Traders' Best Friend
The Benefits of Keeping a Trading Journal

If you are a FOREX trader and never had your trading journal started, this is our genuine advice - Start it now ! And do not wait !

Trading journal is one of the utmost criteria for a successful trader, of course, it is equally important for the entire beginner trader. But from the start, you will be definitely facing discipline issue as recording down every single trade is not an easy task for every one, especially for a person that is not very well organized for his stuff.

It is important to keep track of your trading progress as well as to document your lessons (be it profit or loss) during your trades.  Thus, having a trade journal is absolutely essential if you intend to trade for a living.  Once you started writing your journal, we believe you will begin to experience more results, it is just a like a journal, to understand yourself better. A trading journal will allow you to understand yourself better and be more aware of your trading pattern and behavior.

Why do we need to have trading journal? The reasons are simple:

1. First, it will give you more time to think before you enter your trade while you still entering data in your trading journal before entering the market. Many times, you realized that your trade is based on emotion more than analysis. Give yourself a valid reason why you enter the trade and what is your exit strategy.

2. Second, it provides reference information when you trace back why did you enter the trade in the first place. Whether the result is making profit or loss, your record is important for you to know what you did right and what you did wrong.

3. Lastly, to calculate the profit/loss in a systematic way, as well as providing a performance chart for yourself to track your profit/loss, as well as your winning/losing trade ratio, etc.

Keeping a trading journal is an invaluable tool for the non-professional investor as it helps you refine your strategies and avoid potential issues.

We've had a few requests for a copy of the spreadsheet that we normally use for our trading journal. It is now uploaded to our server, so feel free to snag a copy if you’re interested. It’s not the most elegant spreadsheet but it does what we need to monitor our trading progress.

Please feel free to add additional fields/columns as you deem fit.

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