Do you know what is a forex trading journal? Do you know the importance of maintaining a forex trading journal? A trading journal is a record or a book which keeps track of all of your successful or unsuccessful trades. It is very important for you to keep track of all your trades, whether you win the trade or lose the trade as you can use this information for future trades as a reference. Lets say entered a trade with some reason in specific trading hours, but you lost the trade. The technique might have worked for you earlier but not in this trading hours. With this trade, you come to know that the technique won’t work in the specific trading hours. If you don’t note it down or keep track of it, in future you may do the same mistake again and you will lose the trade again. A trading journal can be used to refer all the mistakes you did in the past so that you won’t do them again. All successful forex traders maintain a forex trading journal.
So if you want to maintain your own trading journal what are the important things that you have note down. The following are some of the things that you can note when you start writing your own forex trading journal.
Trading Currency Pair: Note down the currency pair you are trading or you have traded for example EURUSD, GBPUSD etc.
Long or Short: In forex terms Long means buying a currency pair and short means selling a currency pair. Record whether you bought the currency pair or sold the currency pair.
Trade Won or Lost: Record whether you won the trade or lost the trade. If you won the trade note down the reason why you won the trade like any technique you used, any economic news you used to enter the trade etc. Also note down the exit strategy you used for coming out of the trade. If you lost the trade then also you have to note down the reasons for losing the trade.
Trading time: Record the day and time you entered the trade. Also record the time zones you entered like asian time zone, london timings, NY timings etc. This is very important as some trades may work only in specific timings and this information, you can use in future.
Entry Price, Exit Price and No. of Pips: Record the entry price and exit price and also the number of pips you lost or won.
No. of lots you traded: Record the number lots you traded.
Any techniques used: Record any techniques or methods you used for your trading.
Screenshots: Screenshots are very important when you are maintaining a trading journal. As all of us know a picture speaks a thousand words. Even if you note down all the above points and if you don’t have a picture, in future, you may not be able to understand your own trade you took. So saving a picture of the trades you are doing is very important.
The above are some of the things that you have to note down if you want to become a successful trader. You may also note down any additional remarks, if you want.
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