The Trading Journal

Published by Sharekhan Education | July 30, 2022

By Fahim Ansari | Sharekhan Education

The Trading Journal

Introduction

Trading is a complex endeavour; hence, it’s important to keep track of your performance as a trader to improve your chances of success. A good way to do this is by using a trading journal. A trading journal is an easy way to track your profits and losses. It can help you analyse exactly where you’re losing money and find ways to improve upon them over time. It gives them a record of their trades and helps them stay disciplined, which is the number one key to successful trading. In this article, we’ll discuss what makes up a great trading journal, how they work best for traders who want results quickly (or not at all), and some tips on how to best use them once they’ve been created!

How do you use a trading journal?

A trading journal is a tool that can help you improve your trading skills and find patterns. The key is to keep the journal up-to-date, so write in it every day or at least once a week. Write down each trade as soon as possible after placing it—don’t wait for confirmation of success before writing about what happened. The most important thing about this exercise is consistency. For this, one can use a notebook, Excel or another spreadsheet program, or any online tool to track your trading performance.

Why is a trading journal important to your success as a trader?

You’ll learn how your mind works and what makes it tick. This can help get rid of emotional triggers that might cause bad trades or losses in the future. It also means that if something goes wrong during your day (or week), there will be no doubt about whether it was one of those random events that sometimes happen when trading stocks!

It helps you measure your performance. You can use it as a benchmark for determining where you are at in terms of your overall development as a trader and what areas need more attention. A good way to do this is by comparing the results from each month with those from other months, years (or even decades). For example, if you have always been good at reading charts but struggled with recognizing the support and resistance levels, then maybe those skills aren’t being used effectively at this time in your life.

It allows us to reflect on our wins and losses and determine exactly why we got them (or didn’t). If we don’t write down our thoughts at all—or if we do but only in short bursts—we’re missing out on this important step, for us as traders to become more knowledgeable about ourselves as individuals, so that we may better understand why things happen with certain trades rather than just assuming everything is due purely to luck alone.

What should go in your trading journal?

• Date, Time of Entry & Exit
• Type of Trade (Buy or Sell)
• Entry Price, Direction, and Profit/Loss Potential
• Exit prices for each trade
• Position Size
• Reward: Risk
• A commission is charged by the broker/agent
• Gross &Net Profit/Loss calculation

I hope this article has given you a better understanding of what trading journals are and how to use them. As we’ve seen, there is a lot of benefit from keeping track of your performance as a trader. It’s not something that should be ignored, or minimized, but rather should be used as an opportunity for improvement.

This was about the Trading Journal. For a better understanding and learning of other trading concepts, you need to enroll in our courses. Visit our website or attend a Free Workshop to know more about our courses.

By enrolling in this stock market course, a learner can learn the basics and various aspects of trading in Futures and Options.