What is a trade journal?

What is a trading journal?

A trading journal in trading is a tool that plays a very important role in developing and improving a trader's skills. A trading journal is a detailed record of all the trades that a trader makes. This journal records not only the basic parameters of each trade such as date, time, asset type, entry and exit price and results, reasons for opening the trade, but also additional notes and observations such as current market conditions, personal expectations from the trade, emotional state and others.

Goals of a trading journal

Creating a trading journal is only the first step. The key is to be able to use the information gathered to improve trading performance.

A trading journal allows a trader to analyze their trading decisions and strategies, identifying successful and unsuccessful moves. The main function of a trading journal is to accurately record all aspects of a trader's trading, including adherence to established trading strategies and emotional reactions to the trading process. By analyzing information from the journal, a trader can improve his strategies, avoid repeating mistakes, and improve his strengths.First and foremost, a trading journal serves to document all trades, allowing the trader to conduct a detailed analysis of his trading decisions. This not only helps to determine which strategies work best, but also identifies common mistakes made to avoid them in the future.

Another important purpose of the journal is risk management. By recording position sizes, stop loss levels and take profit levels, a trader can assess how effectively he or she is managing his or her risk and capital.

The trading journal also helps to track a trader's emotional state during trading, which is critical to maintaining discipline and objectivity. In addition, the journal facilitates continuous learning and self-improvement of the trader. The journal makes it easier to identify over-trading and errors in analyzing market conditions. By analyzing their trades, traders can identify areas for improvement and develop plans to optimize them.

Benefits of a trading journal

The main benefit of a trading journal is the ability to determine trading performance objectively and with clear statistics. Every trade should be based on valid reasons that can be systematized. The journal allows the trader to analyze every trade made in detail: the trader can identify which instruments were the most profitable, determine on which timeframes and in which market conditions he trades most and least successfully with the help of statistical data.

Another important benefit is improved risk management. The trading journal helps traders to monitor and evaluate the risks associated with each trade, as well as the overall risk level of the portfolio.
The use of a trading journal helps to develop the trader's professionalism. It becomes not just a tool for recording trades, but a valuable resource for learning, self-analysis and continuous improvement of skills.

Where to keep a trading journal?

The choice of a platform for keeping records depends on what is more convenient for you: as a rule, traders use Notion, Google Sheets, Google Docs, Microsoft Excel or Numbers. In addition, there are specialized services and applications where you can record this data - there are many of them on the Internet, some are paid, some cost nothing.

However, in fact, it is not so important what platform you choose, it is only important to take a responsible approach to filling. As a rule, each trader modifies such a journal for himself, adding what he considers important, but there are some mandatory items for the journal:

• Trading pair;
• Dates of entry and exit from the position;
• Direction of the position (long or short);
• Reasons for entry - setup;
• Entry price;
• Exit Price;
• Position Size;
• Asset Value;
• Stop loss level;
• Risk per trade;
• Take Profit levels;
• Commission amount;
• Deal outcome - profit or loss;
• Percentage of profit or loss;
• Commentary.

You can include additional elements in the trading journal, such as timeframes from which you opened a position, screenshots of charts, emotional state during the trade, other comments that are considered important to you. Adding your commentary to the trades is considered very important in addition to the dry numbers.

Trading Journal Template

For convenience and to save time, we share a trading journal template.

Remember that you can use this template as a basis, adding those points that you consider important for evaluating your performance in the markets. Filling in the trading journal does not require a lot of time, but it is very profitable for your work at a distance, because, having a clear statistics in front of your eyes, a trader can make many conclusions about his trading strategy and work.

Шаблон по ссылке: https://caramel-airplane-514.notion.site/d139fe0b97d94609b95eddcec310efe5?v=6ef1a6187c8b43949f23a2d1ded44667

The importance of a trading journal: CRYPTOLOGY team's opinion

Keeping a trading journal does not require much effort, and with the right approach to its use, its usefulness becomes obvious in a short time. Someone may say that it is enough to look at the history of trades on the exchange, but in fact it does not give you a complete picture and quality statistics. Keeping a journal helps you to track all trading operations in a complete way, analyzing not only the results and the amount of commissions, but also the decisions made, strategies, as well as psychological aspects that accompany the trading process.

A trading journal gives an opportunity to analyze and evaluate one's own actions in the market more deeply. It allows a trader to keep track of successful and unsuccessful strategies, which helps to improve skills. It is not just a way to record trades, but also a tool for self-analysis, helping to understand your strengths and weaknesses in trading.

In addition, a trading journal plays an important role in developing discipline and consistency in the approach to trading, as a disciplined trader knows that after entering a position, he has to fill in all the fields in his journal, and once it is closed, he will be able to analyze the trade. Regularly reviewing the journal table helps to get an overview of a portfolio of trades, to evaluate one's own performance and to plan future transactions.

Using a trading strategy and trading journal is a must and distinguishes a novice trader from a professional. In addition, the trading journal helps the trader to determine what is the best trading time for him, on which timeframes and on which markets he can trade most successfully.