At the minimum you should record the majority of your trades date, entry, exit, and profit. With this information you can probably see a trend and see where you can improve or capitalize on.
In trading you always hear the cliche, “Don’t trade in the first 15-30 minutes” well I wanted to see how true that was. To do this all I did was add a time of entry field on my journal to see how well I did in the morning. It turns out most of my big gains come within the first 15-30 minutes.
In another instance I wanted to see if I was wasting my time with low reward/risk trades. I added the R/R field on my journal and since then I no longer take trades below a 2.0 reward/risk.
My fields include:
Date
Underlying
Time In
Enter Shares
Enter Price
Exit Shares
Exit Price
Profit $
Profit %
Reward/Risk
Notes on trade
Chart
Notes on the day
When doing a journal try to do it right at the close while the information is still fresh in your mind. Remember it is important to record anything that could affect your trading. If during the market your emotions changed then that needs to be recorded
Trade journals are the key to self improvement. Don’t use excuses to get out of doing a journal. If trading is what you want to do then take 5-10 minutes out of your day to write something down.
Get started on a journal at the SharePlanner forums where Ryan and Adam both have theirs posted. It is a great way to start the learning process, ask questions, and get help on your trading.
Trading is a tough profession, don’t go at it alone.
