two: Opportunities that you didn’t execute as trades.
Number Three: Interesting scenarios or situations that you have come across in the markets.
So let’s kick it off with that first point: Opportunities that you have executed as trades.
Now for this one my template would go something like this:
At the top of the page, I am going to have the date and time of the journal entry.
Then I’m going to have the name of the asset that is being traded and the main timeframe
and I’ll also put in brackets the other timeframes that I was monitoring.
Then I’ll put the entry price and time, the exit price and time, the size of the trade
either in contracts or whatever it is that you are trading.
The starting balance, the ending balance after the trade was closed and the profit or loss
of the trade.
Underneath this I will have any relevant screenshots for the entry, so actual screenshots of my
charts which I will also annotate to explain why I entered and why I put my stop loss where
I did and things like that.
Then you need screenshots for the exit as well as what happened after you exited as
well so you can easily see in the future whether this was the best exit plan or not.
Ill then have three sections that I am going to write in, so these are the text sections,
so I am going to put text in these parts.
The Fundamental analysis, the Technical analysis, my Money Management and my mind-set.
In my Fundamental analysis, I’ll give a few sentences if any.
You know sometimes you might not have some, for why I’m trading that market or about
any other events that were going on that I was aware of that might affect the trade.
Next in the Technical analysis, I am going to write about why I entered the trade based
on the chart analysis and whether this fitted my system or not.
Next I will be writing about my Money Management, I will show the calculation of my position
size, how much was at risk?
And how much I was set to earn from the trade?
So what the reward was for that trade and whether that was in line with my system or
not.
And then finally I will write about my mind-set, how was I feeling during the trade?
Was I emotionally neutral with my decisions?
Was there anything that was impacting my decisions from a psychological point of view?
When I came to enter or exit the trade.
Then right down at the bottom of the page I might also include a section right at the
end for any kind of conclusion or any other notes that I think are relevant.
Now as you can see it is quite detailed and it will take some time.
It is probably going to take about five to ten minutes per trade but it’s really important
that you do this as it is going to help you improve so much quicker.
It’s going to help you when it comes to optimising your trading system and it’s
going to keep you disciplined and honest when sticking to your system.
This is really the way to get the very best out of yourself as a trader.
So let’s move on to point number two this is the opportunities that you didn’t execute
as trades.
For this one you basically want to follow the same points that you had for number one
except this time you are going to write it down as if it was a real trade so this time
you’ve got to be really honest with yourself about where you would’ve entered, where
you would have exited and all that kind of stuff and also make it very clear in this
note in the journal entry that it wasn’t a real trade because when you come back to
it in the future you may get confused and think that it was a real trade.
So you want to make sure that these ones are defined as opportunities that you didn’t
execute as a trade in the end.
For this one you also want to add an extra section at the end which explains why you
didn’t take the trade?
Whether it was a correct opportunity and whether you should’ve taken it?
And what you would do differently in the future so it’s really important that you really
describe the reasons why you didn’t execute that trade if it was an opportunity.
And finally let’s come onto point number three which are the interesting scenarios
which you come across in the markets.
This one’s really straightforward guys I want you to be taking screenshots and annotating
the screenshots of different things that happened like when the markets reacted to different
news releases or when market activity changed, different types of markets that you experience,
different candle setups you know different things, different significant levels and how
the market behaved around those.
I want you to build a database of different scenarios that you found interesting that
you feel that you can learn from.
Just make sure that you annotate the actual screenshots so that you know what’s going
on and then have a text section below where I would include things like the Fundamental
analysis if there is any.
The Technical analysis points, the reasons why you find that scenario interesting and
what you would do in the future.
Whether you would take it as a trade?
What you could do to monitor those situations?
And so on, just provide some qualitative data so that you have some information in the future
for when you want to optimise your system, whether you want to try to incorporate something
that is going on there.
Either as a filter to stop having that affect your trades or having it as a filter for taking
trades.
OK guys so those are the three points and I do know that it sounds like a complete pain
in the arse but any company has admin like this, in any company you need to track things
and we need to start behaving like our trading is a business rather than just a random flutter
down at the Casino because that is not going to be consistent for us, whereas running it
like a business that is where you are going to start making some money.
And of course there are apps and there are websites that do some of those jobs for you
that we just discussed.
But I’d rather that you do them manually at least to start with because it is going
to help you to get disciplined, it is going to help you feel more connected with your
trades and connect with the markets in the different activities that you’re tracking
there rather than a website doing it for you and you glancing over it.
I want you to really get into the information so don’t feel like you can cut corners,
I want you doing it all manually.
And guys and if you do become a Trading Journal enthusiast like me then in the future, I promise
you I‘m going to release more videos giving you more hints and tips, guidance about how
your Trading Journal into a Super Journal but first of all I want you to be tracking
those three points that we have said today and then after that I will give you some hints
into turning it into something phenomenal but guys that is all for today.
So if you like the video please leave a thumbs up we really appreciate those and if you’ve
got any comments, questions, suggestions, requests, abusive trolling leave it all below
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that you can be well aware of when new videos come out and they will be coming out very
often.
So guys as always I really appreciate you watching, take care and I will see you in
the next video very soon.
Bye-bye.