Trading Journal

Excellent post TS. Just to add my 2 cents, I keep a trading log in Excel with contract details to keep up to date with profit/loss, CGT and a useful means of being to able to quickly assess my performance. I then have a private blog on Posterous with which I detail each and every trade I make - entry/exits, reasons for trade, etc. I found this a very effective way of being able to review my trade history to hopefully not make the same mistakes over & over. Good use of tagging makes it very easy to filter through historic posts and it's obviously available to me wherever I have an internet connection. It's a little time consuming but totally worth it IMO.

KR01

Firstly - Remo, may I recommend that this gets reposted in the "Best posts" section of the forum.

What an absolutely outstanding post, and TS, thank you very much for taking the time out to post it. Much more than what I expected or even hoped for a response.

I have said previously, but those books and example you mentioned, I am very much into. Rich Dad, Poor Dad especially had a profound effect on me. 7 Habits of highly effective people is also another one.

This year was mostly about experience for me, I made enough to be able to help my family with a predetermined target, and I lost enough (twice) for it to stick with me for the rest of my life as a grave lesson on what not to do, but also a lesson and in depth view of myself as a trader.

I plan on spending the rest of the year planning and analysing - and then from next year onwards, treating trading as a business rather than a hobby, whilst holding down a full time job. My plans are still to be defined, although I do want to know where I want to be roughly - but roughly is not enough.

This is why I ask the question on the journals - this is a major part of the process for next year. Without one, it would still be a hobby.

So again, thank you very much for the response.

Gareth

Does everyone one here, or most people, use a trading journal?

I haven't used one consistently - but starting from the new year when I get come back off the sideline, thats exactly what I plan on doing.

Does anyone have a good trading journal template they would be willing to share?