Is it Important to Keep a Trading Journal?

Not keeping a trading journal? Think again?

Do you have a journal?

For most people, keeping a journal is an essential part of their lives. Everyday experiences, thoughts and emotions are written down in detail. I myself kept a personal journal as a window to express my feelings. Looking back, most of the entries that I have written expressed anger towards the world. Luckily I grew out of it, ha!

In currency trading, having a journal is essential to achieve success. According to babypip’s Black Night, keeping a trading journal will prevent one from doing the same mistakes over and over again. With a journal you can record entry price, exit price, total profit or loss (in pips), timeframe, currency pair, long or short, reasons why these actions were done as well as what you felt while trading. Whether it’s handwritten or encoded on a computer, keeping a journal will improve your currency trading more than anything else. Through it, one’s strengths and weaknesses can be uncovered.

There are several ways to create your trading journal. Some trading journal platforms can be downloaded from the web. Some prefer to put down their notes using a spreadsheet (e.g. Microsoft Excel). Mostly, spreadsheets tend to tell you if you are up or down. Others tend to be creative. Using the printout of charts which helped them determine to take a trade, this is where they write down the items of dire importance.

• Date and time of trade
• Currency pair and direction
• Record which pair you were trading at that time and whether if it is a long or short trade.
• Trade entry and exit price
• Record your trade size and net pips
• Profit and loss in terms of dollars and cents
• Screenshots of the trade
• Additional remarks such as how you felt about the trade

Not having enough time is one of the biggest excuses forex traders say for not having a trading journal. Keeping a trading journal doesn’t have to be done all day long. You can probably work on it throughout the slow times the day. And since you'd be just watching the market, might as well do write down a few notes in that trading journal.

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