The FX Bootcamp Guide to Strategic and Tactical Forex Trading

CHAPTER 16

Trade Journals

Trade journals are extremely important to new traders. They play an important role in the development and refinement of a trader’s skill. Unfortunately, most traders don’t keep a journal. Even worse, those who do keep a trade journal often don’t use them properly.

There is more to a journal than just trade data. Entering your price in, price out, and profit/loss is not the point of a trade journal. Your trading platform already has that data automatically captured for you. This data is important financial data, but it won’t make you a better trader. See Figure 16.1.

The secret to a trade journal is your mind. Your mind does not know the difference between a thought and reality.

Your mind simply processes electrical-chemical energy. The energy stored in your brain can be from a memory of a past trade. It can also be from visual input from an outward sense, such as chart images seen with your eyes.

The images get converted into electrical-chemical energy—the same as a memory. To your mind, there is very little difference between your last trade and the trade you are in now. They are both just electrical-chemical energy. Both are real.

This can work for you. If you keep and use a trade journal properly, you will gain at least three years of trading experience for every 12 months that you actually trade forex. This means you can quickly become a much better trader than the vast majority of other novice traders and hopefully be on the winning side of ...