We've talked in previous blogs about why you should document your trades but now lets talk about what you should be documenting and the best way to do it!
Best Way to Document
Now a days there are a million different ways to document your trades from the good old fashion paper and pencil to super sophisticated electronic journals. None of these options are wrong and each trader should do what works best for them, But in our opinion the best way to journal is on a spread sheet.
Gorilla Futures members have access to our trading journal that based on a spread sheet and automatically tally's your PnL. To access login to your account and go to the members home page.
For those of you who might not yet be a Gorilla Futures member, the best way would be to use an excel spread sheet. Reason being is there are many different categories we need to track to make sure our trading is well documented.
The main reason's we are such fans of the spread sheet is due to a few factors.
Ease of use,
Millions of different options for coding and expansion.
Readily available.
Can be done on your phone/laptop or desktop. No excuse to not fill it out!
We could go on and on as to why we like the spreadsheet but those are the main ones. Now lets talk about what should be in your journal!
Items to Track
In our Gorilla Futures journal we track 19 different items, read that again 19 items! The reason being is, we want to be able to go back and see exactly what we saw when we entered and exited that trade. This way we see the full picture and we know what's not working.
Date/Time
Without knowing when you entered into a trade there is no way of going back and seeing what happened. Not to mention was that trade influenced by a news event or other important release?
Contract
What contract were you trading? Was it the ES or MES etc etc.
Sizing
How many contracts did you buy or sell? Are you trading too large of size for your account? Did you accidently press 10 contracts instead of 1 ? Be sure to document all of this.
W/L
Was the trade a winner or a loser? Be sure to document where you entered, exited and where you wanted to exit.
These are just a few of the items we like to document in our Gorilla Futures trading journal. If you are not yet a member here is a link to our two options to gain access.
As we've said in previous blogs about journaling, trading is like a business and you need to keep track of what's coming in and what's going out. Additionally you need to keep track of what's working and what's not.
If you were/are a store owner you would know what products work the best and which one aren't selling. That way in the future you can double down on what works and skip out on what's not.
In the end all traders need to document there trades, whether it be on paper or in your Gorilla Futures journal.